Seagate's FreeAgent Go series bumped to 640GB

Seagate's giving its FreeAgent Go drives a fresh new 640GB capacity ceiling, and while it's not the first external to cross that 500GB threshold, it's certainly on the thinner end of the totem pole, physically. Nothing revolutionary here otherwise, it's still the standard USB-connected with up to 480Mbps transfer with multiple color options. Also distinctly the norm? Not a bit of info on pricing or availability, but if Seagate's posting promotional materials on its main site, we suspect it's not too far off.

[Via Slashgear]

[Sneakz @ Jun 20th 2009 12:07PM]

Wait, wait... a 640GB 2.5 inch HDD? Where can I get one?

[FNG @ Jun 20th 2009 1:03PM]

exactly! I was just thinking about this yesterday... when can I get a 2.5" drive larger than 500GB. today, here it is. Did I miss the news story about 2.5" now reaching 640GB?

[cg0def @ Jun 20th 2009 5:01PM]

hum promotional materials meaning it hasn't come out yet. Hence the answer to your questions would be ... nowhere. It will be available in the near future and shortly after that you'd probably be able to buy an OEM/retail 2.5" notebook hard drive.

[NineT9 @ Jun 20th 2009 8:45PM]

FINALLY! Something bigger then 500gb for 2.5"! I dont care if its a small step, ive been waiting for anything bigger, yay!

500gb 2.5" cost an average of $120-$130 (external), so I'll price this at $169

[Daza @ Jun 20th 2009 11:04PM]

It might use a nonstandard 2.5" height which means it won't fit into many notebooks, much like the first 500GB drives to hit the market. Most of the initial 2.5" 500GB drives were about ~11mm and they need to be 9.5mm to fit into most chassis comfortably.

Shouldn't be long before we see 640GB in a barebones drive anyway. Then 750GB and of course 1TB.

What I'd personally like to see more of is companies shipping portable drives with both eSATA and USB. I know Vantec do but I'd like Seagate, Western Digital, etc to do so as well. I'm picking up an LG XD1 320GB soon which has both, but it's the only non-DIY drive I've found with both connectors.

[pjtocci @ Jun 20th 2009 12:15PM]

pretty sweet right there.

[RyanTV @ Jun 20th 2009 11:50PM]

very sweet... i have a 500GB FreeAgent and it's the best external I've ever had. I think at this point I'll wait till the USB 3.0 stuff starts rolling out to upgrade though :)

[fischju @ Jun 20th 2009 12:20PM]

They will probably be $120....but so pretty....

[gareth @ Jun 20th 2009 12:23PM]

so big ..

[rcarm @ Jun 20th 2009 12:59PM]

That's what she said.

[Igor @ Aug 25th 2009 9:11AM]

Hm... so if I get this and gut it, will I just have a 2.5" SATA drive? Because id so, then I will be glad to do this minor bit of hardware surgery.

http://www.igorbass.com

[Tyler R. @ Jun 20th 2009 7:22PM]

I gutted a 500gb FreeAgent Go just last week to put the bigger 500gb drive in my Macbook - i even put the old 160gb drive in the FreeAgent case and it works great. Opening the case was pretty easy - it is just glued closed.

[kal326 @ Jun 22nd 2009 10:29AM]

Or you could just completely jump the shark and buy the bare drive that's going to most likely release the same time this does for less and save yourself a bit of unnecessary elective surgery.

[schrutefan @ Jun 20th 2009 12:34PM]

"USB-connected with up to 480Mbps transfer"

280 tops IRL.

[Kelmon @ Jun 20th 2009 2:12PM]

Hang about for the "Mac" version, which I am sure will appear. I have the Mac version of the 500GB drive and that came with FireWire 400 and 800 connections, plus a docking stand (also with a FireWire 800 interface). If you have a PC then all you need to do is reformat the drive from HFS+ to NTFS and you're golden.

I suspect that this is one of the few product lines where the "Mac" version actually has any added value beyond a silver/white paint job.

[Craig Lloyd @ Jun 20th 2009 12:57PM]

It'll be available mid-July with colors choices of silver and red: http://is.gd/17thw

[Fanfoot @ Jun 20th 2009 1:01PM]

Yup, first 2.5" 640GB drive mention I've seen actually.

I'm sorta sad we're having to do this whole dance again... 640GB is the next step? Really? Not 750GB or 1TB? C'mon, we've been stuck at 500GB for a while. Do you really think 640GB is a BIG increase over 500GB?

I presume this will be a 5,400rpm drive, and it'll be a while before we see 7,200rpm.

