Seagate
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Major storage vendors agree to disk encryption standards
We've seen quite a few hardware-encrypted disks hit the scene lately, but to be honest, we've always thought they were a risky investment, since all the systems were proprietary -- we wouldn't want to store our encryption-worthy data on a disk that can't be read at all in a few years, after all. That's happily about to change, though -- the Trusted Computing Group has just announced that virtually every drive maker has agreed on a set of 128-bit encryption standards covering SSDs and HDDs. That's Fujitsu, Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, Western Digital, IBM, Wave Systems, LSI, and ULink Technology, if you're keeping score at home (and we know you are). Ideally this means that we'll see easy cheap disk encryption filter onto mainstream consumer storage, which would basically invalidate all those "I'm stealing this hard drive out of your laptop and using it to log into your Facebook account" crimes of passion we know the kids are into these days. Best part? Fujitsu, Seagate and Hitachi are all already shipping drives that support the TCG standards.[Via Digg]
Take two of the Seagate saga
When we last left this running soap opera of some Seagate hard drives failing, the drive manufacturer had issued some firmware fixes, then pulled a couple out of circulation, and now has returned them with some fixes for the fixes.The firmware updater, at first glance, looks like it needs a Windows PC, but the reality is the ISO images, once burned to a CD, will boot on an Intel based Mac. They will not work on any PowerPC platform, so don't even try. I was surprised that these discs would boot, but it worked for me and there are similar reports all over the tech support boards.Let me state up front that firmware updates can be deadly, and only try this if you have good, recent backups of all your data. This is really important, because if it fails because you haven't followed the instructions, your hard drive is offline. The data will be OK, but it will not be accessible. Seagate is saying they will retrieve data from problem drives, but that is a slow process and a gigantic hassle.These instructions are for a Mac Pro, which are the Macs most likely to have added internal drives. If you are brave, and only if you are brave, read on for the steps...
Recession roundup: Sony warns of $1.7b loss, other companies not doing much better
Evidence that the economy has been ground to a fine powder continues to pile up, and today's brought another batch of bad news. Tales of woe abound, but looming largest is Sony, which announced its 2nd quarter earnings yesterday, then warned today that they expect to post a $1.7 billion loss this year (though we've seen other reports that are now putting the number at well over $2 billion). Additionally, Samsung is expected to post a first-ever quarterly loss when it reports its earnings Friday, which are expected to run somewhere in the neighborhood of a $67.7 million net loss. Moving on, Seagate's also announced an unsuprising cut of about 6 percent of their workforce in Thailand. Finally, LG has reported a $487 million loss, while TomTom announced a "cost cutting program," meaning they're cutting about 7 percent of their global workforce. Seriously, does anyone have a light-hearted Dilbert strip or something to ease some of the pain? Sheesh.Read - Sony, Warning of Annual Loss, Escalates Cost-Cutting planRead - Samsung may report first ever quarterly lossRead - LG Electronics Posts $487 Million Loss Read - TomTom Cost-cutting programmeRead - Seagate to lay off up to 800 local workers
Tick tick tick... significant number of Seagate hard drives failing
It hasn't been a great year so far for car companies and banks. Now, add Seagate to the list of enterprises facing unexpected challenges. The big manufacturer of hard disks reports that a 'small' number of Barracuda 7200.11 drives are failing. Once they fail, the data on them is supposedly still intact but can't be accessed without expert recovery procedures. Seagate has promised to expedite data recovery for affected users, which is nice enough but cold comfort if you're among the unlucky. Seagate offers a software utility that will tell you if your drive is at risk, but that only works on Windows PCs. The firm is providing some firmware updates for the affected, but at this point they do not appear to have