Seagate Launches ''Universal'' External HDD Line
Three new external drives will offer a "universal" connection covering eSATA, USB 3.0 and more.
Wednesday Seagate said that it added a new line of external drives to its FreeAgent series. Called GoFlex, these new HDDs are "universal" in that they offer more than one connection option, providing consumers more choices when looking for a new external drive. This will also ultimately mean that Seagate will cash in with the numerous optional interface cables and adapters that will be sold along with the drives.
Seagate said that it will offer three GoFlex variations: two Ultra-portable Drives (Basic, Pro) and the Desk External Drive. All three drives come packed with USB 2.0 plug-and-play connectivity out of the box, however consumers can "upgrade" the connection by purchasing cables and adapters for USB 3.0, FireWire 800, and eSATA.
According to Seagate, the cheaper (vanilla) GoFlex Ultra-portable drive will come in four capacities: 320GB, 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB. The 7200 RPM Pro Ultra-portable drive however only comes in 500GB, and sports a cool "intelligent" dock and premium backup software. The drive arrives in both 1TB and 2TB flavors, and also comes pre-installed with backup software.
As for the special cables, they're not cheap. The FireWire 800 cable costs $39.99, whereas the USB 3.0 cable costs a lesser $29.99. Want to connect via eSATA? That will cost $19.99 as will the replacement USB 2.0 cable. Seagate also offers adapters and kits for the PC side to help enhance those transfer speeds as well.
Prices for the GoFlex HDDs range from $99.99 to $199.99, depending on the model and storage capacity. The company also announced two companion devices to the new external drives, the GoFlex TV HD media player for viewing stored multimedia on a TV, and the GoFlex Net device that adds media sharing to the TV HD media player, all of which should now be available for purchase.
File this in the rip off category. If I want universal I just go use some ancient ide drive when moving files to and from one or more vintage rigs to a modern box...
Some of us still keep our older computers.
Not only do Seagate drives suck because of terrible reliability now they show us how to take a great idea and make that suck too by overcharging the hell out of the consumer.
Anyone dumb enough to fall for this crap deserves the buyers remorse they will inevitably feel.
What a rip...
To be accurate most cables cost less than $2 in reality. When I worked at best buy the $35 usb cable or $20 cat 5 cable cost only $1.5 with my employee discount.
. The drive arrives in both 1TB and 2TB flavors, and also comes pre-installed with backup software
.
So 500GB, 1TB and 2TB?
It has worked with disc formats like CD & DVD. I mean, we aren't talking about OS-disks that might need special features based on the OS installed (I mean, I'm sure Microsoft has some reason it uses NTFS, other than it's whole anti-free policy). These are storage disks, pure and simple. We just need a basic file system that is universally readable and writeable and does enough for archiving and file sharing.
And before you say "what's wrong with NTFS", remember this, its a closed file system, and Linux/Mac/etc.. can only read it because someone spent a lot of time reverse engineering the file system to come up with 3rd-party drivers. Microsoft has never published the details to NTFS.
It'd be great if you could use that externally - and on consoles.
Not to mention that it's an old file system by today's standard. It would be SO much simpler if Windows/OSX just adopted ext4,etc.
A USB 3.0 connector will use a USB 2.0 cable... so two USB connectors are not really needed.
Lets see... I've picked up a Vantec eSATA & USB 2.0 external case for $40 and it includes eSATA and USB 2.0 cables. With USB 3.0 being new, so that should be about $20~30 for the controller & cable.
This seems very consumer un-friendly.
My previous external drives (500g and 750g) were built from Samsung drives in external cases. They have on/off switches and are only used when transferring data on or off the drives. The Seagate drive has to switched off at the power strip.
I've had a good run with Seagate drives with only 1 out of 8 ever failing. That drive had the faulty partition formatted and reinstalled, and is still working after 8 years (6 years since the failure). Samsung drives are now my preferred drives as they use fewer platters and run cooler.
That's where I buy audio and video cables for a very very reasonable price. I first learned about their inexpensive cables through PC Magazine reviews.