Seagate Innov8 8TB Bus-Powered External Hard Drive Review
by Ganesh T S on May 19, 2016 8:30 AM ESTMiscellaneous 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.
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hlmcompany - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
If the lipo does fail at some point, then you RMA the product. If it is out of warranty, then like with any other HDD product, you really have no option. Although, a failed lipo for this device does not necessarily mean you cannot access your data.Gunbuster - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
Why not have this use a standard cell like 8650 or CR123A? It would not have been that hard to give it a user accessible battery compartment.DanNeely - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
Probably the same reason most phones don't come with replaceable batteries anymore. By the time the battery is dead the remaining hardware would be obsolete. That said, I'd be surprised if someone (probably the night shift of the factory where the OEM batteries are made) doesn't start selling gray market replacements on ebay/etc within a few months.adityarjun - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
This is an 8TB archive hdd. I would expect it to last for 8-10 years atleast. I have had my current 2TB hdd for 5 years now.This just won't hold up well over time. Once the 2 year warranty expires, anyone who bought this product is going to regret it imho. It really needed to be more modular.
shelbystripes - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
This is one of the things that frustrates me about USB in general.To me, this drive is ideal for offsite backup. It has much higher capacity than any other bus-powered drive, and bus-powered drives are ideal because you don't have to worry about keeping track of proprietary AC adapters.
But the wide range of USB power delivery options means we'll keep having devices like this, where it's not clear if I can even use it. The fact that the reviewer got it to work on USB 2.0 ports on one motherboard is great. Some USB ports can deliver well above the minimum spec. But there are USB 3.0 ports that only support the 900mA base spec, and I'm guessing they won't power this thing. And the real problem is, there's no way to tell!
You can't just look at the specs either. My ideal use case is to make offsite backups of my Synology NAS. One 8TB drive would be enough to backup all my critical data, and I could stop using multiple 2.5" drives. But I just spent the last 15 minutes looking through Synology's documentation and they don't publish the power output of their USB ports anywhere. Not online, not in the user manuals, nothing. That doesn't mean the ports can only output 900mA, though, it just means they won't tell me (they tend not to publish the finer details on their SOHO/SMB devices).
The USB power delivery spec is a mess. Even if my devices had a Type-C port, that still wouldn't tell me anything. The minimum requirement for Type-C is still 900mA, the 1.5A mode is optional. You can implement USB 3.0 ("USB 3.1 Gen 1") over Type-C, still only deliver 900mA, and claim USB spec compliance.
Type-C should have come with a 1.5A power delivery requirement. And even then there will be variation on how much more power a device can deliver. USB is getting a lot less universal.
cygnus1 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
I very much agree. I remember with the hype of Type C and USB PD the goal was something like 100W delivered from a Type C host port... I'm guessing the high wattage PD isn't coming anytime soon if these are the kinds of products coming out...hlmcompany - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
The spec is there, the technology is there, the implementation lacks because manufactures want to be backward compatible. I wish they would begin to move on and drop the backward compatibility. For a time they could offer two types of products. Although, with the USB connector integrated with the drive's PCBA, they would need to manufacture two different HDD's.CrimsonFury - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
The 100w power delivery is for power bricks (to standardize USB C for laptop power bricks). It was never intended to provide 100w from a usb port on the PChlmcompany - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link
The intention of PDP over USB Type-C is left up to the design/manufacturing teams using it. The USB-IF spec'ed out for a PDP of 100 watts can be implemented in many ways, including from a PC. The USB-IF even outline the use scenario of USB outlets in public places and on transport. Yet, they also illustrate the PD Rule charging a laptop from a USB hub in a monitor.Notmyusualid - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link
There is not nearly enough PoE enabled devices in this world for my liking.I was hoping that with all these ultra books around, that the 25W available in just about every commercial office around the globe, could negate the need for business users to carry their adapters to work etc. You know, trickle charging / supporting battery power.
But I'm hopeful the penny will drop one day.