Seagate Announces Backup Plus Hard Drives

Seagate has reinvented backing up your content with its new line of mobile 2.5-inch external hard drives. The Backup Plus drives feature Seagate Dashboard, an interface that will backup your content with one-click. Designed for both Mac and PC users, Backup Plus hard drives also provide a way to share and save photos to and from social networking sites. This means that no matter where your content is saved, the drive can retrieve it and back it up.

"Backing up needs to be an essential part of everyone's digital life. Nearly everything that is dear to us is now in a digital format; from tax documents, to emails, to family photos and video, many of these files can not be recreated in the event of an accidental loss or system failure," said Scott Horn, vice president of Marketing at Seagate.

"Seagate is in the business of keeping digital content and files protected in every aspect, whether it is in the cloud, stored on PC or with our external consumer products. Backup Plus is a product that eliminates the barriers to protecting these digital assets. The new Dashboard delivers a simple and complete backup experience with the added benefit of saving photos and video stored on Facebook and other social networks."

Powered by USB 3.0, the new portable 2.5-inch drives require no external power source and work interchangeably with Mac and PC.

Available starting today in red, blue, silver, and black, the portable 2.5-inch external drives will be offered in 500GB ($119.99), 750GB ($129.99), and 1TB ($139.99) capacities. The larger 3.5-inch desk drives will be offered in 1TB ($129.99), 2TB ($149.99), 3TB (179.99), and 4TB ($249.99) capacities.

  • I realize 2.5" form factor makes for easier storage and transporting, but also makes for shorter life and higher temps than most green-friendly 3.5" drives.
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  • alidan
    4tb doe 250$ someone confirm this.

    its getting o so close to where i will buy a 4tb drive, i can almost taste it.
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  • Avenger762
    I think someone messed up on the 2.5" drive prices. What's the point of buying 500GB drive when the 1TB is $60 cheaper? If that's the case maybe I should get two before they figure it out.
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  • lamorpa
    I, for one, would not pay the $70 premium to get 250GB less storage (750 -> 500) in the 2.5 inch series, but that's just me...
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  • livebriand
    Guys, the 2.5" 500GB one? You might want to check the pricing. Also, personally, I see no need for a 2.5" backup drive. In my case, my backup drive sits on top of my desktop, out of site and out of mind, and I simply plug it in and run a backup once a week. I don't care about the fact that it's 3.5" and not as portable as it could be. (I've taken it to friends' houses before, and it's portable enough anyway.)
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  • freggo
    Wouldn't a 3.5" drive also have a somewhat higher read/write speed ?
    Is for the size of a backup drive... 2,5...3,5 or even 5.25 don't matter much. Speed and especially Reliability are important to me.
    I have a suspicion that a larger drive would have a lower failure rate.
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  • zoobiewa
    Freggo: Smaller drives can theoretically have higher speeds. If you think about a disk, the center spins much more slowly than the edge. Therefore, a smaller drive has less of a speed difference between the center and the edge, meaning you can go higher and not worry about creating insane turbulences.
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  • alidan
    the small 2.5 drives would be good for laptop backup drives, thats the kind of portability they have. a 3.5 for a laptop would be bulky... but thats just my thinking.
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  • freggo
    zoobiewaFreggo: Smaller drives can theoretically have higher speeds. If you think about a disk, the center spins much more slowly than the edge. Therefore, a smaller drive has less of a speed difference between the center and the edge, meaning you can go higher and not worry about creating insane turbulences.
    That's what I what I meant. a larger disk at the same RPM will still have more data passing under the read/write head (on the outer portion of the drive).
    As for turbulence, I don't think that would be a problem; besides, they could always create a vacuum or at least low pressure environment inside the drive to take care of that.

    Reply