Western Digital just updated a number of their external drives with larger storage capacities and faster connections. Their smallest portable drive, the My Passport Essential, gets a faster USB 3.0 connection and a capacity of 500GB, while the My Passport Essential SE gets the faster interface and bigger storage caps of 750GB and 1TB. The external storage headliner is the My Book Essential external desktop drive, which just got updated with a USB 3.0 connection and boasts of “the highest industry capacity” with a new model that tops out at 3TB.
Seagate recently claimed a world first by launching the 3TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk, an external drive that packs a unique 3-Terabyte drive. That’s pretty much it for this one—basically a massive 3TBs’ worth of storage in a single frame that shouldn’t take up any more desktop space than any average external drive would. The package comes a USB 2.0 interface as its standard, but like the rest of the GoFlex line, it can be fitted with other faster interface standards like USB 3.0, eSATA or FireWire 800 after you pick up the right adapter kit.
Western Digital’s new My Book Studio LX drive won’t come cheap, but it’s certainly pretty thanks to an all-aluminum exterior case that matches the Mac’s style (as a bonus, it also keeps the drive cool while running for hours). It’s also built to perform, with a FireWire 800 interface for saving and accessing data faster than you’d normally get on the average USB interface.
This awesome-looking black box may look simple, but it’s definitely handy to have around the house (as long as you have a router and a network running at home, that is. Otherwise, it’s just a shiny, black box with a blue light underneath). Called the Network Space MAX, this kit is a network attached storage drive that adds up to 4TBs of storage space with multiple uses across different devices.
Seagate’s new GoFlex line isn’t necessarily a direct replacement for Seagate’s popular FreeAgent family of external drives, but they’re certainly an upgrade. Not by way of speed or capacity (at least not specifically), but with their flexibility. Hence the “Flex” in the name. So what’s new? The complete line of drives that make up the GoFlex family feature interchangeable interface cables that’ll let you switch cables to match your ports. So whether you need a drive with a USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire 800 or eSATA connection, or running Windows or Mac (or both), all you need is a GoFlex drive and the right cable adapter.
