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.
Before we get to the promised awesomeness of Seagate’s new hybrid drive for laptops, let’s get into laptop storage basics. Traditional hard disk drives (HDD) will give you the best price-per-gigabyte storage ratio, although they’re considerably slower than solid state drives. SSD on the other hand, come with a lower storage ceiling and are much more expensive, but offer faster performance, are more robust and energy-efficient—thanks mainly to the absence of moving parts. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what this drive is all about: Seagate managed to merge SSD and HDD tech into the Momentus XT’s 2.5-inch frame, making for a laptop drive that’s cheaper than SSDs, faster than HDDs, and with a storage ceiling that tops off at 500GBs.
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.
Seagate has announced the Momentus Thin, a new line of super slim laptop hard drives that measure only 7mm thick for fitting into similarly slim ultraportables. It’s a pretty significant size-cut, with the average 2.5-incher (such as Seagate’s own Momentus 5400.6) usually measuring 9.5mm. The Momentus Thin will pack a standard 5400rpm spindle, a SATA 3Gb/s interface, and an 8MB cache, but limited capacity that tops out at 250GB.
Storage company Seagate has been rather late to the party, but they’ve just entered the solid-state fray with a new line of SSDs called the Pulsar. Designed for enterprise blade and server applications, the Pulsar drive uses single-level cell (SLC) technology, delivers up to 200GB capacity, and is built in a 2.5-inch small form factor with a SATA3Gb/s interface.
