Western Digital has started shipping its high-capacity 2.5-inch HDD line for notebooks in India. The 9.5mm WD Scorpio Blue HDD boasts a storage capacity of 1TB that utilizes two 500GB-platter form factor.

WD says that its Scorpio Blue line of HDDs are designed to consume very less power and is coupled with WD’s WhisperDrive technology that ensures a quiet operation.

Additionally, the drive is equipped with SecurePark that keeps the recording head away from touching the disk to enhance reliability and ShockGuard to protect from accidental bumps (up to 400Gs).

WD Scorpio Blue 1 TB (model WD10JPVT) is priced at Rs. 10,650 excluding taxes.

When it comes to selling USB external drives, companies have few selling points to entice consumers. They can lure them on the price front, storage capacity, looks or speed. And Seagate with its GoFlex Slim is targeting users seeking great looks as well as speed.

GoFlex Slim is the thinnest in Seagate’s arsenal, measuring just 9mm, which is as thick as a pencil. To keep the thickness down, GoFlex Slim is little wider and taller than its counterparts but good thing is that it is still pocketable.

The drive has a black anodized metal enclosure that makes it more durable and sturdy. However, there’s one little issue – the drive picks up fingerprints pretty easily. Not that a big issue but it is kind of irritating to wipe the drive if you use it a lot.

A device no matter how aesthetically pleasing, is useless if it can’t do its intended work efficiently. But I’m happy to report that GoFlex Slim fared pretty well. Housed under aluminum enclosure is a 320GB 7200 RPM drive coupled with the support of USB 3.0 interface, ensuring faster transfer. Needless to say, the drive is still compatible with PCs using USB 2.0 interface but the transfer speed will be restricted as per the USB 2.0 limitation.

Other couple of things that need a special mention are that the drives are formatted to use either with Windows or Mac. NTFS drivers are pre-loaded on the drive so that the drive can be used simultaneously on a Mac machine as well as Windows. However, Mac users won’t be able to use it as a Time Machine device unless reformatted to HFS+.

Another thing is that the drive comes with a detachable adapter. The adapter is a connector that integrates the USB 3.0 port but in case, you want to use the eSATA or FireWire interfaces, a purchasable adapter can be hooked with the GoFlex Drive to enhance its functionality. Moreover, you can use the drive to use it with the GoFlex Net media device or FreeAgent HD media player.

All in all, Seagate’s GoFlex Slim is a great storage device with the flair of looks and of course, high-speed. However, the only gripe with the whole setup is the limited space of 320GB. You cannot purchase a higher-capacity one in case, the drive starts to fill up. Hopefully, Seagate could bring a higher-capacity GoFlex Slim in the near future.

For now, the 320GB GoFlex Slim goes for around Rs.5,500.

Rating:
Pros: Sleek, Excellent Performance
Cons: No other SKU than 320GB

Seagate has announced its GoFlex Satellite HDD for Indian consumers. This new HDD comes with an integrated battery and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n that allows any Wi-Fi-enabled devices to take advantage of the HDD storage wirelessly.

Android and iPhone users can download dedicated apps from respective stores to consume content directly from the hard drive, which can continuously stream videos for up to 5 hours and can connect to three different Wi-Fi devices.

GoFlex Satellite comes in capacity of 500GB and allows content loading via USB 3.0 interface, which can be segregated easily with the included Media Sync software.

GoFlex Satellite will be available by end of this month for Rs.11,500 excluding taxes.

Seagate has launched a new 4TB GoFlex hard drive, which is the industry’s first external hard drive to sport such capacity. Coming in a new streamlined industrial design, the GoFlex Desk Drive can hold up to 4 terabytes of data, enough to hold over 2000 HD movies.

Additionally, the new drive supports GoFlex adapter that makes the drive compatible with USB 3.0 or FireWire 800 and comes with pre-loaded back up software.

The 4TB GoFlex Desk Drive is available in United States for $249.99.

Press Release

Samsung today announced a high capacity drive for notebooks that will enable users to store data up to 1TB. The Spinpoint M8 integrates two platters or 500GB each and is achieved by using advanced format technology (AFT). Additionally, the Spinpoint M8 boasts a 7 percent increase in operational speeds as well as up to 8 percent decrease in power consumption.

Spinpoint M8 supports 3Gbps interface and comes with 8MB buffer, EcoSeek and NoiseGuard to reduce noise levels and improved shock resistance.

Samsung is currently mass producing the drives and will sell for $129.

Seagate is one of the leading hard drive manufacturers and to extend its leadership in the business they’ve managed to buy Samsung’s ailing hard drive business. However, this is not a regular buyout as it stretches on number of other fronts.

Under the agreement, Samsung and Seagate will “extend and enhance” existing patent cross-license agreement; Seagate will supply HDDs to Samsung for their PCs, laptops; co-develop enterprise storage solutions; and Samsung will provide Seagate NAND flash memories for use in Seagate SSD products.

The total value of the transaction comes to around US$1.375 billion that will be paid in stock and cash. Additionally, Samsung will also gain about 9.6% ownership stake in Seagate and a place on the Board of Directors.

WD has added a higher capacity model to its My Book Studio II range. Targeted at creative professionals and Mac enthusiasts, the new model now allows users to store up to 6TB of data, 33 percent more than the previous high-capacity My Book Studio II model.

The My Book Studio II comes in dual-drive storage configuration and supports four different interfaces – eSATA, FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 for faster data transfers. As for Mac users, the My Book Studio II is formatted for Mac computers and is compatible with Apple Time Machine to allow automatic backups.

The drive is now available in United States for $549.99 with a 5-year limited warranty.

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Western Digital is now selling its fast 750GB 2.5-inch Scorpio Black HDD in the Indian market. The hard drive meant for notebooks and other portable storage devices supports SATA interface and promises desktop-like performance with spin speed of 7200RPM.

Apart from giving additional capacity and speed, the Scorpio Black drive has a 16MB cache, Advanced Format (AF) technology with added data-protection features and low power consumption, as much as a 5400RPM drive.

The WD Scorpio Black 750GB HDD (WD7500BPKT) is available for Rs.5275 plus taxes with 5-year warranty.

WD has brought its updated external HDD line to the Indian market. They’ve introduced the My Passport Essential, My Passport Essential SE portable hard drive and My Book Essential HDD, all equipped with the latest SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

Users will be able to transfer data to USB 3.0-compatible PCs at speeds to up to 5Gb/s, which means a two-hour HD video will transfer in about 3 minutes as compared to 13 minutes via USB 2.0 interface. The drives are obviously backward compatible in case a user wants to transfer data from a PC which does not support USB 3.0 yet.

Additionally, WD also announced a new 3TB HDD that will be available under the My Book Essential range.

All the drives sell with a 3-year limited warranty and are priced ranging from Rs.4,299 to Rs.10,999.

Seagate today announced the Constellation.2 hard drives meant for the enterprise-class consumers. The 2.5-inch drive goes up to 1TB in storage and is designed for server storage applications like Directed Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) environments.

The Constellation.2 supports 6GB/s SATA or SAS interface and comes with improved reliability and data security and self-encrypting option.

These drives are expected to ship this month via Dell’s range of products.

Press Release