[Alex @ Jun 20th 2009 1:33PM]

There very likely won't be a 750gb 2.5" HD, since HD sizes are limited by platter size.

3.5" HDs can have a max of 3 platters, but 2.5" can have a max of two.

320gb = 2 160gb platters
500gb = 2 250gb platters
And now 640 because they've increased the platter size to 320gb per platter.

Methinks that the next jump might be straight to 1tb, but I've been plenty wrong before.

[Dyranios @ Jun 20th 2009 1:45PM]

hmmmm..... platter

[Peter @ Jun 20th 2009 2:26PM]

@Alex

No, that's not true. The 3,5" form factor can hold up to five platters and a 2,5" up to three platters.

All according to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_drive.

[Jules Lauve @ Jun 20th 2009 4:03PM]

Re: 5400rpm for a while...I agree. It was many moons before 500Gb 7200 followed the 500Gb 5400 drives Oh, but thank you Seagate nonetheless -- great to have it _in_ my MacBook Pro (and great the have the [replaced] 5400 Samsung in one of those curious clear enclosures from OWC backing it up daily).

[Alex @ Jun 20th 2009 3:33PM]

@Peter:

Aha, true. But from the same article:

"Today, the dominant height of this form factor is 9.5 mm for laptop drives, but high capacity drives used to have a height of 12.5 mm. Enterprise-class drives can have a height up to 15 mm."

Basically, I am quite sure the 9.5mm drives that are used in laptops can only have 2 platters, or rather, can only have two platters at a reasonable price with current technology. It could be a similar situation with the 3.5" drives as well.

[Noodles2k @ Jun 20th 2009 1:19PM]

way to go Engadget, the first whisper of a 640gb laptop drive and you label it as "Distinctly the norm"! Feeling a lil slow today?

If it had an apple on it it could be 1mb and you'd be touting it as state of the art :S.

[xValentine @ Jun 20th 2009 1:34PM]

640GB 2.5" SATA HD imminent!

[LFC_SL @ Jun 20th 2009 1:50PM]

I would make this the first 2.5" usb-only powered external hard drive to be announced/rumoured @ 640GB.

Lazy blogging is also the norm these days seemingly

For those interested in 500GB 2.5" drives, Tom's Hardware 7 HD comparison:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mobile-hdd-notebook,2305.html

[Jon @ Jun 20th 2009 1:53PM]

Will it be formatted in FAT or ntfs? I could use a decent size FAT drive to use with my xbox 360.

[Craig Lloyd @ Jun 20th 2009 1:59PM]

I think they come formatted in FAT, but you can easily format them in NTFS

[Dr. Spaceman @ Jun 21st 2009 3:19AM]

1. You know about filesystems yet don't know that you can format drives to be whatever filesystem you want?
2. The Xbox360 doesn't support NTFS? ... WAT?!

[tandeh @ Jun 20th 2009 2:20PM]

for some reason the WD versions of the same drives blow the seagates away, speed wise, even tho they are from the same company and specced the same.

[Craig Lloyd @ Jun 20th 2009 6:10PM]

erm....what? WD and Seagate are not the same company.

[Ryan @ Jun 22nd 2009 11:38AM]

Seagate and Maxtor are the same company now.

[Craig Lloyd @ Jun 24th 2009 1:12AM]

tandeh was talking about WD and Seagate. Not Maxtor and Seagate.

[gareth @ Jun 20th 2009 2:19PM]

Its about time we saw 1TB 2.5" SATA.

[Jake @ Jun 20th 2009 4:43PM]

640GB???

There are 2TB 3.5 inch drives out there right.

640GB seeems rather small. C'mon Seagate, it's 2009 already.

[Craig Lloyd @ Jun 20th 2009 6:09PM]

@Jake

We're talking about 2.5" drives here. not 3.5".

[Mike @ Jun 22nd 2009 8:04AM]

I bought one of these drives but in a lower gb capacity. What a piece of crap. The casing was coming apart as I was taking it out of the box. It just felt so damn delicate. I brought it back the next day for a refund.

[Templarian @ Jun 20th 2009 6:52PM]

It only takes a few 1080 rips to fill it. But yea stick to 3.5 for home entertainment systems.

[kashem @ Jun 21st 2009 11:28AM]

What's up with 650 GB? Are you serious? Most companies have jumped from 500 to 1TB. The Seagate drives are smaller but that doesn't mean they can't go from 500 to 750 or even 1TB. 150GB in today's day and age is not much at all.

http://ziggytek.com/

[Craig Lloyd @ Jun 21st 2009 1:12PM]

Can people not read? We're talking about 2.5" drives, not 3.5".