We have no idea why Seagate buried this in a warmed-over press release touting rehashed FreeAgent for Mac drives, but there's a new $40 FreeAgent Go Dock+ that doubles as a powered three-port USB hub. Pretty convenient if you're into the whole FreeAgent Go lifestyle, we'd say, but we're sticking with our versatile bareback SATA docks.

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]

Seagate just officially announced what we already told you about last month: they're shedding brown with the introduction of the thoroughly redesigned FreeAgent series of external storage devices. Things break down into USB 2.0 PC and USB+Firewire Mac flavors for both the multi-colored, portable FreeAgent Go Drives ($240 for up to 500GB plus $30 for optional docking station and carrying case) and home-based FreeAgent Desk Drives ($270 for up to 1TB). A higher-performing 7,200rpm FreeAgent XTreme Drive tosses in an eSATA jack to complement the USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 ports in capacities up to 1TB ($230). Both the XTreme and Desk drives will hit 1.5TB capacities starting next month. Macheads happy with USB 2.0 and suitably skilled to reformat a hard disk will want to examine prices closely: while the Go and Desk Drives for Macs list for $10 and $40, respectively, more than their PC brethren (for the value-add of Firewire 800/400 jacks and an OS X pre-formatting), the 1.5TB FreeAgent Desk Drive for Macs is expected to list for an unexplained $70 premium over the $280 PC version when it ships in October.

Seagate busted out a slew of new storage gear today, including the new 160GB BlackArmor portable hard drive with built-in AES encryption pictured above. The tinfoil-hat-friendly drive, available in Q2 for $149, automatically encrypts all the data stored on it, keeping it away from prying eyes if lost or stolen. On the other end of the spectrum, Seagate is also introducing free software called Central Axis that allows you to access content stored on a Maxtor Shared Storage II device from any web browser without having to open firewall ports, and announcing partnerships with Sanyo, HarmanBecker and PortoMedia to incorporate Seagate's D.A.V.E "wireless mobile storage capacity" tech into their products. Seagate says future Harman car entertainment systems will be able to store music, movies and games using D.A.V.E., and that Sanyo's using the tech in its Xacti camcorders.

On the more mundane side of things, the desktop FreeAgent line now tops out at 1TB, the FreeAgent Go will hit 250GB by the end of the quarter, and there's a new line of DVR-specific drives called Pipeline HD that are rated to work in case temps as high as 167 degrees Fahrenheit. Pipeline drives will come in sizes ranging from 320GB to 1TB, and they're targeted primarily at HTPC manufacturers -- but we'd bet a few Tivo-hackin' ears just perked up out there.

Although Seagate has long been viewed as a hard drive producer, advocate of pornographic archival (or not), and little more, the company is looking to break new ground by unleashing its family of FreeAgent "data movers." Just under three months after being introduced to the world, the FreeAgent Go Small, Go, Desktop Drive, and Pro are all hitting the market, ready to take your computing comfort zone along with you wherever you may roam. Still ranging in size from 12GB all the way to three-quarters of a terabyte in size, these stylish drives all share a relatively small footprint, USB 2.0 connectivity, and the ability carry your critical documents, bookmarks, passwords, and other personal material from one PC to the next in a secure manner. So if you've been itching for a fairly attractive form of external storage, and don't mind the data moving capabilities being thrown in, you can reportedly snag one of these devices now from around $140 to just under $500.