Money Matters, Simplified.
Seagate woos tech-world with an ultra-slim external HDD
by Ann Tyler - April 6, 2011 - comments
According to the drive makers, this drive is 38 percent slimmer than their existing range of ultra-portable GoFlex drive.
Are you on the watch out for an external drive that you can haul around with? Seagate brings you the latest GoFlex Slim Performance Drive, projected as the world’s ‘slimmest’ external hard disk drives. These drives slip right into your pocket and provide you with a storage capacity of 320GB.
Hard disk drive maker Seagate officially launched the slinky new drive on Tuesday in London.
According to the drive makers, this drive is 38 percent slimmer than their existing range of ultra-portable GoFlex drive. The latest ultra-thin drive was first showcased at CES in January.
Features
At a svelte and stylish 9 mm width, GoFlex is thinner than an iPhone 4 or even a #2 pencil. It weighs roughly 160g and measures 4.91 x 3.07 x 0.354inches (124 x 78 x 9mm). However, the sleek frame features some great punches: USB 3.0 support for super-fast file transfer and a decent 320GB of storage space.
While most external drives come with lower RPMs, Seagate took the competition a notch higher by introducing 7200 RPM in the Slim drive. According to an Engadget report, the drive reached upwards of 40MB/s during an in-house transfer test while connected to a USB 3.0 port.
The drive's black metal case sports USB 3.0 interface for both data and power, ensuring super-fast transfers (nominally 10 times faster than the generic USB 2.0, currently installed on most of the world's slim laptops and tablet PCs).
The drive is also USB 2.0 compatible, ensuring backward adaptability with existing devices. Further, its USB powered feature does away with the need for an extra power adapter. The Slim comes with an 18-inch USB 3.0 cable.
Other features of this drive
This drive provides pre-loaded NTFS driver for Mac, ensuring compatibility with both, windows and Mac OS based systems. You can interchange between these systems without the need for re-formatting your drive or any noticeable performance overhead.
Moreover, the drive is chipped in with software that provides automatic and round-the-clock backup as well as excellent encryption capabilities. These drives can also be paired up with TVs using Seagate’s GoFlex HD media player.
“The continued growth of personal digital media stores, our increasingly mobile lifestyles and the continued proliferation of mobile devices are driving the demand for slimmer, more portable storage solutions,” stated Seagate VP and retail general manager, Patrick Connolly.
“The 9mm GoFlex Slim ultra-portable hard drive [delivers] a beautiful, ultra-slim, lightweight storage solution to complement existing mobile computing devices so they can enjoy even more of the content they love, anywhere they want.”
The GoFlex Slim is based on Seagate’s Momentus Thin hard drive, and supports 192-bit Triple DES encryption technology, thereby providing assurance to users in terms of data security – even if your drive gets lost or stolen.
The Slim is being marketed as an accessory for tablets, notebooks or netbooks, which conventionally hold less internal storage than mainstream mobile PCs or desktops. It is targeted at consumers interested to carry DVD movies, video files, photo and music vault, large graphics, or presentations.
The Seagate GoFlex Slim is now available from Seagate and selected e-tailers like Amazon. The slender size comes with a price tag of around $99.99 and a three-year warranty.
HFS+ version for Mac
Seagate plans to introduce an exclusive HFS+ version of Mac OS X users. The out-of-the-box HFS+ formatted drives would ensure compatibility with Apple’s Time Machine backup software.
The drive, which can also store files from a Windows PC, will sport a metallic finish meant to complement the aluminum casing of a MacBook.
The GoFlex Slim for Mac will hit Apple retail stores in May at a MSRP of $99.