Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter Now Available

A few weeks ago at CES 2012, Seagate showcased their GoFlex Thunderbolt adapters. They come in two flavors: the GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt adapter takes 3.5" drives, requires an external power supply, and has two Thunderbolt ports; the GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter is suitable for 2.5" drives, is bus-powered, and has a single Thunderbolt port (i.e. no daisy-chaining).

The GoFlex Desk adapter won't be available until later this month, but Seagate has now updated their accessory page and started shipping the 2.5" GoFlex adapter. It's available from Seagate's online store for $100 (no cable included, so that's another $50), which is quite a lot more than a $15 USB 3.0 enclosure, but at least this is better pricing than the LaCie and Promise solutions we have seen so far. Unfortunately, you are still limited to using Seagate's GoFlex drives, but fortunately they are reasonably priced. By way of comparison, a solution using the GoFlex TB adapter and 1TB GoFlex external would cost around $230, whereas LaCie charges $400 for a similar setup.

UPDATE: It appears that a GoFlex drive is not needed and any 2.5" SATA drive should work.

MacWorld has already received a review unit and run a few basic tests. As you might have expected, Thunderbolt is noticeably faster than USB 2.0 but not much faster than FireWire 800. In terms of raw numbers, USB 2.0 had a maximum throughput of 33.7MB/s while FireWire and Thunderbolt had 70.3MB/s and 81.3MB/s respectively. Obviously, the 500GB 2.5" 5400rpm drive is the bottleneck here—the gap would be a lot bigger with a 3.5" hard drive, or better yet, an SSD.

To be honest, the GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter isn't really worth it unless you plan on using an SSD, which requires you to open the GoFlex enclosure and change the hard drive to an SSD, which is not supported by Seagate and may void your warranty. In the case of regular 2.5" hard drives, you're better off with the GoFlex FireWire 800 adapter ($50 from Seagate's online store and no $50 cable required), assuming you have a Mac with FireWire 800—otherwise USB 2.0 should be sufficient as well. For those not using Mac hardware, Thunderbolt may have more bandwidth, but right now USB 3.0 is a far more economical solution.

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CES: Seagate Combines 500GB Portable Drive With Mobile Hotspot in Proof of Concept

 

While perusing the Verizon Wireless booth, a chunky little device caught our eye. Though considered a proof of concept, and not scheduled for release yet, a Seagate device was on display that combined an LTE mobile hotspot with 500GB of storage on-board. CES itself presents a clear use case for a device like this, allowing media generated by coverage of an event to be transferred to the device for easy access and collaboration by a reporting team. Sadly, Seagate and Verizon don't make market decisions based entirely on our whims. The more obvious use case is the traveler that carries a hotspot and external storage now, and would be able to downsize to a single device.

One thing is certain, the device would be chunkier than hotspots and external storage solutions are today. The burden on the battery from operating WiFi and LTE radios, as well as a spinning mechanical disk might also limit the value of this device. We will touchbase with Seagate and keep an eye on this product to see if it ever shows up in the wild. 

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Seagate completes purchase of Samsung HDD business

Seagate has finalised its purchase of Samsung's hard disk drive business –gaining 'select elements' including assets, infrastructure and employees.

American company Seagate has snapped up the HDD business and takes over the likes of Samsung's high capacity 2.5-inch drives along with bringing over some of the key design engineers and senior managers from the Korean company.

"Together, Seagate and Samsung have aligned our current and future product development efforts and roadmaps in order to accelerate time-to-market efficiency for new products and position us to better address the increasing demands for storage," said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO.

Exciting time

"It is an exciting time in the industry with rapidly evolving opportunities in many markets including mobile computing, cloud computing, and solid state storage."

The deal was announced back in April alongside a strategic partnership that will see Seagate drives used in Samsung laptops and Seagate gaining semi-conductors from Samsung for its solid state drives.

"The companies have also extended and enhanced their existing patent cross-license agreement and have expanded cooperation to co-develop enterprise storage solutions," added Seagate's release.

Seagate GoFlex Satellite Mobile Wireless Storage Review

Legit Storage Reviews

My 500 GB Apple iPad 2!

Wouldn't it be great to watch any one of many HD videos you own while on that 1 1/2 hour subway ride?  Well now you can.  Seagate recently released the latest addition to their GoFlex line of external hard drives, the Seagate GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage system.  The key words here are "mobile" and "wireless". 

This 500GB external HDD is more than just a shell on a 2.5" hard drive supporting USB 3.0 connectivity and external power brick.  This drive has its own battery supply and integrated 802.11n wireless access point all in the same form factor as other external drives in the GoFlex line. 

Since companies like Apple release fixed configuration devices such as the iPad and iPhone Seagate saw a need for people with large libraries of multimedia beyond the maximum 64GB on the largest iPad.  Since all these modern devices support 802.11n, Seagate thought: wireless + hard drive + battery = success.

