Seagate teams with Archos on 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
Summary: Most tablets on the market today host solid state drives and flash memory. Seagate has introduced two new tablet computers with physical hard drives on board.
Most tablets on the market today host solid state drives and flash memory. Archos has introduced two new tablet computers with Seagate physical hard drives on board.
Touted as the "world’s first handheld tablet computers with hard drives," the 8-inch Archos 80 G9 and 10-inch Archos 101 G9 sport 2.5-inch Seagate Momentus Thin hard drives. Those hard drives have 7mm profiles and capacity options are set at 320GB, 250GB and 160GB. The last nitty-gritty detail about the hard drives specifically is that buyers can opt for 7200RPM and 5400RPM spin speeds with 16MB of cache.
For those who might want to use these tablets for business and/or host sensitive data on those Momentus Thin hard drives, there are some extra (optional) security measures, including government-grade encryption to protect data.
Most other details about the tablets haven't been publicized, except that these slates run on 1.5GHz processors. We should know more about these Seagate tablets closer to their unspecified release date in late September.
Based on pricing alone, these tablets appear competitive as the Archos 80 G9 and Archos 101 G9 have starting prices of $279 and $349, respectively. However, we'll need to know more about the operating system and other features, before comparing it to other tablets already available.
Related:
- Amazon tablets reportedly being prepped: Watch prices fall
- Assessing the corporate tablet field: Why the enterprise may be different
- Discover Case Study: Seagate ramps up dev-ops benefits with HP Application Lifecycle Management tools
- Hands on with Seagate's GoFlex Satellite
- Seagate's GoFlex Satellite attempts to expand iPad storage space
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Talkback
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
My iPod has a 160GB disk drive, and after a couple of years it is still running reliably.
Forgot the iPods didn't you?
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
My first archos tablet has a hard drive and its 5 years old. Haven't failed me yet. Ditto for those hundreds of millions of laptops out there with physical hard drives. And if you are putting that much abuse on your tablet, your HD is probably not the first thing that will make your tablet unusable. Lets not even get into flash memory's limited life span compared to HDD.
But ask me if I want a paltry 32gig on my tablet or 250 gigs....no brainer. If you're lucky 32gigs will hold 10 HD movies and nothing else.
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
Hardly. Just making things the best they can be.
Not backward at all. In case you haven't noticed, most true computing devices around the world still use hard drives. They are still the most cost efficient method of data storage. They are also more reliable then ever.
And hard drive use actually solves one of the numerous serious glitches of the iPad; ridiculously little storage for such a large price tag.
And just to show you how smug and ridiculous you sound, please point out where one could purchase a 320G 7200 rpm HD with a 7mm profile, at any price, in 2001.
I'm not holding my breath waiting, but please, do us all a favor and don't come back here until you have the example.
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
You know what, why don't we throw some optical tape drives on tablets too, that's still used for data storage too isn't it?
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
Yeah... Enjoy streaming a movie over 3G and wasting your entire data plan in the process.
The iPad has an option for WiFi streaming portable Seagate HD storage
Since Rachel wrote about a Seagate HD assisted tablet, there is another Seagate HD product that will assist an iPad for off line WiFi connected storage.
Seagate makes the GoFlex Satellite Wireless HD product which has been reviewed by numerous online sources that offers slick integration with an iPad. Seagate's MSRP for this 500 GB portable HD is about two hundred dollars.
Both of you should increase your knowledge base by searching online sources for videos demonstrating the capabilities of this device. In fact, I'm surprised Rachel has not mentioned it before in her blog.
Personally, I don't need that much optional storage with my iPad - 64 GB is quite enough for my needs. But the file manager app bundled with this product is quite slick.
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
And how much would a 64gig flash memory cost..... a lot.
You can argue that you don't need onboard memory for lots of HD movies because you have the cloud. But consider how long transferring that 4 gig HD movie is going to take. So much for on demand.
And let me know how well that works for you on a plane or have no signal.
The point of a tablet is to be mobile and for use on the go. When you are on the go there is no guarantee of remote connection.
Well, since you asked, rengek, let's do the math regarding 32 GBs
The added costs of a 64 GB iPad over the base unit is two hundred dollars or the same cost of the portable Seagate GoFlex Satellite Wireless 500 GB HD product.
On my 64 GB iPad, I normally have about 32 GB free or roughly free storage space available for seven to eight HD movies.
