Seagate, the big huge hard drive company, has just now officially announced its first ever solid state drive. The press release title says “Seagate Introduces Its First Solid State Drive: Pulsar” and above the title it says “December 08, 2009.” To be fair, Seagate CEO Bill Watkins hasn’t been keen on solid state drives, saying a little over a year ago that his company wasn’t really considering the solid state market aside from these enterprise-level drives that have just been announced. → Read More
I like inovative products and after spending some time with the Seagate FreeAgent DockStar, I think it’s just that. This thing is cool. The concept is simple and thankfully, so is the product. All you do is insert a Seagate FreeAgent Go hard drive in the dock – or use a USB flash drive – and then the dock becomes not only a local network share, but also an Internet-connected storage device through Pogoplug. I’m pleased to report that it works without any hassle, but I still don’t think you should buy it. → Read More
The Seagate FreeAgent Go is a 1TB, USB-powered hard drive that works. What more do you wanna know? → Read More
Seagate’s just busted through that swing-down arm thing commonly found at tollbooths and for-pay parking lots. In the wake of thousands of little wooden splinters, we observe Seagate sticking its hairy arm out the driver’s side window, fist clenched but for a solitary index finger pointing skyward, as if to say, “I’m number one.” → Read More
Yet another possible glitch affecting the MacBook Pro, this time having to do with “strange clicking and beeping noises.” It seems that several people with the 7200 RPM hard drive (the Seagate Momentus 7200.4) have reported those “clicking” issues, as well as general performance issues. Can’t have that. → Read More
Because Mac users need hard drives more than Windows users. Seagate announced some brand spankin’ new external drives today that include the FreeAgent Go Drive for Mac w/ USB, FreeAgent Go Pro for Mac, a 2TB FreeAgent Desk for Mac and the FreeAgent Go Dock+. The dock is actually really cool. → Read More
Quick Version: In short, the FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player Solution from Seagate was made for a caveman if cavemen been around in 1999 when people actually used the DivX codec and only used Windows machines. Not to be completely unfair, but if you’re an avid reader of CrunchGear or a savvy BitTorrenter then this definitely isn’t what you’re looking for. → Read More
Hard drive prices are dropping and dropping. It’s it grand?! We love it. Anyway, newegg has some killer deals on hard drives today. Yup, these are from the same line of drives that had issues last year, but the new firmware seemed to have fixed those problems. These prices are too good to pass up too. → Read More
Seagate is claiming that their new SV35.5 series is the next step in hard drive technology, though it’s nominally just a new type of drive intended for video surveillance recording and other heavy 24/7 use. Seagate has also stated that these drives are intended for end users that constantly shuffle and read massive files that require a larger processing load. Sounds like your average bittorrent user to me. → Read More
Seagate manager Pete Steege tried to store his Seagate Go 320GB hard drive in ice for 100 days in order to prove that Seagate drives can withstand all manner of torture. Sadly, it didn’t quite make it. When he cut the drive out of his ice rink (!!) he cut the bag which wet the drive. → Read More
Newegg has a pretty good deal on a 1.5TB external hard drive. The Seagate FreeAgent costs $119, features a 7200 rpm drive, connects via USB, and includes free shipping (the deal ends today). Reviews have been mixed as this drive apparently had some problems early on, although it appears that the kinks have been worked out thanks to new firmware. Seagate FreeAgent [Newegg.com] → Read More
Seagate announced a new product line today, the Black Armor NAS. Targeted at small businesses, the new device has hardware level encryption and is available in 2, 4, 6, or 8TB capacities. → Read More
SATA 3.0 is about to bring the goods – and fast. Seagate and AMD partnered together to demo just what the hopeful revision will be capable of with a prototype Barracuda drive and AMD chipset. If Seagate gets its way. – you see, not all manufacturers are signed on just yet including Western Digital – SATA 3.0 will be a full 200% faster than the current generation while still being backwards compatible. → Read More
Remember those issues Seagate was having? No, not those issues; everybody has those right now (except Apple and Google). I’m talking about the thousands upon thousands of drives that have been freezing up due to a firmware issue. Seagate released a “fix” a while ago that took fixed the problem by bricking the drive, which was, needless to say, poorly received. → Read More
Seagate’s earnings report was released today, and it was revealed that during the most recent quarter, they had a net loss of $496 million. That’s a lot! Of course, the fact is most companies are showing enormous drops in revenue, and are weathering it variously well depending on their volume and incidental costs like restructuring, acquisitions and so on.
I’d be more worried about their actual hard drives than their business performance if I were you. Billion dollar multinational corporations don’t usually just seize up and die — unlike Seagate’s recent 1TB and 1.5TB hard drives. → Read More
Looks like Seagate is being dashed on the rocks by the worldwide financial gale as much as anyone else. In addition to cutting nearly 3000 jobs, they’re changing course by giving their CEO the boot.
Not only are sales down, but their flagship line of hard drives has been plagued with failures (including this bargain drive, which I urge you not to buy at the moment). And just lately the failures have been revealed to span not just the 1.5TB HDDs, but the perhaps more common 1TB ones. → Read More
No matter how you feel about Seagate’s reliability, you have to admit that this is a heck of a deal. For only $129, you get a 1.5TB drive with a 32MB buffer. What a steal! Better hurry, these Amazon deals usually don’t hang around that long. → Read More
When will companies learn that if you treat people badly, it will appear all over the Internet? According to this chat transcript between a Seagate hard drive owner and an online tech, Seagate has an interesting warranty policy that states the advertised one-year warranty doesn’t start when the drive is purchased, rather when it left the factory. So if the drive sat on retailer’s shelves for four months, the purchaser would only have eight months left to claim the warranty. Brandon R.: You have a one year warranty for the time the retailer gets the drive. That is what is covered by our warranty policy. Any extended warranty from that point will be covered by the retailer Chad Miller: How can one possibly know when the retailer got the drive? Do you timestamp the box? Chad Miller: If i’m in a store and see a Maxtor/Seagate box, I have to find out when they shipped it to the store? Brandon R.: The warranty is tied with the serial number, so when we ship the drive out from the assembly plant it is entered into our system. It also makes a difference on who buys the drive, retailers. Different drives will have different warranties based on what Seagate and the retailer agree on. Chad Miller: Yeah. So, how can I know when I pick up a box whether the warranty expired yesterday? Nice. Seagate’s Warranty Policy. Official Seagate response after the break. → Read More
Just in time to get you in that purchasing mood for Black Friday comes a Seagate-sponsored video from the Sniper Twins (above) that looks like something from SNL. Called “Computer Friends” [Stack the Memory], two white rappers sing about the need to upgrade their computers. It’s so bad you can’t stop watching it. And the music is catchy too.
1.5 terabytes,
stack the memory to the sky . . .
Oh God, I can’t get it out of my head. → Read More
