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NewsSeagate Aims to Make "FreeAgent"="Consumer-Friendly Backup"

Posted 09/16/08 at 07:48:37 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Seagate's new fall 2008 line of FreeAgent drives for Windows

The Iomega Zip drive once was synonymous with consumer-friendly data backup. Seagate aims to change that with a huge makeover of its FreeAgent line of external hard disks and a companion advertising campaign designed to tug at the heartstrings of today's increasingly media-consuming families.

Announced Monday, Seagate's new FreeAgent models include the portable FreeAgent|Go and the desktop FreeAgent|Desk (both available in separate editions for Windows PCs and Macs) as well as the high-performance desktop FreeAgent|XTreme for Windows PCs. The goal of the new line of products is to "Save, Share. Simplify."

To learn more about how Seagate plans to make its slogan come true, join us after the jump.

Comments: 2
TAGS: storage, backup, seagate, external hard disk, portable hard disk, consumer electronics, desktop hard disk

NewsStrong Rumor: Samsung to Acquire SanDisk

Posted 09/06/08 at 02:49:49 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Consumer electronics giant Samsung also happens to be the world’s premier NAND Flash memory manufacturer. It now aims to further strengthen its position by acquiring flash memory maker SanDisk, if reports in the Korean media are to be trusted. The rationale behind such a move is that an acquisition will not only bolster Samsung’s current flash memory production capacity but also save the company about $350 million annually – the amount Samsung pays SanDisk in royalties. SanDisk has been navigating through some rough financial weather lately, but still is coveted by couple of big companies. Of course, rumors of Seagate making a bid for the company have also been around. A possible acquisition would handover a considerable advantage to Seagate in the SSD market. SanDisk certainly seems to have a few takers.

Comments: 3
TAGS: samsung, seagate, Sandisk, hardware, ssd, nand flash

NewsSeagate's Maiden TV Ad Campaign Targeting Consumers to Air in December

Posted 09/05/08 at 07:36:06 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Seagate hasn’t had to hard-sell its products directly to consumers hitherto, as manufacturers and disk drive resellers account for most of its sales. But all that will change in December with the airing of Seagate’s maiden commercial aimed at generic consumers.

Brian Dexheimer, the company’s president for consumer solutions, views the upcoming ad campaign as both an experiment and opportunity. The ad campaign will proclaim the indispensability of Seagate drives and show no gender bias – its Seagate not Gillette; there will be a separate set of ads for both men and women. Seagate’s ad budget has seen a substantial increase of 40% this year.

Comments: 0
TAGS: tv, Hard Drive, seagate, ads, hardware, ad campaign, disk drive

NewsHard Drive Sales Are Growing Almost As Fast As Capacities

Posted 08/02/08 at 03:23:16 PM by Justin Kerr

Marketing research firm iSuppli has reported on the status of the hard drive industry, and from the sounds of it, we just can’t get enough storage. In the first quarter of 2008, hard drive vendors shipped over 137 million units in a seemingly futile attempt to satiate consumer’s appetites for inexpensive storage. Despite the 21 percent increase in sales over the same period last year, many HDD vendors such as Seagate continue to struggle. iSuppli speculates that lower prices and a disproportionate demand for lower margin desktop drives are to blame. This is a trend that is likely to continue as SSD’s continue to plummet in price and become the storage medium of choice for mobile devices mainly due to its durability. Despite the challenges conventional hard drive makers face in the mobile market, iSuppli is forecasting strong demand in the second quarter with shipments estimated to be up by as much as 16 percent over 2007. Seagate continues to lead the pack with profits of $363 million, followed by Western Digital at $298 million, and Hitachi at $65 million. This is excellent news specifically for Hitachi who has been struggling to pull itself out of the red. So has our insatiable appetite for digital media made mass storage devices recession proof?

Click the jump and let us know what you think.

Comments: 2
TAGS: Hard Drive, seagate, Western Digital, hitachi, hardware, terabyte drive, areal density

NewsSeagate Launches Industry-First 1.5TB Desktop Drive, Destroys Storage Worldstone

Posted 07/10/08 at 12:34:22 PM by David Murphy

Put a feather in Seagate's cap. The storage titan has sprinted to the finish line and scored an exclusive: the world's first 1.5-terabyte hard drive. The 7,200rpm drive uses a mere four platters to achieve its huge capacity point -- that's 375GB per platter of areal density. Beefy.

Seagate is claming a sustained data rate of 120MB/s for its drive, which might very well be enough to place this little guy above Samsung's 333GB-per-platter HD103UJ drive. Other than that, the bulging Barracuda seems similar to every other high-capacity drive on the market: expect a 3Gb/s SATA interface and a typical 32MB of cache. Check out the full release below!

Comments: 6
TAGS: storage, Hard Drive, seagate, terabyte, hardware, barracuda, build a pc, 7200.11

NewsNot Just Another Big Network Drive: Maxtor Prepares to Put 1TB of Media-Savvy Storage on Your Home Network

Posted 06/27/08 at 04:35:09 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Maxtor, Seagate's home storage brand, is set to centralize home network storage with its new Central Axis network drive. In a world of other network attached storage devices, what makes it different than the competition?

Read on to discover how Central Axis is designed to "play nice" with today's diverse network configurations, and how much it will cost to add it to your home network.

Comments: 0
TAGS: network, windows, maxtor, seagate, Xbox 360, Gigabit Ethernet, hardware, MacOS, Playstation 3, external hard disk, upnp, DNLA, UPnP AV

NewsBill Watkins Versus the Solid-State Drive

Posted 05/14/08 at 04:07:34 PM by David Murphy

If the storage market shifts to flash memory, Seagate's CEO wants to be first to the party. He'll have plenty of parking too, if Seagate succeeds in using the law to tow every other manufacturer out of the way.