The 500GB Seagate Seven ($99.99) is a portable hard drive that boasts an ultra-slim design, with a look that balances minimalist style and geek chic. The steel-clad drive may be basic in many respects—it’s an external hard drive with a USB 3.0 connection and a decent 500GB capacity—but it packs itself into the slimmest chassis we’ve seen this side of a solid-state drive (SSD), making it worth considering for anyone who values design and portability.

Design and Features
Hence the name, the Seven has a 7-millimeter-thick stainless steel case, protecting a 5-millimeter-thick hard drive mechanism. Sure, Seagate could have put in an SSD, but a hard drive mechanism keeps the price down to more modest levels. For example, the 9-mm-thick Monster Digital Overdrive mini (512GB)( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) has about the same capacity, but is a lot more expensive.

The silver-colored metal case is molded to look like the outer casing of an internal hard drive. It measures 0.28 by 3.25 by 4.8 inches (HWD) and weighs a scant 6.4 ounces. The Adata DashDrive Elite HE720 (500GB)($3,153.25 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) also calls itself the world’s thinnest external hard drive, but it looks blocky and almost chunky compared with the Seven.

Similar Products

3.5

Good

G-Technology G-Drive Mobile USB 3.0 (1TB)

$199.99

See It

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our G-Technology G-Drive Mobile USB 3.0 (1TB) Review

4.0

Excellent

Seagate Backup Plus Slim (2TB)

$179.02

Check Stock

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our Seagate Backup Plus Slim (2TB) Review

4.0

Excellent

Seagate Backup Plus Fast

$350.00

See It

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our Seagate Backup Plus Fast Review

3.0

Average

Adata DashDrive Elite HE720 (500GB)

$3,153.25

Check Stock

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our Adata DashDrive Elite HE720 (500GB) Review

3.0

Average

Monster Digital Overdrive mini (512GB)

 

Check Stock

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our Monster Digital Overdrive mini (512GB) Review

Inside, you’ll find a 500GB drive, formatted for exFAT, so it works equally well with Macs or Windows PCs. That’s enough storage for at least 100 full-length movies, or several thousand music or photo files. 500GB is a good size, since it will completely back up just about any SSD-equipped laptop being sold right now. The Seven has a standard USB-to-micro USB-B cable that connects to a micro USB-B jack on the side of the chassis. The drive comes with Seagate Dashboard, a utility that backs up your data, and lets you share pictures and videos to, and save pictures and video from, social media. It also comes with a three-year warranty, which is significantly better than the one year you get on non-premium drives.

Performance
The Seven’s speed is adequate, but not very fast. The PCMark7 and PCMark 05’s disk tests failed to run on the drive, and it took a leisurely 28 seconds to copy our test folder over USB 3.0. To put that into perspective, the Seagate Backup Plus Fast($350.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), our current Editors’ Choice for portable drives, took 13 seconds on the same task, the Seagate Backup Plus Slim (2TB)($179.02 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) took 15 seconds, and the G-Technology G-Drive Mobile USB 3.0 (1TB)($199.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) took 10. The Monster Digital Overdrive mini took a scant 8 seconds.

We also hooked the Seven up to a MacBook Pro via the USB 3.0 cable and ran the Black Magic Disk test, where it transferred the test data with a throughput of 101.2MBps read and 102.3MBps write. That’s less than half the performance of the Seagate Backup Plus Fast (228.6MBps read; 229.4MBps write), and still a bit slower than the G-Drive Mobile (123MBps read; 122MBps write).

Essentially, you’re buying the Seagate Seven for its looks, and for some users, it will be worth the premium. It’s sturdy enough to survive being taken along on your daily commute, and is spacious enough for daily backup use. If you favor svelte laptops like the Apple MacBook Air 11-inch($295.00 at eBay)(Opens in a new window) or the HP EliteBook Folio 1020($1,249.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), then the Seagate Seven could be the external drive you’re looking for, since it adds little weight to your bag. The Seagate Backup Plus Fast remains our Editors’ Choice portable hard drive, since it has eight times the capacity, is faster, and is still a much better buy per gigabyte.