SEAGATE’S NEW CENTRAL AXIS NETWORK STORAGE
MAKES BACK UP AND ACCESS TO FILES EASIER THAN EVER

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. — June 25, 2008 — To address the growing consumer need for storage in the home, Seagate (NYSE: STX) today announced the Maxtor® Central Axis™ network drive, a network storage drive that can be used by the whole family. This latest drive from Seagate provides a terabyte of storage that every computer in the home can back up to. In addition to media streaming capabilities for video, photos and music, the new Maxtor Central Axis network drive also includes an easy-to-use remote accessservice that allows people to easily and securely retrieve content stored on their network drive through any Internet browser.

A concept once only reserved for the small business and enterprise space, networked storage
is increasingly becoming a viable option for multiple-computer homes. According to Yankee
Group’s 2008 Device Survey, of those who purchased network routers for the home, 75.9%
did so with the intent of providing multiple computers with access to the Internet. The
challenge of these multi-computer households is the ability to share and back up files from
each computer. Maxtor Central Axis network drive allows for each computer in the home to
be automatically backed up, so important files and precious memories are sheltered from
virus infections or disc drive failures. Sharing files from computer to computer is easy when
there is one repository for any file that you would like to share. Additionally, since the storage device
is connected to the router and not formatted for an individual computer, files can be accessed and stored from both Mac OS X and Windows operated PCs.

“The days of external storage simply serving as an extension to a full hard drive are over – the era of personal digital content has seen to that,” said Josh Martin, senior analyst of Yankee Group’s Media and Entertainment devices.

“Survey data indicates that over 41% of recent external storage buyers did so to back up their data not because they ran out of room on the primary computer. With the emotional connection people have to their photos and videos, I believe the trend will only continue.”

The Maxtor Central Axis network drive liberates content that was once trapped on individual computers. This easy to use solution enables multimedia file sharing from every computer in the home as well as from common entertainment devices, which are DLNA compliant, such as Microsoft® Xbox® 360 and Sony® PlayStation® 3™. Watching home movies, viewing pictures of the last family vacation and listening to music can now all be enjoyed in the living room through networked console players instead of having guests crowd around a computer monitor in the den or a small laptop computer screen. This storage device helps put your digital entertainment back in a room where the whole family can enjoy it.

“Our Central Axis solution is a snap to set up and use for nearly every member of the family. Any household with a network would benefit from having a way to back up every PC in the home and share files between them,” said BenHur Castor, director of product line management for Seagate’s Consumer Solution Division. “Back up is essential to make certain photos, videos and other important files live beyond the life of an individual computer. The Central Axis network drive provides a complete solution for back up storage as well as file sharing in the home and from the road.”

In addition to providing networked access to important files, Maxtor Central Axis network drive provides a way to easily share and access files when you are not on the network. With the ever-growing dependence on access to information and digital content, whether that be multimedia content, spreadsheets or business-related documents, you’ll find there are times when you’ll need to access these files remotely. Retrieving content that is saved to a network drive when you are not local to the network has always raised concerns about security and complexity. Most applications involve installing software on the computer accessing the drive. Many remote access applications also require a breach in a firewall, leaving the network and your data open and vulnerable to attack.

With Maxtor Central Axis, you can easily log into the remote access service from an Internet browser to securely access and share the files stored on the networked storage drive. There are no applications to download or plug-ins required. Central Axis establishes a secure connection to the service without the need to disable firewalls. All that is needed to access the drive from any Web browser is a username and password.

Central Axis Network Drive
Designed as a home network storage drive, the Maxtor Central Axis 1TB capacity drive is expected to be available in the US in July from major retailers, distributors and online stores, as well as at www.maxstore.com, for a suggested retail price of $329.99. Availability in Europe and Asia will come later this year. Please visit www.maxtorsolutions.com for more information, including local distribution channels and retail outlets.

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Update: By now, most of you have figured out that Iomega and LaCie only make the housings, so if the drive itself fails, you have to unscrew the box to see who the real culprit is. Also, anyone voting for IBM can just vote for Hitachi, which bought the whole IBM storage division a number of years ago.

As for those of you who complain that this poll is not scientific, you are TOTALLY RIGHT!!! It's not scientific. Go back to your Science and your Nature for the raw research, cuz over here we're talking about life experiences.

THE CABLE SHOW '08, New Orleans — May 19, 2008 — At NCTA's Cable Show, Seagate Technology (NYSE:STX) announced it will introduce its Seagate® Showcase™ storage solution, a new series of products that extends the storage capacity of your Digital Video Recorder (DVR), so you never have to say goodbye to your favorite movies and television shows. Seagate also announced that the Showcase family of products will be designed to be compatible with Motorola's market leading e-SATA capable high-definition (HD) digital video recorder (DVR) set-top portfolio.