an updater that will run under OS X. The problem drives also extend to the Barracuda ES.2 SATA units and the DiamondMax22. The flaky drives could be internal models, or drives installed in external cases. Wondering if you have one of these drives? You can use the 'more info' button when you select 'About this Mac' from the Apple menu (or just run the Apple System Profiler utility from your Utilities folder -- same result), and click on the Serial-ATA label in the left column. You'll get all your drive model numbers, and the firmware revisions. If the numbers match the bad news provided by Seagate, you'll know you may be living on borrowed time. Lots of people around the 'net are reporting failures, and others say their drives match the numbers and aren't sure what to do without a viable firmware updater. I tried to call Seagate myself this morning and after navigating the inevitable phone tree a recording said they were too busy to take my call. I'll bet they are. Seagate did say today they will fix any defective drives and they will provide a free data recovery service. That is nice but it's a time consuming and troublesome process. There is some talk of a class action lawsuit (of course) but clearly something is amiss with some Seagate drives so if you have one or more check them out, and hope the company comes up with some Mac friendly answers. If anyone has tried updating the firmware of a drive via Boot Camp, please advise (no, before you ask, trying to use a virtualization tool like VMware or Parallels to modify your drive firmware is neither advisable nor particularly feasible). Note that back in 2007 we reported on some problems involving Seagate drives and Apple laptops. Here's how to contact Seagate, but I suspect they are pretty busy. No telling how many Macs have these drives in them. Apple uses a lot of different vendors, including Seagate. Check your backups, folks. [via Engadget & The Register]
Seagate offers fix, free data recovery for disks affected by firmware bug
After a ground-swell of angry Barracuda owners voiced concern over their failing disk drives, Seagate has fessed-to the issue. According to Seagate, a firmware bug in Barracuda 7200.11, DiamondMax 22, and Barracuda ES.2 SATA drives could make the disks "inaccessible when the host system is powered on." Right, inaccessible -- Seagate assures owners that data is not lost (it's still on the disk). However, should data loss occur, it's providing a free data recovery service. Hit the read link to find out if your drive is affected. If so, a link is provided to contact Seagate to expedite resolution on a case-by-case issue. Good on ya Seagate, way to flip a public relations fiasco into a customer support victory.[Via The Register]
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives said to be failing at an alarming rate
Rumors flying, sensational headlines, dogs and cats living together. Yes, its another apparent rash of hard drive failures -- this one centered on Seagate's spacious 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 drives. Apparently, the problem lies in a faulty firmware found on drives manufactured in Thailand, which causes them to fail before they're even able to boot up and leaves them completely inoperable, with some extensive data recovery measures the only option for those looking to hang onto their data. What's more, while Seagate is now said to be updating the firmware on newly manufactured drives, it's apparently not possible to update the firmware on the toasted drives, as they're not even able to be detected by the BIOS once they fail. Seagate still doesn't seem to be addressing the issue publicly, however, and as Tom's Hardware points out, they haven't yet issued a recall on unsold drives, so anyone planning on upgrading or building a new PC may want to proceed with caution.[Via The Register]
Seagate's Showcase HDD turns DISH Network receivers into DVRs
There ain't much new here outside of marketing hoopla, but for those who missed Seagate's announcement early last year, we've got a revised one ready for publishing this year. The Showcase external HDD line has now been certified for compatibility with the Solo ViP 612 receiver, ViP 622 / 722 DuoDVR and the ViP 211 / 211k receivers. In essence, this here hard drive converts the receivers in the bunch into full-fledged DVRs, giving you one less reason to spend haphazardly on a new set-top-box. No need to thank us, we're just doing our jobs.
