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Seagate Ships World's Slimmest, Portable, External Hard Drive

btarunr

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Seagate today announced the availability of its new GoFlex Slim portable hard drive -- a svelte, 9mm, 2.5-inch external drive designed for the latest trend of portable, thin, stylish laptops and netbooks. Initially showcased at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics show in January of this year, the new GoFlex Slim performance drive is now available on Seagate website, in-store and at select online retailers. A 320GB version of the GoFlex Slim drive can be purchased for a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $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. 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. Equipped with a 7200RPM drive and a USB3.0 interface to accelerate transfer speeds up to 10x faster than USB2.0, this attractive super-slim drive delivers quick access to large, multi-media files such as HD movies and video games. The faster drive speed takes full advantage of the included plug-and-play USB 3.0 interface, while still maintaining compatibility with USB 2.0 ports. The GoFlex Slim portable drive also allows for use between Windows and Mac computers, interchangeably, without formatting or performance loss. Additionally, the drive's included p remium backup software provides automatic and continuous backups and encrypts files and folders.



"The continued growth of personal digital media stores, our increasingly mobile lifestyles and the continued proliferation of mobile devices are driving the demand for slimmer, more portable storage solutions," said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Retail at Seagate. "Netbooks and slim laptops are great for consuming media, but are limited when it comes to creating and storing high-definition films and photos. With the benefit of using Seagate's Momentus Thin drive, the 9mm GoFlex Slim ultra-portable hard drive breaks through these boundaries-delivering a beautiful, ultra-slim, lightweight storage solution to complement existing mobile computing devices so they can enjoy even more of the content they love, anywhere they want."



The GoFlex Slim portable drive will also be available in a version for use specifically with Mac OS X computers. The GoFlex Slim for Mac portable drive will be HFS+ formatted out-of-the-box, making it fully compatible with Apple Time Machine backup software, while maintaining the ability to work across both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers. To deliver a fresh look that fits seamlessly with today's Apple product line, the GoFlex Slim for Mac drive will feature a durable, soft-touch, metallic finish, which is also designed to withstand scratches, fingerprints or other marks incurred from travel. A 320GB version of the GoFlex Slim for Mac drive will be made available in May at Apple retail outlets nationwide for a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $99.00 USD.

"Consumers have a desire to have digital content available at their fingertips. However, in some cases, personal libraries of digital content are exceeding the storage capacity available in notebook PCs," said John Rydning, IDC's research director for hard disk drives. "USB attached HDD storage that is capacious, affordable, lightweight, and in a slim form factor will be appealing to many of these consumers."

According to IDC, tablets, mini-laptops and netbooks are largely seen as secondary PC devices and are primarily used for information "grazing," or as vehicles of content consumption. Additionally, tablets, mini-notebooks and netbooks have very limited on-board storage requiring them to have access to additional storage, whether it is local attached, networked or from the cloud¹. The GoFlex Slim and GoFlex Slim for Mac drives enable people to easily sync files between their computer and the drive, so that they can easily store, transport and enjoy hundreds of DVD-quality movies, hours of digital video, and multiple-thousands of photos or digital music while on-the-go.

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I was going to say *yawn* then saw the USB3.0 bit.

Still, wouldn't it still be cheaper to buy a 500gb drive and a generic enclosure?
 

Trackr

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I was going to say *yawn* then saw the USB3.0 bit.

Still, wouldn't it still be cheaper to buy a 500gb drive and a generic enclosure?

USB 3.0 wouldn't do anything for a single-platter 2.5" 5400RPM 320GB HDD.

I think this is nice, but a niche. Mostly for people who want to place it in shirt pockets and the like.

In which case, a 1.8" version is the only thing that could beat a Memory Stick.

Except that the latter can gradually get faster.
 

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USB 3.0 wouldn't do anything for a single-platter 2.5" 5400RPM 320GB HDD.

you gotta be shitting me, the speed boost is massive. read would go from ~30MB/s to more like 65MB/s, and even on USB 2.0 ports it gets kicked up to 37.5



if you're going to comment on USB 3.0, at least either read up on it or use it first.
 
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It's also a 7200RPM drive, not a 5400RPM drive. Please read before you flame.

I currently have a Seagate GoFlex 1TB (thick) drive, as well as a GoFlex Net (little baby NAS device). I was going to buy a GoFlex Pro (72k) 500GB, but I think I'll get this instead. Use my 1TB for backups, and this to take with me.
 
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Lol usb 3.0 is faster than esata.
 

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It might not be 5GB/s like it is on paper but its on par if not slightly faster.
 

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It might not be 5GB/s like it is on paper but its on par if not slightly faster.

i've seen heaps of tests and ran my own with what limited USB 3 devices i have, and e-sata (at sata-II speeds) always comes out faster.
 

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you gotta be shitting me, the speed boost is massive. read would go from ~30MB/s to more like 65MB/s, and even on USB 2.0 ports it gets kicked up to 37.5



if you're going to comment on USB 3.0, at least either read up on it or use it first.

Mussels is back. Someone give me my 25$!

As to your point, I did some tests with a few 2.5" 5400RPM drives that I have, both connected through SATA and connected via a USB 2.0 adapter.

I simply found that USB 3.0 was not worth it for those particular drives.
 

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Mussels is back. Someone give me my 25$!

As to your point, I did some tests with a few 2.5" 5400RPM drives that I have, both connected through SATA and connected via a USB 2.0 adapter.

I simply found that USB 3.0 was not worth it for those particular drives.

uhhh.... you ran them on a USB 2.0 port, you just said that. of course thats slower than connected to a USB 3.0 port or E-sata.


the cap goes from ~32MB/s to 37.5MB/s in the testing you did, but more like 100MB/s on a USB 3.0 port on modern drives.
 
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I don't see any use of such thin drive. It's still large and I see you need to attach something to be able to use USB with it...
 
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