The new Showcase™ products will provide television and movie fans with the ability to store even more shows, movies and sporting events. With initial capacities up to 1TB, consumers will be able to keep up to 200 hours of additional HD movies or 1,000 hours of additional standard definition television. You'll never have to choose between your kids' favorite shows or the big game. Plug-and-play capability, via standard USB 2.0 or eSATA connection, makes setup easy while the stylish design fits seamlessly into entertainment centers and complements the look of existing A/V equipment.

"Today's consumers are constantly demanding more storage for high-definition video and high-fidelity audio - and they want it as part of their home entertainment system," said Patrick King, senior vice president of Seagate's Consumer Solutions Division. "We believe that the Seagate Showcase product line will take its place alongside the receiver, speaker system and television as a must-have component for the entertainment center. We are pleased to be working with Motorola to enable an enjoyable consumer experience."

"As consumer video consumption continues to increase at exponential rates, Motorola strives to provide flexible and cost-effective solutions" commented Larry Robinson, vice president, Set Top Product Management at Motorola. "By demonstrating interoperability with the Seagate Showcase storage solution we are offering consumers additional compelling storage options for their entertainment content."

The new Showcase family will feature Seagate's recently announced Pipeline HD™ Series of hard drives purpose-built for DVRs. Seagate Pipeline HD™ Series hard drives are the gold standard in high definition performance and capacity with bedroom-quiet acoustics, low power operation and the ability to support up to 12 simultaneous HD streams. The drives are Windows Vista Certified, making them an ideal solution for Home Media Centers.

Seagate is working with Motorola, the leader in digital set-tops with over 73 million shipped, to deliver external storage solutions for DVRs. By connecting a Seagate Showcase product with its included eSATA cable, the capacity of these DVRs can instantly be increased - eliminating the need to delete your favorite movies or shows. The 1TB Seagate Showcase drive can be seen exclusively in the Motorola booth # 1405 during The Cable Show '08 at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

Availability

Seagate Showcase™ products are scheduled to be available for purchase on the Seagate website beginning in the third calendar quarter of 2008.

Computerworld reports that the shuttle mission included conducting atmospheric tests:

One of those tests was an experiment for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to determine how xenon gas flows in a zero gravity environment.

The drive, already eight years old at the time of the mission, took a beating in the crash, and took another beating during recovery. Stripped down to the platter alone, it was placed in another mechanism and "carefully aligned" with a new motor. As it spun, it sustained more damage, but didn't crap out before Kroll could get the goods. More gory details, and a lot of great pictures, are over at Computerworld.

I know, I know: Why don't they make the shuttle out of the same material they make the drive? The non-standup-comedian answer is that two other drives on the shuttle were completely unrecoverable, so there's definitely a luck element here. [Computerworld]

Here's my tally:
• 80 GB in my new shiny MacBook Air
• 250 GB in my old faithful iMac (now recovered from a hard drive crash a few weeks ago)
• 320 GB in an old Western Digital MyBook external drive
• 500 GB in a shiny new FireWire MyBook
• 500 GB in an Iomega "Screenplay" connected to the TV, filled with movies
• 40 GB in a CF card reader/storage box
• 30 GB in an unbranded FireWire drive sitting abandoned in the cupboard
• 40 GB in an old iBook with a borked power unit in the same cupboard
• 250 GB in my set-top broadband TV box

That comes to a grand total of 2010 GB, so around 2 TB. That seems a ridiculous amount, to me. And apart from the "dead" gadgets, all those drives are in pretty constant use (some for backup).

• In MP3 terms, that's 3,195 days worth of music—nearly nine years, nonstop.
• A plain text Complete Works of Shakespeare runs to 5MB, so there's room for 400,000 of those.
• A RAW file from my camera is 8MB so there's space to store about 250,000— enough to take 28 photos an hour for the next year, by which time the shutter would've clicked its last.
• A compressed feature film from a DVD will fit in a gig, so there's room for around 2,000 of those.

That seems like plenty, but maybe I'm wrong. Come on, Giz readers, tell me:

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The data recovery will be done on site unless the problem is particularly tricky — in that case the device would be sent to the Seagate lab. Turnaround times are expected to be 3-5 days for smaller devices and a week for large devices. The recovered data will be presented to the customer on a Seagate USB device, or a 6GB Seagate pocket drive depending on the amount of data recovered. In the event that the process fails, the customer will not be charged.