Google and Seagate cut staff while Microsoft weighs options
We woke up this morning to find somebody other than Steve Jobs at the helm of Apple and Palm reigning supreme as the new darling of the tech industry. Unfortunately, it's not the tech bubble year of 1996 -- it's the recession plagued start to 2009. So it's no surprise to hear that Google, Seagate, and Microsoft are all looking to slash operating costs in a quest to remain buoyant. Google (yes, the invincible Google) just laid off 100 recruiters while announcing the closure of a few satellite engineering offices -- a move that will certainly see the loss of at least a few of the 70 or so affected engineers who are unwilling or unable to relocate. Meanwhile Seagate is swinging the axe deep with an announced 6% cut (2,950 people) to its global workforce coupled with executive pay cuts by as much as 25%. And according to sources over at The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is scouring its books for cost savings but is hoping to avoid layoffs. Nevertheless, cuts could be announced as early as next Thursday's earnings call. Hey sock-puppet, how 'bout a dance? We could use some levity right about now.Read -- Google recruitersRead -- Google engineeringRead -- Microsoft mulls cutsRead -- Seagate slashes
Video: Seagate introduces Free Agent Theater HD, designs it like a Betamax player
We're going to give you just a moment to sit back and peer at the image above, and we'll politely remind you that this object was likely designed in the year 2008. For whatever reason, Seagate has chosen just about the ugliest design imaginable and applied it to its Free Agent Theater HD, though word on the street is that the user interface is actually a horse of a different color. The drive is simply a multimedia HDD that enables users to pop drives in that are full of digital media for easy viewing on the TV. It's expected to drop in March for $229.99 (250GB) / $299.99 (500GB), or those on a tight budget (or Free Agent Go HDD owners, actually) can opt for a $129.99 media player / remote control-only version. A very strange demo video is hosted just after the break.[Via Notebooks]
Seagate's Barracuda 7200.12 HD packs 500GB per platter
Around 1.5 years ago, we were all sitting around in awe of the ultra-dense Barracuda 7200.10. Now, Seagate has doubled up on that gigabyte-per-platter milestone with the Barracuda 7200.12. As of this week, the desktop hard drive with the industry's highest areal density (329 Gigabits per square inch, for those curious) is shipping, as the firm's engineers have somehow figured out how to squeeze 500GB onto a single disk. The 3.5-inch 7,200RPM drive touts a SATA interface, a sustained data rate of up to 160MB/second and a burst speed of 3Gb/second. It's available as we speak in 500GB, 750GB and 1TB capacities, though there's no telling how much coin you'll be asked to lay down in order to take home the bragging rights.[Via TG Daily]
'I got more ports than a wine store do.'
For your Wednesday morning amusement, the Sniper Twins have put together this hilarious video promotion for Seagate: a hip-hop office drama, replete with Mac desktops, laptops and servers. This definitely falls in the "so bad it's good" category, so if you have a low tolerance for office-themed irony, you might want to give it a pass. [Via Swissmiss.]
Seagate expands FreeAgent Go line with yet more color options
Seagate kicked out a couple of FreeAgent Go hard drives a few months back, but it's now gone all out and let loose an even more colorful batch in the hope of attracting a bit more attention among holiday shoppers -- as usual, Festivus revelers luck out year 'round with the ever-present, aluminum pole-matching silver option. From the looks of it, the drives are still available in the same 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB capacities as before for $120, $150, and $200, respectively, and those that register their drives between November 28th and New Year's day will get a bonus multimedia package including 50 free songs from eMusic and some other goodies. You can also pick up a desktop docking station separately for $30, just don't expect to get it in matching colors.[Via Electronista]
Seagate announces larger, faster AES-packing Momentus hard drives
Today's corporate laptops tend to be bristling with security measures, able to uniquely identify your fingers and faces on top of whatever authentication measures your operating system offers. But, without some kind of encryption, the drives inside are left completely vulnerable to anyone with a screwdriver. Seagate has been combating that with its AES-packing Momentus Full Drive Encryption disks for years, finally updating the range with a suite of larger and faster models. The first is the Momentus 5400 FDE.3, a 5400RPM drive with 8MB of cache available in 160GB and 320GB sizes. There's also the Momentus 7200 FDE, coming in the same two capacities but with twice the cache and, predictably, spinning at 7200RPM. Seagate's promising 500GB flavors soon, all with onboard AES encryption that doesn't impact boot times or overall performance. Just don't forget that BIOS password, yeah?
