“Freestyle Steve” Johnson: “My music is ‘freestyle,’ and Seagate helps give me the freedom I need.”

Steve Johnson, a Miami-based DJ, used to tote hundreds of compact discs on his way to a gig. Today, he carries all his music on external storage solutions from Seagate. The switch has made Johnson’s life easier, keeping thousands of crowd-pumping tunes at his fingertips and easing the strain on his wallet

“Those drives are wonderful,” says Johnson, who finished a world tour with pop superstar Justin Timberlake earlier this year. “I just put them in my backpack and I'm good to go. I don't need an extra suitcase when I’m on the road—which means I’m not paying the airlines extra baggage fees.”

Johnson, who also goes by the professional name of “Freestyle Steve,” uses a 250-GB Maxtor OneTouch® 4 Mini portable drive and a 1-TB Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus external drive to store, transport and share thousands of hours of digital music. The compact OneTouch 4 Mini drive’s shock-resistant design ensures rugged durability, and the drive is password-protected with two levels of security. The OneTouch 4 Plus drive, meanwhile, has ample capacity—enough room for nearly 17,000 hours of digital music—and offers a convenient software feature for automatic backup of all files.  

A veteran of more than 20 years in the music business, Johnson—who's also the official DJ for Grammy-winning producer and rapper Timbaland—was among the first wave of DJs to make the switch from vinyl albums to CDs. Now he uses a laptop computer connected to a turntable, a soundboard and mixing programs to produce the infectious digital beats that have fans on their feet for hours—and wanting more.

“A successful night for me is seeing 20,000 people doing whatever I tell them to do,” Johnson says with a laugh. “There are no glitches with my music and my hard drives are working perfectly.”

Johnson places one set of MP3 files on the OneTouch 4 Mini drive and another copy on the OneTouch 4 Plus drive. “I’m paranoid,” he says. “I always back up my backup files. I’m not about to let Justin or Timbaland down—or any of the people who paid to see them.”

Johnson's healthy paranoia paid off recently when his laptop was infected with a virus. “I already had everything backed up on my external drive, so nothing was lost,” he said.

Like his nickname implies, Freestyle Steve prefers a loose, improvisational style when he's behind the turntable. “I try not to go into a performance with a set mind frame,” he says. “I’m pretty spontaneous and go off with the crowd, but I’ll also direct them at the same time. My music is ‘freestyle,’ and Seagate helps give me the freedom I need.”