The Staples / Segate partnership definitely sounds like a great option for anyone who isn't in the habit of backing up their vast porn collections. However, until more pricing information is made available, it is hard to tell whether this presents a cheaper alternative to other services out there —although it had damn well better be a better option than the f'ng Geek Squad. [Informationweek and Computerworld]

The internal investigation by the contract manufacturer determined that the virus was accidentally transferred by one of its employees and not a malicious act.

Reuters reported that it was a Seagate disk discovered in Taiwan, but the truth is, the Maxtor Basics 3200 (aka PS 3200) is available all over the world, and the infected lot made its way to many regions including China, Russia and the Middle East. Our source confirmed that the problem was discovered internally almost two months ago, and only boiled over last week when the Taiwanese government got mad at China:

In late September, Seagate discovered that a virus had been introduced to one of our retail products from one contract manufacturer. Seagate put an immediate stop to the production line and quarantined the facility until we could confirm that all drives leaving the factory were free of the virus.

Maxtor explains that the extent of damage of the Chinese-made Trojan-horse was minor:

Investigation...showed it was a threat to gaming passwords only and that a virus scan...would rid the drive—and any system attached to it—of the virus. Also, there have been some references to the virus deleting MP3s. Although it is a minor inaccuracy, this is also incorrect. The original suspicion out of Kaspersky Labs was that MP3s were being deleted by the virus, but tests have since proved that it does not.

• Test software verifies that each PS 3200 unit contains no files in the root directory and no files are hidden in the system files. The PS 3200 product line does not ship with any software.
• The PS 3200 test procedure has been updated to run each unit through three separate anti-virus software applications (Norton, McAfee, and Kaspersky Labs). Previously testing was conducted with one anti-virus application.
• Seagate has strictly limited employees access to the test PCs; all employees must now pass through metal detectors.

Metal detectors sound pretty hardcore, but I for one am satisfied. Hopefully other companies with similar manufacturing vulnerabilities will learn from Seagate's little misadventure. [Maxtor Basics 3200]

After I upgraded my MacBook Pro to OS X Leopard, the first thing I did was grab a brand-new Maxtor USB drive and format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utility, just like I had countless times before. As soon as I erased the disk, Time Machine popped up as promised, and asked if it could use the disk for backup. I said yes, and was on my merry way. Only I wasn't.

Time Machine ran for a bit, and then crapped out after about 10GB. I went into Disk Utility and saw that although the partition was formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), the volume itself still said FAT32. I clicked Erase to reformat the drive, and got the format failure error you see above.

I tried this with FAT-formatted drives from Seagate, Iomega and HP as well. Each time I saw the same thing. I could reformat the partition to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and Time Machine would recognize it. Get Info would say that it was formatted correctly. But Disk Utility showed that the volume was formatted for PC. Inevitably, if the Time Machine backup was greater than 10GB, there were problems. Worst of all, if I dared try to format the volume for Mac, I would get the dreaded error, and the disk would be temporarily unmountable.

Not only did I vary drives, but I tested the problem on various systems too. I tried it booting from the Leopard DVD, with the same results. Ditto when I tried it using my wife's Leopard-upgraded MacBook Pro. (Yes, his n' hers MBPs. You can insert your "awwww" here.) The end result was that I couldn't break the FAT grip on these damn drives.

I made some calls, I talked to some people, and eventually here was the solution: you wipe the hell out of the drive by creating new and different partitions. So, do not head to the Erase tab in Disk Utility to prep a PC-formatted drive for Time Machine. Instead:

• Go to the Partition tab. Create two partitions. Under Options, select GUID Partition Table (what you would use to make a Mac OS boot disk) and click OK then Apply.

• Once your partitions are in place, do it again, reverting back to just one partition, but still keeping the GUID Partition Table option. Click OK and Apply again, and at this point you should be cool.

• To be safe, you can then go to Erase and set formatting for Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then format it once and for all. But when you get there, you will probably see that your volume is already formatted in the right way.

UPDATE: Some people have gotten this to work without creating two partitions. If you like, try creating just a single partition, but using the GUID Partition Table option. This may be all it takes to break the chokehold.

Using this method, I have gotten all of the disks to work just fine with Time Machine, and I don't anticipate any problems in the future.

OK, I know, quite a bit of nerdiness, but I wanted to get out there and tell you about the problem I encountered, in case you are having the same troubles, or plan on getting there sooner or later. Also, this solution is actually a workaround of sorts. My hope is that Apple can update Disk Utility with a stronger form of disk erasing that doesn't require so many manual steps, but if I am missing something obvious, I'd love to hear it. Please share any troubles you've had, or any better solutions you've cooked up.