Seagate developing mutant hybrid SSD tech to bring costs down
We'd heard that Seagate was prepping its first solid state hard drives, but there was no plan for consumer-friendly products in that vein anytime soon because solid state drives cost far more to produce than the conventional variety. Recently, CEO Bill Watkins hinted that the company intends to overcome that problem by combining relatively inexpensive (but unreliable) multi-layer cells with pricier (but dependable) single-layer cells in some kind of hybrid drive technology. It's all very pie in the sky right now, but surely it's a better hope than sticking to your old fashioned ways and seeking out opportunities to sue envelope-pushing competitors.[Via Electronista]
Fujitsu to hand over hard drive division, self-respect to Western Digital
It's prom night, and Fujitsu wants to give it all up to Western Digital. And we're talking everything: if the sordid deal goes through, by the end of the year Fujitsu will have sold its entire hard disk division to WD, giving the maker of the exquisitely named Caviar almost thirty percent of the market, second only to Seagate's thirty-five percent. So look out, Seagate! But who will the real winners be? That's right: the consumer. Because the rampant monopolization of every aspect of the computer industry can only be a good thing. Just ask those fat cats in Washington.
Seagate's FreeAgent drives get official, Go Desk EXtreme
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.%Gallery-31907%
Seagate dumps brown, gets Mac happy with leaked FreeAgent disks
We have it from a highly trusted source that Seagate is working on a new line of stylish hard drives. Oh hey, what do you know, there they are pictured above. You're looking at a few of the next generation FreeAgent storage devices from Seagate. While unannounced, the drive on the left is a likely FreeAgent Desktop replacement while the drive on the right looks to either augment or replace the FreeAgent Go series with its thinner profile and docking port. Instead of traditional Seagate-brown, these drives will ultimately ship in several colors (grey, black, and silver at launch time) including red, green, gold, pink, and more. Speeds will start at 5,400RPM before moving towards 7,200RPM sometime down the road with at least one drive shipping Mac-ready -- Windows, not Mac users will have the privilege of reformatting the disk for use. We expect to hear an announcement for these drives as well as a new FreeAgent XTreme disk for gamers and speed-freaks sometime in September.Update: Regarding those "holes," they're actually glowing blue lights, illuminated only when the unit's on -- the air vents are located on the back.
Micron announces insanely quick RealSSD C200 SSDs
Intel's partner in solid state crime, Micron, just announced an update to its RealSSD lineup of SSDs. Based on the typically slower (and cheaper) MLC NAND process technology, the new 2.5-inch (up to 256GB) laptop and 1.8-inch (32GB to 128GB) ultra-portable storage slabs offer a 3Gbps SATA interface and ridiculous 250MBps read and 100MBps write speeds -- yes, that's fast, damn fast when you consider the 70MBps write and 90MBps read speeds of Samsung's latest consumer oriented SSDs. They even best the listed read speeds of Samsung's top-ender. Unfortunately, no prices were given though it's said to be "balanced price to performance." Expect 'em to hit the market in Q4 under the Lexar brand, and maybe even Crucial, Seagate, and Intel for all we know.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11: 1.5TB of love
You know, we're not actually certain we want to trust 1.5TB of our precious precious NES ROMS invaluable work data to a single drive, but that doesn't mean Seagate's latest Barracuda isn't droolworthy regardless. The jump from 1TB to 1.5TB is the "largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives," according to Seagate, and the perpendicular-recording drives should begin shipping in August. There are also a pair of Momentus 2.5-inch 500GB notebook drives coming in Q4 in 5400 and 7200RPM speeds, but like big brother, pricing is unavailable -- we've got a hunch you might want to start saving those pennies, though.[Thanks, Dave]
Seagate rolls out 1TB Maxtor Central Axis NAS
There may be bigger NASs out there, but there are few more impressively named than Seagate's new Maxtor Central Axis -- a name that's all the more imposing when combined with the drive's monolithic appearance. If that's not enough to sell you on it, however, you may be slightly more impressed with its 1TB 7,200 rpm drive with 32MB of cache, or its support for DLNA and UPnP media streaming, dual USB ports, and magical auto-sorting software, not to mention all the expected security features. $330 and it's yours this July, with folks in Europe and Asia set to get theirs later this year.