On a recent airline flight from Michigan to Florida, my air travel time was roughly a little over three hours or the time it would take to view one HD movie.
As luck would have it, that's where I watched Inception, onboard a plane using my iPad and headphones.
If I wanted, I could pay for inflight WiFi and stream a movie but Why??? A little trip preplanning and any movie I wished to view could be transferred from my computer to my iPad in minutes. (after downloading, of course) This technique works just fine during the periods where a flight has no WiFi signal. (BTW, I have that grandfathered true unlimited AT&T 3G data plan. I have have no 3G data cap - one of the perks for being an early tech adopter.
But like I said, if a person truly requires extra WiFi HD storage for his iPad, the Seagate portable HD wireless product solves that need quite nicely. But personally, I don't need it. Having 32 GB free storage space allows me the freedom to install quite a few programs and video material.
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
At least they are cheaper lol.
Simply better.
Guys like you should at least make a minimal effort to get out into the real world once in a while. For starters, how much heavier do you think a 7mm HD is going to be? Seriously?
In the real world, its hardly going to be noticeable. Meanwhile, the storage improvement is going to be immense. And slower? Ha! How much slower? Again, minimal, very minimal. Sure solid state beats a hard disk drive speed wise, but for the vast majority of normal humans its hardly worth giving up 80%-90% of your storage capacity for a minimally quicker drive.
Noisier and hotter?? My lord, now your really grasping at straws! Again, if silence and maximum speed is more important to you then actually being able to do things with a computer, then by all means, invest in a toy like the iPad. If getting work done at a reasonable cost is more important then give the iPad a pass and wait for something not based on just the "Apple magic factor" but on what actually gives you the most bang for your buck. And in the real world, that still means a hard drive.
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
Sorry unless they are throwing some 15k RPM (or at least 10k) HDDs in there I will continue to laugh them. Oh that's right , they're not! We get to choose from archaic 5400 laptop worth drives, or standard Desktop 7200 drives. Hooray for a leap 10 years into the past. Cost efficient maybe, but that's it.
Oh and my toy is a ASUS Transformer currently. Thanks for playing!
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
The only two advantages to a tablet like this is that it will be cheaper and it has built-in harddrive encryption. Those are the only two benefits. All the downsides have been mentioned by others.
It is, at best, debatable as to whether it is an improvement to put a HDD in a tablet like this.
We'll wait and see as to what the marketplace says about whether this is a good idea or not.
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
Tablets are not storage devices. Thus, they shouldn't need ginormous storage capacity. Especially with all the (yes, completely valid) cons that @Bates_ pointed out.
Hard drives will ALWAYS run noisier and hotter than solid state flash. That's not grasping at straws. There's this little thing called "friction", perhaps you've heard of it. Two of it's chief byproducts are heat and noise, there's no way around it (unless, I suppose, you're in a vacuum... but I really doubt you'd enjoy operating a tablet in a vacuum). Friction is simply a fact. Actually, it falls under what most call a "law". Spinning hard drives create friction. Solid state drives do not. If you're still not convinced, talk to my buddy who has a Dell laptop that you literally can not have on your lap for longer than 10 minutes when it's running, lest you get severe burns on your thighs.
One of the things I absolutely love about my tablet (and, no, it's not an iPad) is I hit a button and it's instantly up and running. That's it's biggest advantage to me. I have a minute to check my email, I want absolutely none of that time to be eaten up by system boot time. Even with state snapshots, firing up a system that relies on a spinning hard drive will always take longer. That's NOT minimal. And that immediately loses it's appeal for me. If I want to wait for something to boot, I'll go fire up my laptop.
And, if I truly need to store files to access on my tablet, I save them to the cloud. So despite your view of the "real world", a hard drive is completely passe. Your contention of what the "vast majority of normal humans" want is completely outdated.
Lastly, one con that doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet, a hard drive system is always going to consume more power than a solid state system. So, while a hard drive may allow YOU to "get work done" on your tablet, come see me in an hour when you're not able to work anymore because your battery is depleted and, oh, I have 9 hours left on mine.
RE: Seagate unveils 'world's first' tablets with hard drives
Govt grade HD encryption by the way means that it can be used in govt contracts. All govt facilities that handles data requiring security clearance like DoD require all of their desktops and laptops have high grade encryption. The best laptop in the world cannot be used in these facilities if they don't have govt approved encryption. And its not just the offices handling nuclear secrets. Its most govt offices.