Special thanks to Dorian and Ken!

Section 337 bans all product importation when they infringe upon U.S. patents. Which if the International Trade Commission judge sides with the patent holder, the aforementioned companies will be subject to. Although this will only be a problem for the companies if the court sides in favor of the patent holders, Steven and Mary Reiber. Even then, they can still appeal that ruling as well, and if history gives us any clues (Remember Qualcomm?), then the hard drive manufacturers just might get off this time. Otherwise Samsung looks like it will be getting a lot of new business[Ars Technica]

Seagate's touting its newest Cheetah drive, the 15k.6, as "the highest-performance drive ever in a 3.5-inch form factor" with lower power consumption (hopefully less noise, too) and a 28-percent boost in sustained data transfer rates. It'll be available in 147, 300 and 450GB flavors.

Rounding out the three is a perpendicular recording notebook drive, the Momentus 5400.4, which features capacities up to 250GB on two platters. Seagate claims it'll withstand up to 325 Gs of shock during operation and 900 during non-operation—sounds like a challenge to us. It's set to ship by the end of the year. [Seagate, Seagate]

Some of my competitors went nuts on pricing... but, you know, we all peed in the pool

What'd we like? It's small, lightweight and quiet but feels surprisingly sturdy. It looks great and the yellow glow is nice, but if it's not for you, you can always turn it off. The read/write speed is average, so there's nothing to complain about there (you can scope out the benchmarks in the gallery). Apps run from the drive generally lag-free.

What we didn't like:

If you want to run a program from the drive not on Ceedo's list, it requires the Argo add-on, which is $20. This is made more frustrating by the fact that their site contains out-of-date applications—I want to run Thunderbird 2.0, not 1.5. Installing programs could be more elegant and intuitive. Also, virtualization doesn't work for Macs. Plus, we'd like (but admittedly don't need) a Firewire port.

Bottom line: If you're want a portable, external hard drive that'll turn heads and run reliably to cart stuff around and don't might paying a little bit extra, in terms of $ to GB, this isn't a bad a way to go. Running programs from the drive also works well for the most part, though it could (and should) be improved. – Matt Buchanan

Product Page [Seagate]

Netaffilia

All that data is packed into this tiny disk by using perpendicular recording technology, and it's the first 160GB pocket drive we've seen that can deliver 7200rpm speed. We have a 100-gig drive in this same enclosure from Other World Computing, and find it to be a speedy and versatile performer. Plus, we like its spiffy blue LED inside, lighting things up just for fun. If you're looking for lots of capacity and could use that 7200rpm speed, this might be well worth your $279.99. – Charlie White

Product Page [Other World Computing]

Product Page [Via Dealhack]

According to Seagate's projections on hard drive capacity:

[We show] a 2.5-inch drive reaching 1TB by 2013. Using that calculation and assuming 40% growth stays as the annual growth rate, a 1.8-inch would reach 1TB by 2014.

Disclaimer: I am not fully apprised as to the specific listening habits of Brian Lam, but I am sure that they are perfect...whatever that/keeping my job may entail. It can be Cher, even. We're not judging here—at least not vocally.

When Will We Have Pocket-Sized TB [gearlog]

-10 or 20GB,
-Bluetooth 2.0 rates hit 500-1000 kbits. Kind of pokey, but its BT, so what can you do?
-2.5 ounces.
-10 hours of battery life, using a recent disk caching tech that sips power.
-Parks HDD when it's falling.
-802.11b/g

–Brian Lam

Seagate [Gizmodo]

Here's Seagate's D.A.V.E. (digital audio-video experience), a hard drive with a tiny 3.5 x 4.7 x .47-inch form factor into which you can cram 20GB. It also gives you the ability to share stuff using its onboard Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity. It's tiny, it cost less than $200 and is small enough to slide into that shirt pocket. Neat Stuff. – Charlie White

Welcome to Seagate's "D.A.V.E.": wireless portable storage [Scobleizer]

It's definitely by Seagate. So, it's likely storage. Because tomorrow is the day of all days for Microsofties, the Vista launch, I believe it might be something to do with hybrid drives. You know, the ones that use flash memory and platters to store data. Then again they'd have to be new ones, since Seagate already has some on the market. But then there's the reference to Steve Jobs. And his repeated use of the world "small." It could be a new class of microdrive suitable for use in portable media devices. Maybe a hybrid. One thing is certain: I'm sure it'll be something completely underwhelming. I can't remember the last time I got the gadget-tinglies from a storage device that wasn't bejeweled or golden or pee-resistant.

