July 10 - 10:25am EDT   Seagate today broke through a long-held barrier and released a 1.5 terabyte version of the Barracuda 7200.11. The storage is 500GB more than any other 3.5-inch desktop hard drive and is accomplished through extra refinement of perpendicular magnetic recording that allows it to fit 375GB on each of its four platters. The density also helps improve speed and lets the disk transfer data at a sustainable 120MB per second, or higher in bursts thanks to the extra bandwidth of its Serial ATA II connection. [full story]

July 9 - 11:40am EDT   Fujitsu has no near-term plans to create solid-state hard drives (SSDs) of its own as the technology still isn't as fast it should be compared to hard drives, the company's business development VP Joel Hagberg says. He acknowledges that many notebook manufacturers are opting for the flash-based medium but argues that its performance advantage isn't as broad as other storage makers would claim. Many SSDs are very fast at random access for reading data but quickly falls apart when writing data or reading large amounts of data in a row, he says. [full story]

June 26 - 2:05pm EDT   Seagate through its Maxtor label late Wednesday launched the Central Axis as its entry into network-attached storage for home use. The 1TB device serves as both group storage space for Mac OS X and Windows systems on the same local network but also as a remote storage server over the web. It also serves as an automatic media server for certain devices: any DLNA- or UPnP-based device, including the PS3, Xbox 360, and some Nokia Nseries phones will automatically find the Central Axis and can stream content directly from its hard drive. [full story]

June 24 - 5:00pm EDT   Seagate is rumored to be looking into buying out Intel's 49 percent stake in the IM Flash Technologies joint venture between the chip maker and Micron, a flash memory manufacturer, according to analysts. That is just one option for Seagate, but the analysts say the company would be better off buying into SanDisk, as it is not involved with any other companies and is less costly. Furthermore, they maintain that Seagate needs to purchase or team up with a NAND flash memory maker in order to be successful in its solid state drive (SSD) production. [full story]

May 30 - 9:50am EDT   Seagate is gradually planning a reversal of its stance on solid-state drives, the company's CEO Bill Watkins says. The storage producer has clung to rotating hard disks but will introduce a solid-state drive in 2009 that it will primarily market to enterprise-class users, who Seagate argues are most likely to need very high-speed disks regardless of the price. In turn, the company also plans to cater to proponents of traditional storage with a 2TB drive also ready next year. [full story]

May 19 - 2:05pm EDT   Seagate today at the 2008 Cable Show announced a new product that will add to the storage capacity of DVRs. The Showcase range will at first include a 1TB capacity drive, which will allow users to keep up to 200 more hours of HD programs. All Showcase drives will support eSATA-capable DVRs including devices from Motorola, which worked with Seagate on developing the products. [full story]

May 19 - 9:30am EDT   Dell on Monday became the first PC builder to ship a new generation of hard drives with updates to its XPS notebook line. Each system will have the option of a 320GB Seagate Momentus 7200.3 drive that should bring desktop-like performance without a significant hit in storage; the 7,200RPM speed and doubled 16MB of cache should all but eliminate the bottlenecking that often occurs during game loading and other intensive tasks. The disk also provides a level of shock protection to avoid damaging the disk in most falls. [full story]

April 30 - 12:10pm EDT   People contemplating SSD versions of computers like the MacBook Air -- which costs approximately $1,300 more than the HDD edition -- may not find the performance difference worthwhile, writes Computerworld. The magazine has conducted a test of 32GB SSDs by Crucial and Ridata, in comparison to two 7200rpm hard drives by Seagate. All four drives used cloned copies of Vista Home Premium, and were benchmarked by software called HD Tach. [full story]

April 15 - 1:00pm EDT   Seagate has begun the first of what may be several lawsuits against makers of flash memory, show filings from the US District Court in San Francisco. It has accused STEC, formerly known as Simple Technology, of violating four patents it owns, connected to the creation of flash memory -- should it win, Seagate could be granted an injunction against STEC products as well as unspecified damages. Seagate CEO Bill Watkins argues that compensation would be well-due, as it has invested heavily in developing technology for SSD drives, and it has tried to persuade other companies to license its patents. [full story]

March 24 - 2:25pm EDT   Seagate may pull a lawsuit as its trump card if solid-state drives (SSDs) threaten to undermine its conventional hard drive business, company head Bill Watkins has said in a new interview with Fortune. The executive alleges that both Intel and Samsung are violating patents dealing with the interaction between computers and storage and that a formal complaint could follow that would either force them to change their technology or else compensate Seagate for their purported infringement. [full story]

January 21 - 2:50pm EST   Instead of focusing on the high end of mobile storage, Seagate today unveiled the Momenuts 5400.4 250GB. The Serial ATA II drive is built to make relatively large hard disks available outside of pro notebooks and as a low-cost upgrade for systems with easily swappable drives. Despite holding 125GB of data across a relatively small two platters, the drive is said to be more power-efficient and tolerant of shocks (up to 325 Gs when active) than earlier generations. An 8MB cache is standard. [full story]

January 8 - 11:00pm EST   The second day of CES has drawn to a close, with many companies making major announcements about new products and services. Intel unveiled its 45nm Core 2 mobile platform with integrated SSE4 and 6MB of cache, available in speeds ranging from 2.1GHz to 2.8GHz. Microsoft announced that its Xbox Video Marketplace service will see content from Disney-ABC and MGM, and formally denied rumors that Xbox 360 with built-in HD-DVD is in planning. HP’s MediaSmart gear was given a complete overhaul, while also introducing several new laptop products. Seagate was on hand to show a number of different new storage options, while RealNetworks showed various products that use its Rhapsody ... [full story]

November 27 - 11:05am EST   A previously reported manufacturing defect is resulting in permanent data loss for numerous MacBook owners, according to Retrodata -- a UK-based drive recovery firm. The company says the critical flaw resides only in Seagate 2.5-inch SATA drives produced in China with a firmware version of 7.01, and an Apple spokesman has acknowledged that the company is looking into the matter. Retrodata says the problem is so severe that Seagate should recall the hard drives, and that Apple is responsible for replacing the drives free of charge. [full story]