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D-Link Xtreme N DIR-685 storage router now shipping

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Oct 6th 2009 at 3:23PM

Well, what do we have here? D-Link's DIR-685 Xtreme N Storage Router -- you know, the 802.11n packing, WAP having, BitTorrent running beaut with USB storage support and 3.2-inch display we first laid eyes on in January at CES -- has finally hit store shelves. Every bit as lust-worthy as it was when we initially reviewed it, this bad boy retails for $300. Hit the read link to get in on the action.

[Via Electronista]

Seagate gets NASty with Pogoplug-based FreeAgent DockStar: hands-on

by Darren Murph posted Sep 16th 2009 at 8:00AM

Hard to believe this is Seagate's first consumer NAS offering (keyword being "consumer"), but sure enough, the FreeAgent DockStar is the company's first major effort to get its own line of FreeAgent Go hard drives onto your network. Without getting into too much detail, this simple dock is essentially a Pogoplug with a built-in cradle for one's FreeAgent Go USB (read: not FireWire) HDD. Thankfully, a trifecta of USB 2.0 sockets are littered about the edges, ensuring that at least three standard USB drives can also be connected and accessed over the web. We've yet to have a chance to put this bugger through its paces, but since we know all about the underlying technology, you can probably learn everything you need to know from our Pogoplug review. For those who'd rather opt for a Seagate'd version of an already available product, this DockStar is shipping today for $99.99. Oh, and we should mention that it comes with a year of the Pogoplug service, but after that, you'll be shelling out $29.99 per year for unlimited sharing and remote access.

In related news, Seagate is also introducing three new capacities for its FreeAgent Go family. In addition to the 250GB, 320GB, 500GB and 640GB versions already out there, the range will now include a 750GB, 880GB and 1TB version. Too bad no pricing or release details are available on those, but we'll be keeping an eye out.

Gallery: Seagate gets NASty with Pogoplug-based FreeAgent DockStar

Gallery: Seagate FreeAgent DockStar

Continue reading Seagate gets NASty with Pogoplug-based FreeAgent DockStar: hands-on

Seagate launches FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player, we go hands-on

by Darren Murph posted Sep 15th 2009 at 9:39AM

Remember when Seagate introduced its Betamax-esque FreeAgent Theater HD way back at CES this year? Of course not -- you were locked onto the Palm Pre keynote. At any rate, the next generation of that very device somehow made it through the product development stage and now sits in our very hands, and we have to say, it's no more modern in person than it is in press shots. Equipped with the usual assortment of ports (HDMI, component, composite, Toslink, Ethernet and two USB) ports, the FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player gets all of its content from a FreeAgent Go USB 2.0 hard drive (sold separately or in a bundle) or whatever you shove into those USB sockets. You can count on 1080p output and a pretty standard UI, and while it's wired-or-die right now, Seagate's hoping to pop out a USB WiFi adapter ($69.99) for it next month.

We've yet to really put this player through its paces, but we can say for sure that it's not made for abuse. The mostly-plastic box is staggeringly light, and one drop from atop your AV rack could lead to utter disaster. Furthermore, this is really only useful for those wound tightly around Seagate's finger; the bulk of its functionality relies on having a FreeAgent USB drive at your disposal, and if you've selected any other portable HDD, you'll have to deal with connecting it the old fashion way and ditching the "clean look." At $149.99 sans an HDD, it's one of the cheaper options on the market, but it still can't beat Popcorn Hour's heralded lineup when it comes to value and format support. Those looking for an all-in-one deal can opt for the $289.99 bundle, which throws in a 500GB FreeAgent Go drive. Have a look at retro exemplified in the gallery below.

Gallery: Seagate launches FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player, we go hands-on

MusicSkins slathers Seagate HDDs with famous musicians, Hasselhoff feeling 'left out'

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Aug 31st 2009 at 11:04AM

A couple of notes for MusicSkins, LLC. First, Never use the word "bling" in your PR. Ever. Second, if David Hasselhoff hears that you're licensing images from legendary recording artists to "custom-bling" Seagate hard drives and you leave him out of it, you'll soon find your office deluged with phone calls, faxes, and emails from the man, desperate to get in on the action. (And we know all about his tenacity: we've been involved in at least one hot Hollywood project that he's tried to shoe-horn his way into.) Anyways, if you're inexplicably interested, check it out: MusicSkins (known for vinyl covers for laptops and iPods, among other things) has licensed a "vast range" of images from either artists or their crypt-keepers and will sell you one for your favorite Free Agent To Go HDD. Prices range from $15 to $30, although for a limited time one can receive 20 percent off any cover and 35 free songs from eMusic when registering your FreeAgent Go with Seagate. And the best news? The cover is removable, so if you ever move out of the dorms (or stop living like you're in a dorm) you can hide it somewhere.