The only limit is you can only stream to 3 devices at a time and the Lithium Ion batteries provide a maximum of 5 hours of streaming.  Each of the three devices are able to watch the same or different content so it is like your own local cloud storage service.  To supplement this, Seagate provides a wall to USB power plug and 12 volt car plug to USB power so you can take the Goflex on longer trips.

To transfer files onto the GoFlex Satellite, Seagate provides a USB 3.0 connection that is ultra fast giving me over 170MB/s transfer rates.  My 650MB file took mere seconds to copy onto the Satellite.

Seagate has the GoFlex Satellite at an MSRP of $199.99 and due to this being a very new device that is the price we found it at the few retailers that currently carry the GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless device.   I am sure once inventories increase we will see it avaliable in more stores.

Current Seagate GoFlex Satellite pricing:  

The GoFlex Satellite comes with a 3 year warranty from Seagate.

In order to show you all the features, the interface, and set up we did this review as a HD video that you can watch below.

Next Page - Final Thoughts and Conclusions

Seagate breakthrough heralds bigger hard drives

Seagate has announced that it has broken the 1TB areal density barrier. This means that it can now fit 1TB of data on a single 3.5 inch hard-drive platter, and heralding triple platter 3TB storage drives.

Previously, hard drives have been limited to less than 1TB of data – and although you can have multiple platters this has been a major bottleneck.

The hard drive specialist – which is now a key partner of Korean electronics giant Samsung – is using the new platters in its latest GoFlex Desk products.

GoFlex

"Seagate's GoFlex Desk products are the first to feature the new hard drive, delivering storage capacities of up to 3TB and an areal density of 625 Gigabits per square inch, the industry's highest," said Seagate.

"Seagate is on track to ship its flagship 3.5-inch Barracuda desktop hard drive with 3TBs of storage on 3 disk platters – enough capacity to store up to 120 high-definition movies, 1,500 video games, thousands of photos or virtually countless hours of digital music – to the distribution channel in mid-2011.

"The drive will also be available in capacities of 2TB, 1.5TB and 1TB."

The 3.5 inch drive is largely used in desktops, with laptops using the smaller form factor 2.5-inch drives.

Growing need

With the need for data storage growing as we consume higher quality digital media and in larger amounts, higher density drives are a must.

"Organisations of all sizes and consumers worldwide are amassing digital content at light speed, generating immense demand for storage of digital content of every imaginable kind," said Rocky Pimentel, Seagate Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing.

"We remain keenly focused on delivering the storage capacity, speed and manageability our customers need to thrive in an increasingly digital world."

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Computex 2011: Antec Implements Seagate GoFlex Standard

At this year's CES Seagate announced its intentions to open the GoFlex connector standard, enabling devices and other drivemakers to build products around its GoFlex removable drive standard. We've seen limited public uptake thus far, but at Computex Antec announced its intentions to include a GoFlex drive bay in some of its future cases:

The bay can accept either GoFlex compatible drives or, with the swap of an insert, standard 2.5" SATA drives. With a standard 2.5" drive in place, the bay can also accept another 2.5" drive internally.

The GoFlex or standard SATA drive plug into a PCB backplane which connects to your SATA controller via a standard SATA cable. No word whether or not Antec's solution will support 6Gbps SATA at this point or how well tested it is with SSDs.

Antec expects GoFlex to debut in cases by the end of the year, perhaps on the new Solo II.

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Seagate GoFlex Satellite wirelessly boosts iPad storage

Seagate has added a few new goodies to its GoFlex range of external hard drives in the shape of the GoFlex Satellite, the first battery-powered hard drive to wirelessly connect to any Wi-Fi-toting device.

That means you can enjoy an extra 500GB of storage for your iOS, Android or any device that has Wi-Fi capabilities, completely sans wires.

What's handy, says Seagate, is that the dinky drive allows you to opt for a cheaper low-memoried tablet or phone safe in the knowledge that you can easily store videos, photos and music externally yet portably.

Although we do feel honour-bound to point out that if you're willing to drop $200 (£123) on the GoFlex Satellite and its external storage, you might be better off starting out with the 64GB version of the tablet and seeing how you get on.

Applitude

Seagate has also brought out the GoFlex Media app to wirelessly transfer your video, music, pictures and documents to and from the hard drive, although this is only available for iOS devices at present, with the Android app coming this summer.

In the meantime, Android users can access stuff stored on the device through their tablet or smartphone's browser.

The GoFlex Satellite has a standby battery life of up to 25 hours, or 4 hours of continuously streaming video.

Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Seagate's retail group, feels quite passionately about the additional storage the company can offer to iPad users:

"With the GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage, we wished to create an elegant solution that provides real value to the multitude of iPad users out there by delivering a seamless connection to local storage.