Blind items? They're still sublime. Thanks for getting the noggin churning. –Brian Lam

"Little" gadget coming tomorrow [Scobleizer]

Even though it's a lot faster, Seagate's updated Savvio hard disk is more power efficient than most, consuming just 5.8 watts when idle, compared to the 8.4 watts consumed by most desktop drives. And how fast is it? Its data access time of 2.9ms is faster than any other, at least for now. It's beginning to ship in HP ProLiant servers in capacities of 36GB or 73GB.– Charlie White

Seagate claims world's fastest hard drive [electronista, via CrunchGear]

The portable Go drives, equipped with USB 2.0 ports, come in 80- and 120-GB paperback book-sized models (at $130 and $180), and shirt pocket-sized Go Small model ($150) that holds 12GB. The Go series drives all have the ability to store applications, allowing you to run them on any computer without having to install them to the local hard disk.

Finally, Seagate introduced the FreeAgent Desktop Data Movers — basic external hard drives ranging from 250 to 500 gigabytes ($130 to $260). – Sean Captain

Inside Seagate's R&D Labs [Wired]

Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn.

Don't forget pirating media, Bill. – Jason Chen

Seagate CEO: I help people "watch porn" [CNN - Thanks Blair!]

Product Page [Via Slickdeals]

The drive joins the Pioneer Inno XM radio receiver we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, also saving the tits with a contribution of around 10% its cost to that same foundation. Let's help the gals out and fight breast cancer with gadgets. Well worth $99 in our book. We dig this kind of stuff, because, after all, we are the tits. – Charlie White

Seagate Pink Pocket Hard Drive aids Cancer Institution [Gizmodiva.com]

SEAGATE 400GB PATA ST3400632A-RK. [Outpost]

The NAS has software licensed from Fabrick that allows users to access their data, like video and music, using a Java enabled web browser. You can also use an AJAX web application to manage the files on the drive. For example, dragging and dropping files for transferring to and from your local machine.

Access to the content can be restricted to specific users with password protectionk, and you can also create "microshares" and "microlinks" to link specific content to online auction sites like eBay and social sites like MySpace. You can also create a "Public Site" to share content directly from the Maxtor Fusion with the outside world.

– Jason Chen

Pre-launch Site [Maxtor via MacWorld]

Starting June 1 2007, Microsoft is making hybrid hard drive mandatory for laptops to contain the "Vista Premium" Logo. For hard drive makers that don't currently have hybrid drives, Microsoft will help them get set up with a partner to introduce one for use in laptops. So far Seagate and Samsung are the only two manufacturers to make hybrid drives.

If you've already purchased a laptop that's capable of running Vista, there should probably be no problem in buying a copy of the new OS and upgrading your machine. – Jason Chen

TechEd 2006: Hybrid hard drives to become Vista Premium requirement [TG Daily via eHomeUpgrade]

The 2.5 inch drive will spin at 5400RPM, and it will be available with your choice of 128MB or 256MB of flash memory on board. That flash chip will have often-accessed data on it, and Seagate says it will reduce boot times by around 20%. Another great benefit is that it will let your notebook's battery last from 5% to 15% longer. Plus, the drive should be more durable because all those moving parts can be parked while the flash memory is accessed.

Other notable intros were an 8GB pocket drive, a 160GB drive with full disk encryption, a 750GB Barracuda ES, a 60GB 1.8-inch perpendicular-recording drive for handhelds, and the LD25.2, a 750GB disk destined for the HDTV media center market. – Charlie White

Seagate to offer hybrid hard drives for Vista notebooks [TG Daily]

Momentus 5400 PSD (.pdf document) [Seagate]

The 3.5-inch 7200RPM hard drive uses the latest perpendicular recording technology, and can be hooked up via USB 2.0 or FireWire. Look for it in stores this month.

Seagate 750GB Pushbutton external hard drive [Newlaunches]

Seagate's launching a new series of hard drives called the Barracuda 7200.10, and the first release from it has just been officially announced: a whopping 750 GB hard drive that'll be hitting stores in May for $590. PC World took it for a spin recently and says "it leads the 7200-rpm pack in overall performance". Those of you who don't do video or host servers, what the heck you going to load this thing up with?

Seagate Expands Desktop Hard Drive Lead with 750GB Monster Built on Perpendicular Recording Technology [Seagate, via MobileWhack]
First Look: Seagate's New Giant Hard Drive Screams to the Top [PC World]

Seagate Leaks 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 Details [Daily Tech]

Seagate Barracuda 300GB [digg]