Seagate Innov8 8TB Bus-Powered External Hard Drive Review

Miscellaneous Aspects and Concluding Remarks

Prior to proceeding to the business end of the review, it is time to take a look at some of the bundled features of the Seagate Innov8. The drive comes with an installer for Seagate Dashboard - an optional management application. The installer can also process the online registration for the unit. The Dashboard program allows users to configure backups, process them, and also restore data from the backups. Select cloud services (Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive) are also available as backup targets.

The Dashboard can also be used to configure the Innov8 - processing drive tests, controlling the LEDs, configuring drive spin-down intervals etc.

The Seagate Innov8 includes 200GB of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage for two years and Lyve software compatibility for multimedia management and access from any device or location. Seagate's MSRP for the Innov8 is $349. However, we currently see the unit back-ordered at most e-tailers, with availability slated for the first week of June. The pre-order price is also higher than the MSRP mentioned in Seagate's launch PR, with the current Amazon street price being $390.

The combination of power from the in-built battery and the bus power from most Type-C ports should make the Seagate Innov8 compatible with most modern platforms. Ignition Boost seems to be a clever way to tackle the start-up power requirements of hard drives in bus-powered enclosures. However, the longevity of the battery is a bit of a concern, and Seagate provides no concrete numbers except for the 2-year warranty. Another concern is that some Type-C ports actually do not follow the full Type-C specifications - so, if they mistakenly advertise 7.5W, but only support the default power profile (4.5W), it is a hit-or-miss situation when it comes to being able to use the Innov8 with that port. [ Update (Comments from Seagate): Ignition Boost only uses 1% of the battery each time to spin up the drive, and is not used once the drive is actually operating. This should give a much longer lifetime to the internal battery, compared to other mobile devices embedding a battery that we use on a daily basis, like laptop or mobile phones. Also, given that Type-C Power Delivery specifications have the potential to offer up to 100W, we can imagine that in the Future, Innov8 will be less dependent on the battery for spinning up. ]

We are not big fans of shingled magnetic recording (SMR), the technology used in the Archive HDD. The performance is not very predictable, and there is noticeable degradation - particularly for large amounts of data within a small time window, and, for data that is read back within a short time after writing. Despite these limitations, I do agree with Seagate that there are use-cases where this is not a concern at all. For example, continuous back-up of data that only changes by small amounts at a time, and storage of data for archival purposes are not affected. In any case, the firmware on the Archive HDD present in the Innov8 is much more suited for consumer use-cases when compared to what shipped with the original Archvie HDDs last year. As long as SMR can deliver a significant bump in capacity while keeping costs low, I think the technology is worth pursuing.

On the whole, the Seagate Innov8 is a very interesting product from an engineering perspective. We would have liked this to be a modular product with user-replaceable hard drives and batteries. Given that helium drives are also making its way into the consumer market and have excellent power profiles, we are quite sure that SMR-based Archive HDDs are not going to be the only option for this class of products. The Seagate Innov8 does minimize cable clutter in a desktop environment, and many consumers might appreciate that. The industrial design also seems to target the typical LaCie market. We believe that the Innov8 should be marketed under the LaCie brand.

The Seagate Backup Plus 8TB (based on the same HDD, and with the same 200GB OneDrive cloud storage offer) currently sells for $230, while the Innov8 is around $390 on Amazon right now. The WD 8TB My Book external hard drive is priced at $250 and comes with a helium drive that provides more predictable performance, though it doesn't have any cloud storage offers associated with it. Is the significant price premium (more than $150) for the Innov8 worth it for the reduction in cable clutter, a battery inside the unit, aluminum chassis and a more pleasing industrial design? That is for the consumer to decide.