"No longer will a consumer feel as though it is a compromise to purchase a lower capacity tablet or iPad. With GoFlex Satellite, people will be able to carry their entire media library with them without the need for wires or the web at a fraction of the cost of adding 3G or purchasing or a higher capacity tablet."

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Computex 2011: Antec Implements Seagate GoFlex Standard

At this year's CES Seagate announced its intentions to open the GoFlex connector standard, enabling devices and other drivemakers to build products around its GoFlex removable drive standard. We've seen limited public uptake thus far, but at Computex Antec announced its intentions to include a GoFlex drive bay in some of its future cases:

The bay can accept either GoFlex compatible drives or, with the swap of an insert, standard 2.5" SATA drives. With a standard 2.5" drive in place, the bay can also accept another 2.5" drive internally.

The GoFlex or standard SATA drive plug into a PCB backplane which connects to your SATA controller via a standard SATA cable. No word whether or not Antec's solution will support 6Gbps SATA at this point or how well tested it is with SSDs.

Antec expects GoFlex to debut in cases by the end of the year, perhaps on the new Solo II.

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Seagate Cheetah 15K.7

Leading manufacturer of hard disk, Seagate, introduce the latest hard disk series with Cheetah 15K.7 wich intended for enterprise users, though not close the possibility for the usual user. This latest series will provide reliable performance with a best lap speed of up to 15k-rpm with.

Product range to 3.5-inch hard disk, series of cheetah has the largest capacity, with up to 600GB and up to 1.6 million hours resistance . With a variety of benefits, this latest series will be very suitable in the large-scale web server application with a big database too.

Cheetah 15K.7 series comes with the latest speed, the 4GB /s for the FC interface and up to 6GB / s for SAS interface, in addition there are also interesting features that give the name PowerTrim Seagate Technology that can reduce power usage significantly.

Cheetah 15K.7 provide new alternative for those who want quality and performance of 3.5-inch hard disk. In addition, this product has also been equipped with various features and the latest technology, where it is rarely found on other hard disk.

Seagate GoFlex Slim 320GB portable hard disk launched

Seagate has attain something quite extraordinary with the readers Slim GoFlex.The Goflex Slim 2.5-inch exterior hard drive is a mere 9mm thick, manufactured to be as thin, light and moveable as capable of becoming to go together with your laptop or netbook.Depending to Seagate the portable hard drive is the width of a pencil, creating it 38 percent thin than the firm's current Goflex hard drive.

The Seagate GoFlex Slim uses USB 3.0 which can passing files 10x faster than in accordance with tradition USB 2.0. Don’t worry if your computer doesn’t support USB 3.0 since the GoFlex Slim is backward sutable with USB 2.0. You just don’t get the longed for speed of having a USB 3.0.

At only 0.354-inch thick and determining weight at only 160 grams, the GoFlex Slim is one of the meager and lightest transferable drives out there.its speed of 7200 RPM, has so far stated to be all time a happy to use. Testing USB 2.0 passing rate, we saw an have a median of 37.5MBps 27.6MBps and speed read and write correspondingly. As anticipated, the USB 3.0 speed were meaningfully to a greater degree 82.3MBps 102MBps read and write.

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Seagate and Samsung interweave a relationship

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Both of this company makes an agreement to significantly expand and strengthen their strategic relationship by furthering aligning their respective ownership, investments and key technologies.  By this agreement we're really want a big contribution so the product can be in a good performance, in a low price and good quality. And the major elements of agreement are:

1. Samsung combining its hard disk drive (HDD) operations into Seagate
2. Extending and enhancing the existing patent cross-license agreement between the companies
3. A NAND flash memory supply agreement under which Samsung will provide Seagate with its market-leading semiconductor products for use in Seagate’s enterprise solid state drives (SSDs), solid state hybrid drives and other products
4. A disk drive supply agreement under which Seagate will supply disk drives to Samsung for PCs, notebooks and consumer electronics
5. Expanded cooperation between the companies to co-develop enterprise storage solutions
6. Samsung receiving significant equity ownership in Seagate

“We are pleased to strengthen our strategic relationship with Samsung in a way that better aligns both companies around technologies and products,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. “With these agreements, we expect to achieve greater scale and deliver a broader range of innovative storage products and solutions to our customers, while facilitating our long-term relationship with Samsung.”
The transactions and agreements significantly expand Seagate’s customer access in China and Southeast Asia. In addition, the mutual supply agreements enable Seagate to secure an important source of leading-edge NAND flash supply as the company expands its SSD and solid state hybrid product offerings, and position Seagate to be a more significant supplier of disk drives to Samsung. The agreement also gives Samsung a significant ownership position in Seagate. And to see further more information about this you can see it here.