Seagate Ships World's Slimmest External HDD

By Kevin Parrish
published

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.

Kevin Parrish
18 Comments Comment from the forums
  • kcorp2003
    bought a 500GB version, i got 465GB. mhm (i can understand internal HDD with virtual memory for reserves but this i can't)
    Reply
  • bavman
    kcorp2003bought 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 :)
    Reply
  • bluegold316
    9281887 said:
    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.
    Reply
  • Camikazi
    kcorp2003bought 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.
    Reply
  • dominusdeus
    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.
    Reply
  • I'm scared to buy Seagate since their 'click of death' hard drives came about. Do a search before buying seagate!
    Reply
  • flacoman3
    They can compare Seagate drives to #2 pencils all they want, but everyone knows #2 pencils last longer
    Reply
  • slothy89
    concernBuyerI'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".
    Reply
  • Wish I Was Wealthy
    About time some of these HDD companies come out with smaller external's & hopefully even smaller internal's also...
    Reply
  • memadmax
    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!
    Reply