Seagate Ultra Mobile HDD Targets Mobile Devices

Storage specialist Seagate took the wraps off its Ultra Mobile hard disk drive designed specifically for mobile devices such as Android tablets, a 2.5-inch device just 5mm thin and weighing in at a 3.3 ounces – about the same as a lightbulb.

Featuring up to 500GB of capacity, the Ultra Mobile HDD integrates Seagate’s own Zero Gravity Sensor to offer better shock management. Incorporated power modes support the drive in sleep, standby and idle, enabling it to consume low amounts of energy and support the long battery life demanded by tablet users.

Ultra-thin device

“Coupling an ultra-thin, high-capacity HDD with software designed to optimise integration into tablets at a value-add price has allowed us to deliver a truly ground-breaking solution, enabling our partners to reimagine the mobile device,” Steve Luczo, president, chief executive and chairman of Seagate, said in a statement. “By empowering our OEMs with this revolutionary new technology, we have invited the industry to re-think the mobile market, making this offering a true game-changer in the world of storage.”

Reduced power consumption and improved performance are achieved through an intelligent caching design that is implemented at the system level. As a result, a mobile device using 8GB of flash and the Ultra Mobile HDD and Dynamic Data Driver software has the power consumption equal to that of a 64GB tablet and the performance equal to that of a 16GB tablet, a company statement claimed.

“When comparing side by side a tablet and a portable PC, today’s tablets are trading off storage capacity in order to realise a thin and light form-factor device and long battery life,” John Rydning, IT analytics firm IDC’s research vice president for hard disk drives and semiconductors, said in a statement. “Seagate’s new Mobile Enablement Kit will bring PC-like storage capacity to future thin and light tablet designs, and position Seagate as a potential storage solutions provider to the fast-growing tablet market.”

The company also announced Seagate Rescue and Seagate Rescue and Replace data protection plans, with coverage starting at $29.99 (£19). The protection plans cover drive replacement and data recovery services for data that is contained on the drive. The plans offer coverage for nearly any brand of internal or external hard disk drive or solid-state drive.

Data recovery services

The plans cover recovery services for data that may have been lost due to physical damage, corruption or accidental deletion, and will be the first to be offered on a global scale following launches in Canada and Europe later this year and throughout the Asia Pacific region in mid-2014. The services will first be made available through the company’s website and will later be able to be purchased from retail and manufacture partners at the same time one purchases a computer, external storage or a network-attached storage (NAS) system.

“Data recovery is often a missing element in personal storage devices,” Liz Conner, senior research analyst for personal and entry-level storage at IDC, said in a statement. “Traditionally these devices have focused on providing data back-up or additional capacity to PCs, offering little to no options in the event of a storage failure. Seagate’s Rescue plan presents end users with peace of mind in the unlikely and unforeseeable event of device damage, drive/file corruption, or accidental file deletion.”

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Originally published on eWeek.