Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great concept, but read about the poor execution, June 28, 2009
An exercise in frustration. Recommended mostly for people who do not want to know what their computer is doing, or who do not even take any basic care regarding data security. Great for a family member or a friend who never backs up, but calls you when things go wrong.
The Seagate 500GB Replica drive tries hard to bring the ease of backup that Apple has provided with their Timeport software/hardware combo to the Windows based computers. In other words backup of your computer should be handled pretty much without user intervention until you need help with a crash, or want to recover a file that you accidentally deleted. The Replica promises to do this, for multiple computers, by keeping not only the entire drive backed up (Within limitation of the 500GB total capacity, the files do not appear to be compressed), but also as many different versions of changed files as will fit on the drive. When the drive fills up, the oldest of multiple files are deleted first. Restoring individual files is handled thru integration with Windows Explorer. A right mouse click will now show a Seagate Replica icon, which will allow you to browse the backup drive and selective restore as many versions of the file in questions as were backed up.
Restoring the entire drive entails booting your crashed computer with a supplied recovery disk by using the computer's bios "boot from cd rom function". This disk contains enough software to allow the dead computer to communicate with the Replica Drive and to restore it. Periodically Seagate recommends that you check their website for a new Iso image of the recovery disk.
OK, that's the background and it is supposed to work. Here is my personal experience:
Out of the box you get a shiny dark silver small (about 6x4x3/4") drive with a machined Seagate spiral Logo. It looks very classy. There is only one connector, a mini USB (solo cable and a docking cable are included). Upon plugging the drive in, it is detected as a USB mass storage device. This drive contains about 150mb worth of backup software. At this point you CAN use it as a conventional extyernal drive.
Installing the backup software took only a few minutes, afterwards a box pops up to let you know that "Seagate Replica is protecting your computer" The instructions say that initially this can take up to several hours.
So I left the computer on, with the nice blue ligh on the drive flashing for overnight. I have about 100 gig woth of stuff with photos, music, spreadsheets, and word files.
Next morning I fully expected the 100,000 files to have been fully backed up. But no, apparently the Replica only cataloged my drive. When I cliced on its icon in the tray, that is when it actually started to back up the drive. A few hours later it was down to only 80,000 files left.
Seagate warns you that the computer might get sluggish with the backup drive working and they tell you to turn off any Antivirus software as it may double the backup time. I did this, but web browsing was still slow, and I wound up temporarily right click safe disconnecting the drive.
When in use the Replica runs four processes for over 75mb of memory used. When disconnected this drops to 3 processes and about 20mb ram used. When done with the web I reconnected the Replica, and went away for about 12 hours. When I came back there was still about 10,000 files to go. I came back another couple of hours later and we were down to 800 files. Wow, I actually wanted to see it go to zero, kind of like mesmerized watching of the defrag software doing its stuff.
Well it never got down to zero! It jumped up to 1800! It would do this continuously, get down to about 500-1000, then jump up to about 2000. Apparently enough system files get changed and Replica wants to catch EVERY single change. You have absolutely NO control of how often, or which files to monitor for change.
Consequently if you leave the Replica plugged in all the time, your computer will be constantly running sluggish (your antivirus may be off from previous directions which is bad as well) and the little Replica will be busily clicking and whirring away. Possibly accelerating the hard drive crash that you were trying to protect against in the first place.
This is a major problem. The software needs to allow the user some control, even if it is thru a expert only mode. Until then I will only use it as a conventional backup drive. The software does allow you to reset the drive and delete all of the data if you want to free up the space.
Finally, it does allow you to backup all of the family computers in one place, but you have to install the bloatware software on every machine. If you don't, the new computer can stop the software installation at a "browse only" point. This allows you to see all of the backed up files stored on the Replica so far, and get access to only a couple as needed. I cannot confirm this, as each time when I tried this, I only got to see the file structure briefly, then the host computer would lock up and require rebooting.
The instructions say that if you do back up several computers, files which are common to more than one machine will only be backed up once. That is an advantage, since at least many system files are common, as may be any multimedia.
So to summarize: Replica is large capacity USB powered backup drive for multiple computers. The hardware works well. The software lacks crucial controls to allow user control of how often and which files to backup. My version after an online update is dated 4/10/09 VER 3.0768.5345. Without this control the drive runs constantly. I will not be using the mulicomputer capability untill this software is fixed. The memory footprint is ridiculously large. The browse feature from other computers is buggy. Until the software is fixed I will only use it in the conventional external drive mode. On my dual core XP SP3 computer having the Replica continuously run in the background makes every application feel slow. Fortunately all the problems should be fixable thru a software update, now we just have to wait for it.
