Seagate 750GB Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive

The Seagate 750GB Pushbutton Backup drive is a value-added retail product that builds upon the performance and capacity of Seagate's trailblazing 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive.

If you are a hardware enthusiast, you might be tempted to brush it off as nothing more than a nicely packaged amalgam of the already ubiquitous USB external hard drive enclosure and a backup software. However, the Pushbutton Backup isn't targeted at hardware enthusiasts.

It is designed as a complete backup solution that allows anyone, even those with minimal computer knowledge, to start backing up your data right out of the box. As such, it is really targeted at those who don't know how to create their own USB backup hard drives.

Although the unit is sealed and therefore does not allow you to swap the internal hard drive, the design does have its benefits. You can stack multiple Pushbutton Backup drives together, and the unit has a power button that doubles as physical backup button. Even though a power button may seem like an obvious feature in any external drive, many USB enclosures still don't come with a button in the front! Fortunately, the Seagate Pushbutton Backup does.

Performance-wise, the 750GB Pushbutton Backup had faster read and burst speeds than the VIZO Luxon USB enclosure which we paired with the 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive. However, the Pushbutton Backup drive was about 9% slower than the Luxon enclosure in the High-End Disk WinMark 99 test. Other than that, both drives had about the same performance characteristics.

Since the Pushbutton Backup drive is using the same 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive or a similar model to the one used with the VIZO Luxon enclosure, any performance difference is due to the SATA-USB controller used. It's good to see that the Pushbutton Backup's controller is no performance slouch.

However, those who buy the Pushbutton Backup will not be buying it merely based on its performance. Its large capacity will be a major sell factor, offering more capacity than competing backup solutions. Those who require a lot of backup capacity will certainly be interested in this drive.

Potential buyers will also be interested in its ease of use and reliability. While we can attest to its ease of use (it literally works out of the box!), we find the 1-year limited warranty quite peculiar since the Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive itself comes with a 5-year warranty. Seagate should really give the Pushbutton Backup drive an equivalent warranty.

In conclusion, the Seagate 750GB Pushbutton Backup is really not for everyone. If you are a hardware enthusiast, it would be better and cheaper to buy a Seagate 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive and install it into an external USB hard drive enclosure. You will even have full 5-years of warranty on the hard drive.

But if you are not comfortable building your own external USB hard drive, the Seagate Pushbutton Backup drive is the backup solution you will want to look at, especially if you need a lot of storage capacity. It works out of the box, and and comes with all the accessories and software you need to quickly and easily back up your data.

For more details, read our Comprehensive Review!