Seagate has released a new edition to its portable Backup Plus line, this time with the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch. The drive leverages USB 3.0 but comes with a handy adaptor so it can be used with USB-C as well. The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch comes in both black and white and in either 1TB or 2TB capacities.
Seagate has released a new edition to its portable Backup Plus line, this time with the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch. The drive leverages USB 3.0 but comes with a handy adaptor so it can be used with USB-C as well. The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch comes in both black and white and in either 1TB or 2TB capacities.
Something a bit different here is that the drive has a woven fabric enclosure wrap. This doesn’t really add anything to the drive other than giving users something other than the same old plastic or metal casing. The drive is aimed at those looking to use an easy and portable backup solution and has password protection and 256-AES hardware encryption. The drive is compatible with both Windows and MAC and offers backup options including syncing files across multiple devices.
The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch comes with a 2-year limited warranty. For this review we’ll be looking at the 2TB, black model.
Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch Specifications
| Capacity | 1TB, 2TB |
| Interface | USB 3.0 (USB-C compatible) |
| Dimensions (LxWxD) | 14.8 x 78 x 11.7mm |
| Weight | 0.151kg |
| Warranty | 2-year limited |
Design and Build
The woven fabric is a nice touch. At this point we has seen almost every variation of plastic and metal and no matter how the branding is laid out, it does get repetitive. The top of the drive has the woven fabric running down over one side. Seagate branding and an indicator light is near the top.
Flipping the drive over there is pertinent information such as regulatory compliances, part number, and capacity.
Performance
To test the performance of the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch we used the BlackMagic disk speed test on a current generation MacBook Air as well as a Lenovo ThinkStation 920 for Windows testing. We will be comparing the recently reviewed LaCie Mobile Drive 2TB.
In BlackMagic, the Seagate drive gave us 123.3MB/s read and 122MB/s write compared to the LaCie’s 135.7MB/s read and 118.5MB/s write.
In our 2MB sequential test in Windows, the Seagate had sequential reads of 41.9MB/s and write of 28.1MB/s compared to the LaCie’s 134MB/s read and 41.9MB/s write. With 2MB random we saw 41.6 IOPS read and 17.7 IOPS write for the LaCie and the Seagate had 17.4 IOPS read and 14 IOPS write.
For our 4K test the Seagate gave us 114 IOPS read and 47.4 IOPS write and the LaCie had 117.6 IOPS read and 49.1 IOPS write.
Conclusion
The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch is the latest in the popular Backup Plus line. This new drive is redesigned with a woven fabric pattern, offering a stylish take on portable drive designs. The drive comes in black or white and capacities of 1TB or 2TB. The drive does leverage USB 3.0 interface but has an adapter for USB-C ports. From a security perspective the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch has password protection and 256-AES hardware encryption.
There were no real surprises with the performance. In BlackMagic, the Seagate drive gave us 123.3MB/s read and 122MB/s write. For 2MB sequential we saw reads of 41.9MB/s and write of 28.1MB/s. With random the Seagate had 17.4 IOPS read and 14 IOPS write for 2MB and 114 IOPS read and 47.4 IOPS write in 4K.
The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch offers a fair amount of storage with enough performance for the general user. It’s also nice to see a portable drive that has a different design and stands out in a field of several competitors.
Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch at Amazon
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