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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So easy, my mom could do it!, June 29, 2009
To save some folks time - if you are using anything other than Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, this is not the backup solution you are looking for and you can stop reading now.
My first exposure to the Seagate Replica was when my 75-year-old mom asked me if it was an appropriate backup device for her. When I bought her PC a few years ago, I had it configured with a mirrored hard drive plus Norton Ghost to do regular backups. But she found Ghost too confusing (I agree - I prefer Acronis True Image) and I had bugged her about the importance of doing regular backups in case of disaster or even the accidental deletion of an important file. I had urged her to look for an external hard disk with built-in backup software, and she ran across the Replica and asked me if it would work for her.
At the time, Amazon was not yet selling the Replica so I looked up some reviews and decided that it looked like a good bet for her and bought one for her. A few days later, she sent me an email exclaiming how easy it was to use and she was delighted with it. Well, easy to use is no help unless it really provides protection you can use, so when I was offered the chance to review a Replica for Amazon, I was thrilled.
First Look
The Replica is deceptively simple looking. The basic 250GB unit is a small, lightweight device which is silver on the rounded front and has a rubberized flat bottom - that model just comes with one USB cable and is intended for a single PC. The 500GB model which I tested comes with a dock that the Replica proper slides onto; the dock has its own USB cable with two plugs (more on that in a moment), plus an additional USB cable that is handy for use with other PCs. Also included is a CD that is NOT an install disc but rather an emergency rescue disc, and a small instruction leaflet. (An ISO image of the rescue CD can be downloaded from Seagate's web site should you lose it.)
The dual-plug USB cable may be confusing. The main plug (at the end of the thick cable) is the primary USB connector for power and data. A second USB plug comes off a short, skinnier cable and is embossed with "Power Only" on the bottom. The idea is that some PCs may not provide sufficient power from a single USB jack and the second one plugs into a second jack to get additional power. The only reference to this in the instructions is the tiny diagram showing both plugs connected to a PC. In reality, you may not need both - I didn't on either of the systems I tested it with, but it can't hurt. Amusingly, the separate USB cable included has only one connector, so I wonder what people are supposed to do if they find they need the extra power on an "additional PC".
I tested on two PCs, one a Dell Mini 9 netbook running Windows 7 (not officially supported at this time, but it worked) and an older Pentium 4 desktop running Windows Vista. I did not test whether it works on a 64-bit system - the product description doesn't say, but I did find a mention of 64-bit support on Seagate's web site. I will test this later and update my review.
Hooking it Up
When you plug the Replica into your PC, Windows will discover it. Depending on which Windows version you have and how it is configured, it will either automatically run the setup routine or you'll have to manually start it by double-clicking on the device icon in My Computer (the instructions cover this.) The Replica has a blue LED which flashes while it is "doing something", which seemed to be all the time.
The first thing it does is check to see if there is an updated version of the software on Seagate's web site. In my case there was, so it downloaded it and then restarted the installation. I was delighted to find that it stored the new copy on the Replica so that it would not have to repeat this in the future. A registration screen is displayed which you can skip if you want, and then.. you're done - not even the appearance of a normal setup program. When it's finished, a screen comes up saying that you are now protected - this screen has a link to the manual (help), which I recommend you read as it provides lots of useful information.
Getting to Work
When the Replica is connected, there is a taskbar tray icon which shows the current status. If you hover your mouse over the icon, a small window pops up telling you what the Replica is doing now and the date of the last "restore point" if any. Right clicking on this icon provides additional options, such as setting a password, getting help, and "safely removing" the Replica.
A shortcut labeled "Seagate Replica" is installed onto your desktop. If you open this, the Replica "opens" and you see the names of the PC(s) you are protecting. Opening these will let you see the folders and files that are backed up. If you open one of the files, you will see one or more dates showing the version(s) backed up. This lets you easily retrieve a previous version of a file, even if you had deleted it.
On your PC, if you hover the mouse over a file, a box will appear showing the date of last backup and how many versions are saved. In my experience, this box took some time to appear after the individual file was backed up, so patience is a virtue. Assuming you leave the Replica connected all the time, it will be there when you need it.
