PATREONItems tagged with (NASDAQ:STX)
We've seen plenty of announcements so far this week with respect to notebooks and desktops, but Seagate is delivering the goods with speedy storage solutions. The company has announced new external drives in the form of the FireCuda Gaming SSD and BarraCuda Fast SSD. The FireCuda Gaming SSD takes the existing FireCuda PCIe NVMe 510 SSD and hooks it up with a USB 3.2 Gen2×2 interface (SuperSpeed USB 20Gb/s). Seagate says that the storage solution will deliver read speeds topping out at 2GB/sec. According to the company, the FireCuda Gaming SSD will be available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities. The SSD is nestled within a metal chassis that is adorned with customizable RGB...
Read more...
Solid state drives (SSDs) have taken over the gaming space thanks to their blazing fast speeds compared to HDDs and their downward-trending pricing that make then even more attractive. Seagate is homing in on the performance aspect with its new FireCuda 520 gaming SSD. The FireCuda 520 uses the newly adopted PCIe 4.0 interface, which means that the only consumer platform out there that currently fully supports it is AMD's X570 for Ryzen 3000 processor. However, if you have a compliant X570 motherboard, you'll be able to enjoy read speeds of up to 5GB/sec and write speeds of up to 4.4GB/sec. This is right in line with other PCIe 4.0 SSDs that we've seen announced over the past...
Read more...
You'd be forgiven if you simply haven't been keeping up with advancements in hard drive storage these days. After all, many PC OEMs -- especially on the laptop side -- are abandoning HDDs in favor of SSDs to give customers a better (i.e. faster) computing experience. But that isn't stopping Seagate from throwing down the gauntlet with its new lineup of 16TB helium-filled hard drives covering the Exos and IronWolf product families. When it comes to cost per gigabyte, SSDs still can't match HDDs, hence the arrival of the Exos X16, which is targeted at hyperscale computing and the datacenter markets. The 3.5-inch drives have a spindle speed of 7200rpm and consume on average 5W of power...
Read more...
Consumers have never had more choices if they need to purchase storage, whether it's hard drives, flash drives, solid-state drives, or even cloud or network-attached storage. Save for a couple of blips, prices have steadily creeped downward and today you can score a 10TB hard drive for only $300, or a measly $0.03 per gigabyte. For many users, that's plenty of space -- more than enough to store their movies, photos, music, and documents. For others, though, 10TB just won't cut it. For those users, thankfully, it's almost HAMR time... With "heat-assisted magnetic recording", or HAMR, Seagate will use heat to increase density much further than they can be with traditional PMR (perpendicular...
Read more...
Seagate is flexing its mechanical hard drive line like its 1999, only with much larger capacities for the modern era. Sure, many of us have moved on to solid state drives, at least for our primary storage. But there is still a market for good old fashioned HDDs. Several markets, actually, and Seagate hopes to serve them all with several new 14 terabyte models. The storage maker updated its entire range of HDDs with new 14TB models, including its IronWolf and IronWolf Pro for network attached storage (NAS) appliances, BarraCuda Pro for consumer desktops, SkyHawk for surveillance applications, and Exos X14 for hyperscale data centers. In other words, there's a 14TB model for everyone. "Data protection,...
Read more...
Back in late 2017, Seagate gave us a taste of what's to come with its multi-actuator technology for modern hard drives. Whereas today's hard drives use a single actuator to sweep across the spinning platters, Seagate actually uses two actuators that move independently around a single pivot point, potentially doubling drive performance. While all of this sounds great in theory, Seagate is actually putting its money where its mouth is and says that prototype drives featuring this tech are already delivering on its promises. In addition, Seagate's multi-actuator tech has been given a fancy marketing name: MACH.2. A single MACH.2-based hard drive was able to set a new speed record, delivering up...
Read more...
In April 2013, cloud storage provider Backblaze kicked off what would immediately become a tradition. Each year, the company analyzes an incredible amount of data collected over the course of the year to give the rest of us an impression on which hard drive vendors come out ahead, and which fall behind. In other words, it's a polite way of analyzing which vendor "is more likely to lose your data". In Q4 of last year, Backblaze had 91,243 hard drives in operation, a number which excludes boot drives and a few others that couldn't meet the company's criteria of having at least 45 drives of one model in use during the period monitored (to give more accuracy to the results). As seen in the table...
Read more...
