If you're working the surveillance detail for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or just want to record video of live sports events, Seagate Technology has the hard drives for you.
The Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company announced nine new products on the eve of its annual analyst meeting, scheduled to take place later this week. At the other end of the Seagate spectrum is a drive optimized for security cameras. The drive, which offers up to 1 terabyte of storage, contains firmware that enables it to accept video streams from several sources.
A terabyte drive can capture 32 days' worth of data, Watkins noted.
The product launch also included a 1-terabyte desktop drive, a 250GB notebook drive, and backup drives from the Maxtor line. Seagate acquired Maxtor last year and continues to use the brand for its "value" (i.e. cheaper and less fancy) line of products.
The desktop Maxtor backup drives sport up to 750GB of storage space and cost about $270 each. In 2004, Sony showed off a 1-terabyte home server in Japan that cost about $5,000, so the price of storage continues to plummet.
Seagate also announced new drives for the first quarter of 2008, with enhanced error correction for digital-video recorders, including a 1TB model. In Japan, consumers are already asking for 2TB drives for their DVRs.
"Everyone is looking at how much capacity they can put in," Watkins said.
Seagate has also said it plans to move into the market for flash-based hard drives. The company now sells only hard drives that store data on magnetic platters.
Samsung Electronics and SanDisk have already released flash drives for notebooks and blade servers. By coming out with its own flash drives, Seagate can participate in what Watkins claims will be a corner of the storage market.
Flash memory is more reliable and consumes less energy, but it costs more, in terms of cents per gigabyte.
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