Portable 7200RPM, 2.5-inch Hard Drive Delivers Transfer Speeds Up to Three Times Faster than USB 2.0

LAS VEGAS --(Business Wire)-- Jan 05, 2010 Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Seagate (NASDAQ:STX), the worldwide leader in hard drives and storage solutions, unveiled the BlackArmor® PS110 USB 3.0 portable external hard drive performance kit for notebook computers. Demonstrating its industry leadership in delivering advanced and easy-to-use storage solutions, this all-in-one USB 3.0 toolkit packages a 500GB 7200RPM 2.5–inch portable hard drive, power cable and PC express card, to deliver real-world, proven speeds up to three times faster than its USB 2.0 predecessor, making it one of the fastest portable hard drives available. USB 3.0 speed has been specified at 4.8 Gbs per second or a ten times improvement over USB 2.0, however this is theoretical performance, and the new Seagate BlackArmor USB 3.0 portable drive achieves 3X performance over USB 2.0 in real world testing.

“As people continue to amass vast libraries of high-definition photos, movies, and music, the storage needs of US households are forecast to grow more than ten times between 2009 and 2013, and the average digital media storage requirements will exceed a terabyte by 2013¹,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principle analyst of Parks Associates.

To address these growing storage needs, the BlackArmor PS110 USB 3.0 toolkit makes it easier and less time-consuming to store and share large amounts of rich digital content. This new super speed USB 3.0 interface allows easy transfer of large files to and from the external drive at sustained transfer rates of 100MB/s, which is three times faster than current USB 2.0 devices. The familiar scenario of waiting for large files to transfer will now be a thing of the past.

With the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 drive, a 25GB HD movie can be transferred in just four minutes versus the 14 minutes it would take using a traditional USB 2.0 drive². Simply plug the PC Adapter card into a notebook, connect one end of the included adapter cord to the PC card, the other end to the BlackArmor PS110 drive, and it is set.

“The growing presence of large multimedia files in the home means that connectivity and speed is a top concern for a satisfactory experience,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president, Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management. “The delivery of USB 3.0 further underscores our commitment to giving people an efficient way to store, access and share their digital creations.”

Coupling Performance with Protection
Considering the precious, personal content and portability of today’s external hard drives, it is important for people to give thought to protecting the data on the drive. Seagate’s USB 3.0 portable hard drive performance kit couples all the safety and security of the existing BlackArmor PS 110 portable hard drive with the increased performance of USB 3.0 in an exceptionally slim, 12.5mm form factor. Each drive ships with the Acronis business-grade backup suite, automated full-system backup and SafetyDrill+™ software, a bare metal recovery feature, is Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 compatible and covered by the an industry-leading, 5 year limited warranty.

“To date, the USB interface is the most prevalent interface and will continue to dominate as the interface of choice through 2011,” said Liz Conner, lead research analyst of IDC’s Personal Storage Research. “This will be re-enforced with the introduction of USB 3.0, which provides significantly increased bandwidth to better handle the growing number of large multimedia files being stored to external hard drives.”

The BlackArmor PS110 USB 3.0 performance kit contains everything you need to upgrade your laptop to take advantage of USB 3.0 speeds. The new BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance kit is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and can be purchased immediately from Seagate.com for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $179.99.

Seagate's BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 drive. Photo provided by Seagate Technology LLC.

About Seagate
Seagate is the worldwide leader in hard drives and storage solutions. Learn more at http://www.seagate.com.

© 2009 Seagate Technology LLC. All rights reserved. Seagate, Seagate Technology, the Wave logo, BlackArmor, and SafetyDrill+ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. When referring to drive capacity, one gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes. Your computer’s operating system may use a different standard of measurement and report a lower capacity. In addition, some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions and will not be available for data storage. Data rate usage examples for various applications are for illustrative purposes. Actual rates will vary based on various factors, including file size, file format, features, and application software. The export or re-export of hardware or software containing encryption may be regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (for more information go to http://www.bis.doc.gov/). Seagate reserves the right to change, without notice, product offerings or specifications.

1. Home Networks for Consumer Electronics, Parks Associates

2. Based on an average transfer rate of 30MBs for USB 2.0 and 100MB for USB 3.0.