With solid state drives (SSDs) having long ago taken the speed crown away from hard disk drives (HDDs), manufacturers of the latter storage device have primarily resorted to pushing the boundaries with regards to capacity. In recent months, we've seen HDDs reach capacities of 14TB, but that doesn't mean that there won't be advances that help increase performance along the way. That's where Seagate comes into focus with what it is calling Multi Actuator technology. Seagate explains that while today's HDDs have greater areal densities than ever before, it has handicapped overall drive performance. To combat this lull in performance, Seagate is taking aim at the drive actuator. A HDD's actuator...
Read more...
The 4K-capable Xbox One X might be the gaming console hardware stare of E3 (so far), but Seagate is making some waves of its own with the introduction of the new Game Drive Hub for the Xbox One. The external hard drive offers a positively massive, for a console, 8TB of storage space. Microsoft is promoting its recently-launched Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which offers 100+ games and requires you to download each full game to your hard drive instead of streaming it directly. The 1TB HDD that is included with the new Xbox One X might not be enough to keep up with your downloading habits with Xbox Game Pass, so the Game Hub Drive definitely can help in that area. It is capable of holding...
Read more...
There might not be a storage medium that's definitively indestructible, or perfectly reliable, but solid-state storage would rank near the top. A hard drive, for example, might be able to house a large amount of data, but if it's dropped to the ground, or its host PC is bumped hard enough, all of that data could effectively be ruined in the blink of an eye. Solid-state storage is a bit different. If it's jostled during operation, it won't be affected, and the same goes for experiencing a fall to the ground. But, despite its durability, it's still not indestructible or entirely reliable, and new research from Carnegie Mellon University, Seagate, and ETH Zürich highlights some new reason why. It's...
Read more...
There’s no question that solid-state drives (SSDs) are all the rage today in consumer and enterprise computing. It’s hard to argue with the speed, small form-factors and energy efficiency of SSDs; but when it comes to price-per-gigabyte (especially in large capacities drives), hard disk drives (HDDs) still reign supreme. Seagate is looking to widen that pricing gap within the next few years by ramping up the capacity of its HDDs. While Seagate’s current HDDs top out at 10TB (12TB drives are currently sampling), CEO Stephen Luczo stated during his company’s most recent earnings call that 14TB and 16GB HDDs will roll off the production line within the next 18 months. And if that isn’t enough storage...
Read more...
So you went and bought yourself a laptop with a fancy pants USB-C port, now what? Unfortunately accessory and peripheral makers seem to be dragging their collective feet releasing compatible devices, though understandably so with USB Type-A ports by far the dominant standard. However, do not lose hope, USB-C devices are coming. Need proof? Check out LaCie's newest Rugged portable drive solution. Wrapped in a tough orange shell, the new "LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C" (not the sexiest product name in the world) trades a micro USB port for a USB-C port so that users can connect the drive to USB 3.0-compatible computers as well as to USB-C Thunderbolt 3 models. It also features an integrated Thunderbolt...
Read more...
When it comes to your data, we always suggest having multiple backups in place. Well, Amazon and Seagate have partnered up to make backing up files to different locations and storage mediums easy and seamless. What they've designed is an external hard drive called that Seagate Duet that automatically syncs all data to the cloud via Amazon Drive. The external drive offers 1TB of local storage in a slim and lightweight form factor that is as portable as a smartphone. It connects to PCs through a USB 3.0 connection for fast data transfers, though the Duet is a mechanical hard drive so it's not going to offer the level of performance as a solid state drive like Samsung's Portable SSD T3. Other than...
Read more...
You might think that storage makers are 100 percent focused on solid state drives these days, but that isn't the case. Mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs) still offer the best price-per-gigabyte ratio for bulk storage duties, and to keep things going, Seagate today announced its Enterprise Performance 15K HDD v6 in 300GB, 600GB, and 900GB capacity options. This is the 6th generation of Seagate's Enterprise Performance HDD line and not only is it the fastest and best performing to date, Seagate claims you can't buy a faster HDD from any manufacturer. That translates into a sustained transfer rate of up to 315MB/s. Using an enhanced caching feature, Seagate says buyers can expect up to a 27 percent...
Read more...
Seagate first revealed its 10TB enterprise-class hard drives to us back in January, and at the time, the storage monsters were being sampled at Alibaba and Huawei. Now, those same drives, which Seagate claims are the “highest capacity drives available worldwide,” have entered regular production and are currently shipping. The drives come in a 3.5-inch form-factor and are filled with helium, which helps to reduce power consumption. Given that these drives will likely be occupying space in countless server racks within data centers around the globe, any reduction in power is appreciated because companies can realize savings directly in their power bills. The 10TB drive will come in two varieties...