Continue reading MusicSkins slathers Seagate HDDs with famous musicians, Hasselhoff feeling 'left out'

MacBook Pros with 7200RPM HDDs getting a touch too noisy?

by Ross Miller posted Jul 12th 2009 at 4:16AM

MacBook Pro hard disk storage really seem to be down on its luck this generation. First was the 3Gbps SATA transfers (now fixed), which honestly didn't affected but a marginal percentage of users upgrading to SSD themselves. Now comes word from a number of irate users on the Apple support forums that claim their HDDs, specifically those spec'd at 7200RPM, are suffering from performance issues and some audible clicking / beeping sounds. The folks at Other World Computing chimed in to say that it might have something to do with the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 G-Force drives, which takes anti-shock precautions that are possibly causing both noise and extra strain. If you're not hearing anything now, we wouldn't suggest you start getting hyper paranoid over the issue -- it's the internet, where things often get blown way out of proportion, in case you haven't noticed. If you're still worried / curious, hit up the read link for the full collection of anecdotes.

[Via Engadget Spanish and MacNN]

D-Link's Xtreme N DIR-685 storage router hands-on and impressions

by Darren Murph posted Jul 2nd 2009 at 2:00PM

Somehow or another, D-Link managed to combine a NAS, digital photo frame, secondary display and 802.11n router into a single device, and when the Xtreme N DIR-685 Storage Router was announced way back at CES this year, we were certainly interested to see how such a conglomerate would go over. At long last, the do-it-all wireless router is finally making its way out to the public at large, and with an MSRP of $299.99 (sans any internal HDD space), it's definitely one of the pricier routers out there. We've taken this strikingly unique device into our lairs for a few days of testing, and if you're interested in seeing if this bad boy is worth the price of admission, you'll need to follow us past the break.

Gallery: D-Link's Xtreme N DIR-685 storage router hands-on

Continue reading D-Link's Xtreme N DIR-685 storage router hands-on and impressions

Seagate introduces FreeAgent Go Dock+ with powered USB hub

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 24th 2009 at 4:58PM

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 unleashes three new BlackArmor storage devices for small business, road warriors, mercenaries

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Jun 22nd 2009 at 12:46PM

Looks like the storage freaks at Seagate are back on the scene with yet another array of BlackArmor devices for securing all that precious data of yours. First up: for the small business types, the NAS 220 storage server sports 4TB of shared storage capacity for up to 20 PCs. If that's not your cup of tea, the WS 110 is an external (USB 2.0 or eSATA) drive available in capacities up to 2TB. Lastly (but not leastly) the PS 110 is a 500GB portable drive perfect for road warriors and the like, sporting a thin form factor (12.5mm). All devices include automated full-system backup, SafetyDrill+, and AES 256-bit government-grade encryption. Both the BlackArmor WS 110 ($159.99 for 1TB or $309.99 for 2TB) and the BlackArmor PS 110 ($159.99 for 500GB) are available now. The BlackArmor NAS 220 will hit the shelves in late July ($449.99 for 2TB or $699.99 for 4TB). Full PR after the break.

Gallery: Seagate unleashes three new BlackArmor storage devices for small business, road warriors, mercenaries

Continue reading Seagate unleashes three new BlackArmor storage devices for small business, road warriors, mercenaries

Seagate's FreeAgent Go series bumped to 640GB

by Ross Miller posted Jun 20th 2009 at 11:57AM

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]

Ex-Seagate CEO joins startup Vertical Circuits, learns secret of the silver, gadget-shrinking ooze

by Ross Miller posted May 2nd 2009 at 9:51AM

Bill Watkins, the oft-outspoken former CEO of Seagate, has thrown his support behind tech startup Vertical Circuits, who claim to have an uncanny knack for shrinking gadgets with the power of voodoo -- or rather, a patented silver ooze, but we prefer our theories. The goo works as a replacement for gold wires to connect vertically stacked chips, cleaning up the internal cable clutter and leaving more room for better processor, bigger batteries, larger displays, or just a tinier form factor. Right now the focus is on stacking flash memory, but the group says they can use the same technique for processors and other chips. At this stage, there's no product or partnership to show for it, but if they're as good as they say, we hopefully won't have to wait long to see the fruits of their labor.

