With individuals creating and storing more digital content today than ever before, Seagate Technology has announced a string of world firsts set to lead the consumer storage market during this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014—one of the largest annual consumer electronics tradeshows globally. Both devices are anticipated to be on shelves in the Middle East starting in the first quarter of 2014.
“Today digital storage is important for everyone who uses a personal computer or a mobile device,” said Scott Horn, vice president of global marketing for Seagate. “We are all creating content, whether that be photos from our last activity, video of a baby’s first steps, or a proposal for your next project. All of these files hold a special place of importance and Seagate is in the business of providing products that can store those valuable files.”
Amongst the landmark releases is the world’s first portable 4TB storage device—the Backup Plus FAST—providing twice the capacity and speed of existing external portable drives. Featuring a super speed USB 3.0 interface and delivering transfer speeds up to 220MB per second, it is the perfect companion for a creative developer, photographer or movie junkies looking to quickly move large files.
Seagate has also released its latest Backup Plus Slim as the world’s thinnest 2TB portable storage device for consumers on the go. With a svelte compact design and super speed USB 3.0 interface, the Backup Plus Slim drive is the ideal storage solution to aggregate and back up valued photos, videos and other files despite being spread across numerous devices and social networks.
Both offering include the same easy-to-use backup software that has made the Seagate Backup Plus lineup so popular. The Seagate Dashboard software provides an easy one-click backup solution, but can also be set as a scheduled backup up as needed. Additionally, the Dashboard software will back up Facebook and Flickr albums to ensure that even video and photos shared through these networks are saved and easy to find. Even the photos you have been tagged in can be backed up from your social networks to the drive.
The metal top-case of Seagate Backup Plus FAST drive is a quality sturdy design and is resistant to scratches and fingerprints. It needs no external power supply and is compact enough to fit easily in a camera bag or backpack while delivering the same or higher capacity of today’s desktop drives.
“Speed and capacity are of the utmost importance in my work which calls for the latest in digital photography and video technologies. When dealing with the large files these devices produce, whether it is a still photo, time-lapse video or 4k video; having high-capacity reliable and fast storage can make the difference between a project succeeding or failing” says Jim Sugar, veteran National Geographic photographer. The 4TB Seagate Backup Plus FAST portable drive is currently available from Seagate.com for approximately $299.99.
New for the Backup Plus family of external storage this year is the addition of a mobile backup application to provide protection for one’s digital data on nearly every device. By simply installing the free Seagate Mobile Backup app on an iOS or Android mobile device, one can easily back up all of the pictures and videos from that device to the drive or a cloud service. While on a home network, content from mobile devices can be sent directly to the drive via a Wi-Fi connection. Cloud services such as Dropbox or Google Drive can be used for backup while on the road.
“Mobile devices account for the largest amount of captured video and photos today,” said Chris Chute, research director for IDC’s Worldwide Digital Imaging Practice. “Seven out of every ten pictures captured in 2013 were taken with a smartphone. As a greater portion of our memories are captured by the handheld devices, it becomes increasingly more important that these files be backed up either to a cloud service or locally.”
Seagate Backup Plus storage is currently available from Amazon and Seagate.com by capacity. For the Backup Plus Slim version: 500GB – $99.99, 1TB – $119.99, 2TB – $179.99. For Seagate Backup Plus Desktop version: 2TB – $129.99, 3TB – $159.99, 4TB – $229.99. All prices are suggested retail price.
