LAS VEGAS, NV -- Seagate announced a trio of new portable storage products to kick off CES 2018. The Seagate Fast SSD is a portable flash-based backup solution capable of up to 540 MB/s sequential transfers. The series comes to market in three capacities, 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. This product is unique for its USB Type-C connector and the company's new Toolkit software used to backup or sync content at high speeds.
Pricing is reasonable with the 250GB starting out at $99. The 500GB will sell for $169 and the 1TB climbs to $349. The company plans to bring this series to market in Spring 2018.
French subsidiary LaCie has sold the Rugged series for several years under different configurations. We've seen the familiar orange cushion used for single and RAID portable products. The new LaCie Rugged Secure brings hardware encryption into the fold. The new 2TB will sell this spring for $139 and uses new Seagate Secure Technology that activates when you disconnect the drive from the host. The lockout feature remains on the drive until you enter the password in the new Toolkit software to unlock the data.
Adobe teamed with LaCie to increase the value-add software bundle. The Rugged Secure ships with Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan that features cloud-based photo service and Lightroom CC. Users also gain one month of access to Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan, a $75 value. The included and time-limited packages will also ship in LaCie's other Rugged, d2, and Big series products.
Last year, LaCie and drone manufacturer DJI collaborated on a co-branded portable storage product. This year the companies go for round two with the innovative LaCie DJI Copilot. This solution features BOSS, or Back-up On Set Solution, and allows users to view data from the SD card on the host device's playback monitor in full resolution without a PC. The data can pass to the internal 2TB disk drive with a single click thanks to an internal battery that can also charge your other mobile devices.
Connectivity comes in the form of USB Type-A and a built in SD slots. A USB Type-C port allows users to connect to a PC or MAC. Three additional removable cables ship with the system. Users get USB Type-A, Micro USB, and Type-C for the full range to backup devices in the field. The 2TB Copilot goes on sale this Spring for $349 and can store up to 65 hours of 4K 30 frames per second footage.