Read more...
Seagate is trying to make mechanical hard drives sexy again and it's doing it with a new thin and fast 2-terabyte mobile HDD for laptop applications. According to Seagate, its new drive is the planet's first and only 2TB capacity HDD offered a scant 7mm capacity, which is the same thickness as a typical solid state drive (SSD). At only 3.17 ounces, it's also light—25 percent lighter than Seagate's previous generation of mobile HDDs, the company says. More than just bragging rights, notebook manufacturers have been on a mission to offer customers increasingly thin and light designs. Seagate's new drive allows them to continue to do so, while also offering customers more capacity per dollar than...
Read more...
Computer parts don't have to look geeky or boring. Few companies know this better than LaCie, which has a history of dressing up external storage devices in spiffy digs. Adding to its portfolio of fancy storage devices is its new Chromé, which is not to be confused with anything having to do with Google. The Chromé is a desktop storage accessory that packs a pair of 500 gigabyte M.2 SATA solid state drives in RAID 0. That gives users a total of 1-terabyte of blazing fast storage, and to keep the interface from being a bottleneck, LaCie equipped the Chromé with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port with a Type-C connector. LaCie's decision to use Gen 2 is an important distinction. There's...
Read more...
To cope with a PC market that continues to see declining sales and cut operating expenses, Seagate is reportedly preparing to slash around 1,050 jobs. That amounts to a 2 percent reduction in the company's total workforce, which currently sits at around 52,200 employees.Seagate's bean counters say the layoffs will save the company around $113 million per year. The job cuts will also result in pretax charges of around $53 million. For Seagate, it's simply a numbers game as it puts into motion a restructuring program that it hopes will curb declining profits.The storage maker has seen a drop in sales the past two quarters, which it attributes to weak demand from original equipment manufacturers...
Read more...
Seagate on Tuesday announced a new portfolio of 8TB mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs) consisting of the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD, Seagate Enterprise NAS HDD, and Seagate Kintec HDD. The new 8TB drives cover markets for small-and-medium-size businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises.Starting with the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD, this 8TB uses conventional magnetic recording and boasts a 100 percent performance increase over Seagate's previous generation offering. Seagate sees this drive as a high capacity and reliable option for cloud and traditional enterprise applications.The Seagate 8TB Enterprise NAS HDD is built to scale. It provides a third more storage density for any...
Read more...
Apple announced its uber-thin MacBook yesterday to much fanfare. The device measures just 13.1mm at its thickest point and tips that scales at drool-worthy two pounds. Apple even managed to throw in a Retina display, “all-day battery life,” and Intel’s power efficient Core M processor that doesn’t require a fan. But in Apple’s never-ending quest to make all of its devices as thin as possible, it gave up all traditional ports including Thunderbolt 2, USB 3.0, and HDMI — it even had to forgo the SD slot. In its place is a solitary USB-C type connector. And wouldn’t you know it, just a day after the new MacBook announcement, Seagate and LaCie have stepped in with the first device that will fill...
Read more...
Cloud storage companies don't just manage an obscene number of hard drives, they also deal with a huge number of failures. While most companies keep mum on things like failure rates, BackBlaze prefers to let the rest of us know who we should trust. You might recall that we reported on its first batch of findings one year ago. The results indicated that WD and HGST proved to be the most durable, while Seagate fell quite a bit behind. Well, as a brand-new report highlights, that situation hasn't changed much at all. In fact, Seagate's 3 terabyte failure rates are downright abysmal. The following chart speaks volumes (no pun): BackBlaze deems a drive to be a failure when: A) It won't spin up; 2)...
Read more...
Since when is an external hard drive solution a decorative desk piece? Since now, apparently -- Seagate's premium owned LaCie division today unveiled the LaCie Mirror portable hard drive that comes completely encased in scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass. It also comes with an ebony wooden base, which might seem odd for an external drive, though this is one of those cases where it would be a shame to keep it out of sight. The LaCie Mirror is a signature piece designed in collaboration with French designer Pauline Deltour. It's also functional -- inside the Mirror sits a 1TB hard drive for backup chores. Data transfers take place over USB 3.0, provided you have a USB 3.0 port on your PC....
Read more...
