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Seagate unleashes 'world's first' 3TB external desktop drive

By Rachel King | June 29, 2010, 5:00am PDT

Summary: For the serious digital archivers out there, Seagate has just unveiled the FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external hard drive with a new capacity of 3TB of storage space to fill as you please.

For the serious digital archivers out there, Seagate has just unveiled the FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external hard drive with a new capacity of 3TB of storage space to fill as you please.

Depending on a particular user’s interests, one can fit up to 120 HD movies or 1,500 video games on this external HDD, or “countless hours” of digital music. (There must be an actual limit…unless the number of existing songs in human history really doesn’t exceed this, which I doubt.)

Compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X systems, users can connect the GoFlex Desk HDD for transfers or playback via USB. The drive’s standard USB 2.0 interface can also be adapted to USB 3.0 or FireWire 800 technology. And not only can this external hard drive store lots of information, the 3.5-inch thick machine can be stored easily itself being able to rest horizontally or stand vertically. Win, win!

Previously only available in 1TB and 2TB capacities, the 3TB GoFlex Desk is available at Seagate’s online store now for $249.99. Considering how many 1TB external hard drives there are on the market now priced approximately between $80-$150, that’s not a bad deal at all.

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Seagate Technology LLC, Desktops, Hardware, Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

jpdemers@... 1st Jul 2010

At 3.5" thick, it obviously contains side-by-side 1.5 TB mechanisms. A 4 TB version can't be too far off.
I like alan_r_cam's idea of packing in some SSD storage that mirrors the most frequently-used files, so the applications you use daily would launch faster.

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Go Fish

bmgoodman 29th Jun 2010

Sorry, but I'm not a fan of GoFlex that leaves off many common connectors and then tries to sell me $40-$50 GoFlex adapters to get what most other drives include out-of-the-box. Just wait and get a 3 TB external drive with eSATA and USB 3 connectors included. Then you can use standard cables. Such drives are just around the corner and will cost you less in the long run.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

oneferret@... 29th Jun 2010

@bmgoodman

A very good post and thoughtfull response. Sanity is always appreciated.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

daoutlaw60 29th Jun 2010

@bmgoodman

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Countless hours

gcomputeronet@... 29th Jun 2010

Over 3.5 years of non-stop music (as mp3 files, very roughly: 31250 hours).

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

ZStoner 30th Jun 2010

@gcomputeronet@...
Complete geekdom here. Taking a known MP3 average of 1MB/minute of playtime (for CD quality), comes out to about 52400 hours, and about 5.98 years.
Taking an average of 4.5 minutes per song, comes out to about 700,000 songs. Truly rediculous numbers.
I don't even want to know how many "Libraries of Congress" or "Encyclopedias of Brittanica" will fit on this. happy

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Free Agent bleh

KineticArtist Updated - 29th Jun 2010

I had a early free agent external 1TB drive and it went back the same week... Why? heat and instability. On anything besides the USB 2 connection it was totaly unstable. It was eSATA compatible (had the connectors the cable and everything) would stay up and running for about 45 minutes then bloop it would be invisible from windows and it would be so hot on its plastic case that you could get burned.

When will these people realize we run our computers 24/7 work longer than 4 hours at a time? They need to put some serious thought into using materials that dissipate heat and or incllude a beefy yet quiet fan? Oh wait Roswill does.. Sorry Seagate Ill pass, flexibly of course

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

maxkonin 29th Jun 2010

What about the partition size limit of 2 tb in Windows?

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

ddipalma@... 30th Jun 2010

@maxkonin

gpt - unless you are on xp32 or older os. I would bet that seagate found some other way though

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

Silk_z 29th Jun 2010

I had a 1TB and it broke less than one year of use. Since then I have put the two 500GB drives in two enclosures and have been using them nicely. I don't think I'll ever buy any drives more than 750GB as the larger it gets, the more problems it'll exist.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

ronangel 29th Jun 2010

The thing I have noted by examining external HD drives at a few stores is that you cant open them up to see if there is an IDE or sata drive inside (we don't know if they are dumping old ide drives...) or to change the drive & put the original one into a computer for faster transfer on the larger sized ones when at home.In a nutshell lack of flexibility in operation for technical users whilst simple use for everyday users. I am sure the manufacture that produce them in this way will sell a lot more. Of course you could lose warranty if you open the case on the unit but not on the drive which would be marked as such.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

bmgoodman Updated - 29th Jun 2010

@ronangel I cannot imagine any of these larger drives would be IDE. SATA drives have been the norm for several years and I don't recall anything from 1 TB or larger having been released with an IDE interface. Of course, YMMV.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

daoutlaw60 29th Jun 2010

I have not evan heard the name of go fish before now, but this is what i do know, I am a fan of segate everysince i learned computers back in the late nineties, I do have a 1TB internal and external with various sizes of ther externals by maxteor, SO bring on the 3, 4, 5, or evan a 10 TB DRIVES for internal & external

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

bodeen657 Updated - 30th Jun 2010

@daoutlaw60

I really like the maxtor, i've had one now for almost ten years and even though small in size (250 Gigs).. it hasn't shown any signs of giving up..one of my best externals...

For some odd reason...my externals are still functioning while with my internals..i've had to replace a couple times...I'm partial to WD's but that's my preference

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3TB - who cares?

alan_r_cam 29th Jun 2010

Intel once did a conference, where they announced their newest processors would run at 4GHz. Expecting applause, the speaker got a "ho hum" response from the audience instead. It's getting to be the same with hard drives.

The bigger the drive, the more likely you are to get a fault (eg. a bad sector). Personally, I'd like to hear more about fault compensation. How about 8GB of FLASH built into each drive?

2GB can be mapped to any faulty sectors. The remaining 6GB acts as the "boot sector" allowing faster startup. Defrag software then is customised to put the most accessed (but least re-written) apps into the first 6GB.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

ronangel 29th Jun 2010

Quote:@ronangel I cannot imagine any of these larger drives would be IDE.
I still would like to see inside for myself. also when the warranty runs out or I have very important data to recover & there is a fault in the usb interface due to a reason like an idiot applying a voltage to it.or wrong Psu connected. If I cut it open as I did with a Very expensive none rechargeable lithium battery from some medical equipment ($500) with a hacksaw to check connections
what will I find?.....yes that was dangerous I am electronics design Eng (& an idiot with 40 years experience) don't try it at home kiddies.

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RE: Seagate unleashes 'world?s first' 3TB external desktop drive

asg749d 29th Jun 2010

bmgoodman: THANK YOU! I was about to buy this drive and came across your post. Great post.

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Hey Seagate...

green alien 30th Jun 2010

Listen to us - customers! This is just another joke from you... This is a "toaster", made of cheap plastic, sealed, custom cables... oh my! Another useless product are your hybrid drives... Please go back to sell good products!