INTRODUCTION

   No matter how many portable hard drives I’ve used to date I’ve yet to find one which i can carry easily inside my rear pocket and without worrying about breaking it. There have been some exceptions to that in the past like a 1.8" drive manufactured by Plextor which i had the chance to review roughly 6 years ago and the brand new T1 portable SSD by Samsung (review coming soon) but unfortunately although i have to admit that both solutions look very nice they simply can't compete with regular 2.5" models, at least not in terms of capacity and enclosure durability. Seagate has been around for almost 4 decades now so I’ve always hoped that they'd step forward to create something unique in this segment of the market and with the recent release of the Seagate Seven (STDZ500400) steel external USB 3.0 drive i think that my quest for the ideal portable hard drive for use on the go is finally over (or almost over).

   Founded in 1979, Seagate is the leading provider of hard drives and storage solutions. From the videos, music and documents we share with friends and family on social networks, to servers that form the backbone of enterprise data centers and cloud-based computing, to desktop and notebook computers that fuel our personal productivity, Seagate products help more people store, share and protect their valuable digital content. Seagate offers the industry’s broadest portfolio of hard disk drives, solid-state drives and solid-state hybrid drives. In addition, the company offers an extensive line of retail storage products for consumers and small businesses, along with data-recovery services for any brand of hard drive and digital media type. Seagate employs more than 50,000 people around the world.

   As clearly stated by its name the Seagate Seven portable hard drive is just 7mm thick so amazingly as it may sound to some of you (or most) it's actually as thick as an 2.5" internal HDD/SSD. To accomplish that Seagate had to use one of their latest and most advanced SATA III drives and more specifically the 2.5" Laptop Ultrathin model (ST500LT032) which measures slightly over 5mm in thickness, can spin up to 5400RPM, has 16MB cache buffer, supports NCQ, has very low power requirements (less than 2W) and is virtually inaudible thanks to its Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motor. Granted we don't expect to be blown away by the performance of a 5400RPM drive but performance is not the only thing when looking to get a portable model so let's move forward and see what the new Seven model by Seagate is all about.