Making Friends
If you then connect the Replica to another PC, you'll be given the option to either protect this PC too (installs the software) or to get access to the saved files on the Replica. This latter choice doesn't require any installation and is a great way of copying files to another PC.
Unlike many of the backup solutions I have seen (True Image excepted), the Replica intelligently manages its disk space so that it is "never full". As the disk fills up, it automatically drops the oldest saved versions of files so that you always have at least the current files protected. No configuration of this is needed.
By default, the Replica backs up all partitions and disks on your PC that have the NTFS file system. This point is NOT called out in the product description. Most users are unaware of what file system they are using. Older PCs that were upgraded to XP might have one or more FAT32 file system partitions, and Replica will not back these up. The manual says that it will back them up "during initialization", whatever that means, but my testing showed that not to be the case. If you want to know what file system your partition uses, open My Computer, right click on a partition name (say, C) and select Properties. On the General tab, look for "File System" and you want it to say NTFS. The Replica software will NOT warn you that a partition is unsuitable so make sure you check yourself. What you can do, after install, is right click on the Replica tray icon and choose the option to set which disks are protected. (Yes, you can do that!) If there is no checkmark by the disk name, then it is not protected.
Uh-Oh!
Ok, so now we're backing up the PC - what happens when disaster strikes? Remember that CD I told you about? Here's where you use it. You want to get your PC to boot from the CD. There is an instruction leaflet in with the CD with an overview - in some cases you may need to press a special key at the initial PC boot screen to get to a place where you can tell the PC to boot from the CD. Assuming you manage this, the CD boots into a Linux-based application which leads you through the process. After asking you to make sure this is what you want, it has you select the name of the PC you want restored (assuming there's more than one) and then which disk it should restore to. Here's where I ran into my first problem.
The PC I tested restore on had three hard disks, two of which were the same size and same brand and model of disk. The Replica shows you only the size, brand and model number - not other information that might be helpful such as the names of any partitions that may be on the disks. So if you have more than one hard drive, you may need to very carefully look at your PC's BIOS setup screens to see which one is first, second, etc. Most people won't have this problem, I'll admit. If you're really paranoid, you may want to disconnect disks you don't want restored, if any. The disk I had backed up had only one partition - I don't know what would happen if there were multiple partitions, especially if not all were backed up.
Oh, there was a second, minor issue. Before I shut down the PC to test the restore, I checked to make sure it had completed saving the "restore point" and it said it had that morning. But when I went to do the restore, it found only the restore point from the previous night. It seems that it takes a while for it to record what it did, so you might miss some recently created or changed files when restoring a backup. Again, this is only for the "disaster" scenario where your disk is damaged or corrupted, and you'd probably be happy to lose only a few hours of work in that case.
Once everything was selected, the restore was done. This took an hour or more, not unreasonable. When it was finished, you clicked an on-screen button and the system reboots. I found that it had done the restore perfectly (albeit, as I mentioned, missing some late changes.)
Summary
I highly recommend the Seagate Replica. It truly is simple to use and provides worthwhile and accessible protection for not only individual files, but the whole system image. I do strongly suggest that you read through the...
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Would Be Great If It Worked As Advertised!, June 24, 2009
Honestly, when I got this I was stumped for a few moments because I kept saying, "It can't be that easy. Is this for Windows?"
But yes. Just as advertised, you unpack the Replica, plug in the USB cable, and then just click a prompt on screen. Boom. You're backing up your hard drive; Your WHOLE hard drive.
Now, that's only one half of the equation, and I will have to plead the fifth on the other half-- Restoration. While I'd simply loooooove to give you a more complete review by crashing my system and restoring from the Seagate Replica, I just can't work it out. So I guess the second half of this review will have to come when disaster strikes and I need to restore from the Replica. At this point, what I *can* tell you is that it does seem to be doing its job, requires little to no input from the user, and just quietly goes about its business continually backing up your hard drive(s).
No active software installation is required on the user's part, although you do get a little system tray icon that lets you check the drive's status and progress, and assign which drives you want backed up.
The Multi-PC version has a nifty (and sturdy) dock that comes with a nice dual-USB cable for those of you who have weaker USB ports. The drive requires no AC adapter, getting all its power from your computer's USB port. That's very handy, indeed, as I was running out of outlets!
This is kind of a hard device to review because, really, it just quietly backs up your computer, and only becomes truly interactive when you need to restore... And I haven't needed to do that, yet.
