Can you use third party back up software ? Can you eliminate the seagate dashboard software ?
2007110
Yes you can use any backup software that you want, you donot need to use the Seagate software. I use Acronis Backup software, works great
2007111
I formatted the drive and let Dell backup software run things. No dashboard.
2007112
Yes you can and in reality you will want to use something other than Dashboard, which is a very weak program and will not give you a system image if using win 7 or below. If you have WIN 8 you will be able to use the back up software utility in Win 8 and still get the system image. This is a 4 k sector drive.
2007113
This backup drive does not work. The software supplied with the drive is faulty and you will get no help from their support. Beware.
2124287
I'm sorry. I don't know. I had a drive cloned *for* me. I suggest you contact Seagate. They're awesome.
2252737
Check he website. I think I saw some programs that you could download. But the drive works like any other so you can just use your OS backup software which works like a charm. It's really plug and play, no software needed.
101316
Not mandatory. You can use the drive as is. I kept the software on - just in case I changed my mind and/or computer. Be careful what you delete, some of the software is not related to the back up application.
1327928
From past experiences with WD I stopped using them several years ago. Seagate or Hitachi would be a better choice in my opinion.
2276887
You can certainly copy it. I do not use automated backup routines (except for C: drive) so cannot comment on these.
762383
Because I do not know what operating system you are using or the backup software that you employ, I can't answer your question directly. In general, I believe that you may be able to delete files to free up disk space for backup depending on your particular hardware/software configuration. HOWEVER, during the deleting of the existing backup files, you will have no backup which will be a real problem if your main hard drive crashes in the process. Secondly, I am on a Mac computer I do not use the Seagate backup software. Instead I use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) which backs up my changed files once each day. With this software, I can delete any files from the backup drive to free up space (be sure to empty to trash to really free up the space), then CCC will only rewrite these files if they are specified for backup on your primary disk. This method may or may not be applicable for PC backup software or other Mac backup software. I realize that this is quite a wishy-washy answer to your question, for this I apologize. Good luck.
1810608
If you are backing up to an external drive, you will be fine. You can program the software to make scheduled backup to any drive but I do not know if you can change were the data resides unless you do that at installation of the software.
1916516
Not that I know of. There is USB input in the back but nothing in the menus that allows you to configure an external device for backup.
2132783
Yes with three provisos. First what you are backing up must easily fit into two 3TB of space. Second, the Seagate could also crash and third, you need to use a back-up program which makes the Seagate a startup drive. I use Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper.
308963
Frankly I have found NO external drive either desktop or portable that have been particularly easy to work with and customer service of all (WD, Seagate, or Toshiba) either don't reply period or if they do it's gooble-de-gook. Seems as though that the hardware is perfectly capable of storing data but retrieving it is another question. The software is totally, absurdly complex. (Ditto thumb drives with password protected sectors. Impossible!) IT folks decry the fact that no one bothers to back up anything. Guess why?
1156478
Well, I have a Mac and I just use the built-in time machine backup which does all of that automatically. So, I haven't used any of the backup software that comes with the hard drive, sorry!
657735
Yes... I am on 7. I just use it to save critical files on. Don't fully understand the "back-up" software that is supplied with it.
2167745
I love this drive, but do not own or have used it with a Mac, but I think you made a good decision to use Time Machine, from what I read it looks like a nice system. I am using my Seagate with Linux and do my full backups using REDO backup, and my incremental with either a cp -u command manually or drag & drop from the GUI. Hope this helps.
1562358
I have the Seagate 2tb and I also run Windows 7 and it just asked me to upload an out of date app but it works. That's all I can tell you.
1080260
Good question. My IT brother says to use 2 external hard drives & back each of them up periodically, but keep one off-site. Other opinions/ideas?
940810
It will work just fine as an extra drive. It can be accessed just as you do any internal drive. What you cannot do with the Dashboard software is to do automatic backups if the drive is connected to your router. It should be able to do automatic backups but only if the drive is connected directly to a USB port on your computer.