Seagate Replica does automatic, incremental backup for the everyman

by Paul Miller posted Apr 27th 2009 at 12:58PM

Seagate's new Replica drive aims to be for PC users what Time Machine is for Macs (in fact, there's no Mac software included), and seems to do a pretty good job of it. You merely plug the drive into your computer, accept a license agreement, and you're off to the races with hassle-free incremental backups of your system. The drive is available in Single PC and Multi-PC models, with the former sporting 250GB of capacity, and the latter doing 500GB and adding in a vertical dock -- but to actually backup multiple PCs you'll have to move the drive around sneakernet style. ComputerShopper found the drive pretty slow, and while you can drag and drop files off of the drive, it doesn't actually allow you to toss specific files on and use the drive as way to move your projects around town. Still, it's simple, and the $200 starting price isn't criminal.

Read - ComputerShopper review
Read - Official Replica site

Seagate rolls out low-power Barracuda LP hard drives

by Donald Melanson posted Apr 22nd 2009 at 1:57PM

Seagate's Barracuda drives have been plagued with a few problems as of late, but it looks like the company is doing its best to push the line in a fresh new direction with its just-announced Barracuda LP series, which promise to cut down on power consumption without making too many compromises in performance. Specifically, Seagate says that the drives will use up to 50% less electricity than standard hard drives, while also cranking out 5,900 RPM, along with an average latency of 5.5ms, and a 32MB cache. No word on what so of premium, if any, they'll demand, but you'll apparently be able to get 'em in 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB varieties (all 3.5-inch) right out of the gate.

Engadget's recession antidote: FreeAgent Go hard drive for your Mac!

by Laura June posted Apr 2nd 2009 at 12:00PM

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn't want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back -- so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We'll be handing out a new gadget every day (except for weekends) to lucky readers until we run out of stuff / companies stop sending things. Today we've got a FreeAgent Go 320GB hard drive plus dock on offer. Read the rules below (no skimming -- we're omniscient and can tell when you've skimmed) and get commenting! Check after the break for some photos of the prize!

Special thanks to Seagate for providing the gear!

The rules:

Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for "fixing" the world economy, that'd be sweet too.
You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you'll be fine.
Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one Seagate FreeAgent Go hard drive and dock. Approximate value is $180.
If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
Entries can be submitted until Thursday, April 2nd, 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
Full rules can be found here.

Seagate unveils 6TB BlackArmor NAS

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Mar 24th 2009 at 6:59PM

It's been a hot minute since we've seen a NAS from Seagate, and now we have news that the company is launching not one but two new secure storage devices. Both the BlackArmor NAS 420 and NAS 440 are billed as "fully-contained, out-of-box solutions with user-serviceable, [tool-less] hot-swappable drives that are RAID-configurable 0/1/5/10 arrays," designed to scale up to 50 workstations. The devices both sport a 1.2GHz processor, 256MB memory, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. Additionally, they feature CIFS, NFS, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, Bonjour, Microsoft Rally network, and Microsoft Windows Server Active Directory, Access Control List (ACL), volume-level encryption, an iTunes server, and a DLNA-compliant digital media server. Available now, the 420 has a total storage capacity of 2TB and an MSRP of $799.99. The 440 is available either in a 4TB version for $1,199.99 or a 6TB version for $1,699.99. An 8TB version is due out in May.

Update: To clarify, Nas doesn't endorse this product in any way. We just thought this would make a killer Photoshop.

Continue reading Seagate unveils 6TB BlackArmor NAS

Seagate drops patent suit against SSD maker STEC, runs home crying

by Laura June posted Feb 25th 2009 at 10:07AM

Well, that was pretty anticlimactic. Seagate, which filed suit against SSD-maker STEC back in April -- claiming the company infringed on four of its patents for SSD interfaces -- in March after talking quite a sizeable game about similar possible actions against the big boys (Intel and Samsung), has just dropped the claim. Seagate said that the case against STEC was "no longer worth pursuing" because economic conditions are now so bad that STEC isn't really selling many of the SSDs in question. That all sounds a little like saying "Monopoly stinks, let's play something else" when you're losing so bad you only have Baltic Avenue left, but maybe that's just us.