(Be patient. It's Windows. It will happen!)
What I do find curious is that, while you don't need to install anything to start the backup process, you DO need a special disc (included) to actually restore the backup. Don't lose it! I put mine in my Windows Vista box, and should disaster strike, I'll have it at hand.
If you're looking for a simple, no-brain-required backup device, this is it. You really just plug it in the computer and leave it there. That's pretty much all there is to it, and that's all you can do with it. No drag-and-drop, no adding your own files. You can restore individual files, but you can't put individual files onto it; Only whole backups. In a way, this works a lot like Apple's TIME MACHINE application, constantly updating your backup, and serving as "just in case" device.
As a laptop user, I find this to be the best backup solution for me. When I get home, I connect to my USB hub, and the Replica gets back to work backup up my stuff. I continue working in the foreground, and notice nothing happening... Which is how it should be.
Do not get this thinking it's just an external hard drive; It's not designed that way. While it IS an external hard drive, it's the integrated software that makes it work well.
Just remember that when it comes to backups, this is an All or Nothing device. Everything on the hard drive(s) selected gets backed up. You can't omit files, you can't tell it to ignore any folders. It backs up everything or nothing at all.
Simple, in this case, is good.
UPDATE:
I still haven't needed to restore, but I did notice one peculiar thing about the Replica. It mounts and unmounts itself continually, rather quickly, causing your list of installed devices within Windows to "flash" or "blink" -- It's there, then it's not, then it's there again. It interferes sometimes, such as in Windows Vista network settings, where Windows is convinced you're inserting and removing a USB flash drive, and won't let you enter data until you disconnect the Replica.
I'm not sure this is normal behavior, but this issue can be a pain. I'll go to click my D: drive icon, and it will be moved by the Replica popping back into existence, only to disappear again a moment later, thus moving the icons around again. I have also noticed some performance hits from this behavior.
I'm hoping Seagate can address this and make the Replica work without this connect/disconnect behavior.
I still also wish the thing would give the option of turning off the blinking LED light... It's annoying at night.
UPDATE:
After attempting to uninstall and reinstall the Replica software, I ran into several errors. I therefore am not using the Replica software, as tech support and info for the Replica seems to be very limited. Instead, I'm using it as a standard 500GB backup drive until I switch to Windows 7. At that point, I'll try to use the Replica software and see if the "mount/unmout" problem, and the installation problems are settled.
So knock one and a half stars off the review, as "ease of use" should include uninstall/reinstall actions within Windows Vista, and instead, doing so leads to an inability to get the Replica software working again... But it's still a nice, stylish hard drive.
UPDATE 10/09:
Well, Windows 7 retail release came and went, and I tried using the Replica software with my PC again. I wish I could say it's working great, but unfortunately, there are still problems. This time, it backed up the main drive just fine, and then started on the nearly-empty secondary drive in my system only to halt and declare itself stopped because it was full. The problem with this is that it wasn't full, as Explorer showed about 60GB unused on the Replica. Checking the Replica "Remove a drive" menu showed me that-- for some reason-- It wanted 465GB of backup space dedicated to the secondary hard drive which only has 4GB of data on it. From the way it looks, it's not basing the backup space requirement on the actual data present on the drive, but on the size of the drive itself.
Worse, when I tried to remove the drive from the list of backup targets, it wouldn't let me. The option to remove any drive was greyed-out because, I presume, the Replica refused to work since it was "full". Nothing I tried would allow me to reclaim that space, and the Replica refused to do anything more.
Not wishing to leave myself at the mercy of such obviously buggy software, I'm discontinuing use of the Replica software and will return to simply using it as a plain external hard drive again. In that, at least, it's decent. I'm sorely disappointed by Seagate's Replica software, though. It does NOT work like the Apple Time Machine at all; It's finicky, stubborn, very limited in customization, and offers little in the way of fixes when something goes wrong. There's also no way to know if your backup is usable until you actually need to restore a whole hard drive, and I'm just not willing to risk my data on software like that. Windows Backup is more reliable.
There's a lot of wasted potential here, as evidenced by the reviews on Amazon and the Seagate forums. Great idea, but absolutely lousy application. I have therefore dropped my review from five stars to three stars, and those three are only granted because it IS a nice hard drive with a decent vertical mounting base. As a software backup solution, it fails every test I am willing to give it. I only hope Seagate pay more attention to user comments in their forums in the future, because the potential is still here.
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