Seagate Ships World's Slimmest External HDD
Seagate's new external drive shares the same thickness as a #2 pencil.
After making a brief appearance at CES 2011 back in January, Tuesday Seagate announced that it has shipped the world's slimmest portable external hard drive, the GoFlex Slim. Measuring nearly the same thickness as a standard #2 pencil (0.35-inches), the 2.5-inch drive offers a USB 3.0 connection and 320 GB of storage for just $99.99 USD.
"At an ultra-sleek 9mm--38 percent leaner than the current GoFlex ultra-portable drives--the new GoFlex Slim drive is roughly the width of a pencil," Seagate said on Tuesday. "Sliding effortlessly into a pocket, purse or messenger bag, the GoFlex Slim portable drive enables transport, access and enjoyment of personal digital content from anywhere, making it the perfect complement to today’s mobile lifestyle."
The drive arrives with support for both PC and Mac. However, a separate Mac OS X edition will also be available for $99.00 USD. This version will be HFS+ formatted out-of-the-box, making it fully compatible with Apple Time Machine. The GoFlex Slim for Mac OS X will also feature a durable, soft-touch, metallic finish to match Apple's slick product line.
On the technical front, Seagate didn't offer much in details save for a 7200RPM spin and compatibility with USB 2.0 ports. It comes packed with the Seagate Dashboard management tool for easy management of backups and file encryption, a pre-loaded NTFS driver for Mac, a GoFlex USB 3.0 interface adapter and an 18-inch USB 3.0 cable.
In addition to Seagate's online store, consumers can pick up this super-portable HDD at retailers like Best Buy, Staples, Walmart and additional online retails including Newegg and TigerDirect.
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bought a 500GB version, i got 465GB. mhm (i can understand internal HDD with virtual memory for reserves but this i can't)
bought a 500GB version, i got 465GB. mhm (i can understand internal HDD with virtual memory for reserves but this i can't)
Its for formatting. All hdd are like that.
What i am surprised about is why the mac version is the same price. Shouldn't they bump it up to $150 or something since it seems all external hdd are like that
Its for formatting. All hdd are like that.
What i am surprised about is why the mac version is the same price. Shouldn't they bump it up to $150 or something since it seems all external hdd are like that
Its not for the formating! Its because 1000 Vs 1024 debate between the Manufacturer and the Operating system's calculation of the bytes, as the Manufacturer count 1gByte as 1000 mBytes and the Operating system counts 1gByte as 1024 mBytes hence you see the difference.
bought a 500GB version, i got 465GB. mhm (i can understand internal HDD with virtual memory for reserves but this i can't)
No, it's right both ways, 500GB (500,000,000,000 bytes) is the actual GB capacity 465 is the GiB capacity (what OSes actually use to format even though they use the wrong acronym).
GB uses 1,000,000,000 bytes in one GB while GiB uses 1,073,741,824 bytes in one GiB. It's basically using 2 different terms to calculate the same things, but you are getting what you paid for.
You did indeed get 500 GB. Just not the same format that computers use. When a retailer says "500 GB" they mean 500,000,000,000 bytes. Computers calculate storage differently.
8 bits = 1 byte
1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte (kB)
1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte (MB)
1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte (GB)
So if we take 500,000,000,000 and divide that by 1024, we get 488,281,250 kilobytes. Divide by 1024 again and we get 476,837.16 megabytes. Divide by 1024 yet again, and we get 465.66 gigabytes.
So yes, your hard drive is "500 gigabytes". If you go to My Computer (assuming Windows here), right click on your C drive and click Properties, where it says "Capacity", It will have very close to "500,000,000,000" written, with "456 GB" off to the right.
I'm scared to buy Seagate since their 'click of death' hard drives came about. Do a search before buying seagate!
They can compare Seagate drives to #2 pencils all they want, but everyone knows #2 pencils last longer
I'm scared to buy Seagate since their 'click of death' hard drives came about. Do a search before buying seagate!
the click of death was a firmware issue that was solved long ago. "do your research".
About time some of these HDD companies come out with smaller external's & hopefully even smaller internal's also...
Ahh! portable hard drive!
Screw you real good for only one hundrad dallar sucky sucky!
Drop and make all your data go boom!
Only hundrad dallar, special deal just for you!
America A number 1!
Find a way to make internals half the size they are now and make it so you can fit 2 in 1 slot in your case, and I'd be happy as a clam.
can someone tell me why hdds are sold in gb numbers, and not what they come to after format?
also, what does format actually do that takes up space?
I don't trust seagate external drives, every one I've owned (4-5 of 'em) has died. WD is in the same boat.
@thrasher32 well I have Seagate freeagent desk.. for almost 2 years... using it for movies on my WD tv and my laptop intensively, it has never failed... for mobility would be better to search for a 32GB pendrive and move yor stuff on it... none of these plates hdd can be trusted for mobility... just a hit when you put your backpack somewhere... and you'll be owned by the disc.
can someone tell me why hdds are sold in gb numbers, and not what they come to after format?also, what does format actually do that takes up space?
Formatting doesn't take up the space, you get all the space you paid for, it's just 2 different ways of measuring the same amount. Think of it as Standard vs Metric, you measure any given distance in both and the numbers will be different but the distance is the same. As for why they are sold as round GB numbers, most likely cause 500GB sounds better then 465GiB even though they mean the same thing.
Formatting doesn't take up the space, you get all the space you paid for, it's just 2 different ways of measuring the same amount. Think of it as Standard vs Metric, you measure any given distance in both and the numbers will be different but the distance is the same. As for why they are sold as round GB numbers, most likely cause 500GB sounds better then 465GiB even though they mean the same thing.
when i was a kid, i bought a 120gb hdd because i could. it was my first hdd upgrade and i had no idea that after format it would be less.
i would rather know the real number than assume that the number is about 20% more than what is really there.
when i was a kid, i bought a 120gb hdd because i could. it was my first hdd upgrade and i had no idea that after format it would be less.
i would rather know the real number than assume that the number is about 20% more than what is really there.
Except that the number on the box is not 20% more than what's really there... it's what's really there. What the manufacturers and OS developers should do is standardize how they report the drive capacity. Then the end user isn't left feeling cheated (even though they haven't really been cheated).
Seagate is being very truthful. When they say 500 GB they mean 500x10 ^ 9 = 500,000,000,000 Bytes. To get that in the conventional computerese divide this number by 1024 3 times to get KB -> MB ->GB. Now you have it.