CONCLUSION

   Much like the Seven 500GB 2.5” portable hard drive by Seagate the Innov8 is a premium product aimed towards enthusiasts and professionals who may be willing to pay extra for a “special” product. Of course the lack of an extra power adapter is without doubt an impressive feature but at the end of the day it’s the design and materials used that make the Innov8 stand out from other similar solutions. Of course as you can see from our charts the Innov8 surpassed all other 3.5” external desktop HDDs in our charts so performance is obviously not affected by the lack of an extra power adapter. Unfortunately not many systems support USB 3.1 type-C connectivity with 1.5A output at this moment (some of the latest mainboard models and laptops do or in our case one of the latest Type-C PCIe x4 SATA powered cards) and although at first this may seem as the primary drawback of the Innov8 in the end I doubt that people willing to purchase it will have a problem pairing it with a compatible system (of course there's always the compatibility issue with Windows 7 since they are not supported). What is a small drawback is the fact that if you plug the Innov8 with a laptop (or a MacBook) it will also “chew” on its battery and on the go that may not be optimal for some people. Seagate should also make longer cables available for desktop PC/Mac use or at least specify which consumers can get since the 50cm long bundled one is not nearly long enough.

   So how much extra does Seagate ask for their Archive HDD placed inside the Innov8 enclosure? While I type these lines the Innov8 retails for USD319.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 375Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) so yes it’s quite more expensive than its 8TB brothers again by Seagate. Once again however it all comes down to just how much you’re willing to pay for a product and whether or not you want to own something special. Personally I think that not only has Seagate released the best looking 3.5” desktop HDD in the market today but also perhaps the fastest one as well (we don’t have every single 3.5” Desktop HDD in our charts to be certain of this) and although the price may be just a bit high for most consumers this is still a product well worth of our Golden Award.

PROS

- Superior Build Quality
- Design
- Top of the Charts Performance
- No External Power Adapter Required
- 8TB Storage Capacity
- 200GB Cloud Storage (Microsoft OneDrive)
- 3 Years Warranty
 

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- USB 3.1 Type C 1.5A Connectivity Only
- Windows 7 Not Supported