Seagate will be at COMEX 2012 at Suntec Singapore at Level 6, Hall 602, Booth 6346.
Click to view or download Seagate’s promotional flyer for COMEX 2012.
Seagate will be offering COMEX 2012 discounts for its slew of storage products, from portable drives to the GoFlex Home Media Sharing drive.
Two of its top products are its Satellite mobile wireless storage drive and its Backup Plus portable hard drive.
Singapore adventurer Khoo Swee Chiow has become the first Singaporean and Southeast Asian to reach the peak of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, and most treacherous peak. Congratulations!
Khoo Swee Chiow at the summit of K2.
What can a person do in slightly more than a month? It was only in end June that I wrote about Khoo Swee Chiow embarking upon the climb up K2. Before you know it, he’s done it. Bravo!
The Singaporean adventurer and motivational speaker reached the summit at 1020hrs on 31 July 2012 (1320hrs on 31 July 2012 Singaporean time).
K2 is known as the most treacherous and technically challenging mountain in the world.
Khoo reached the summit of K2 after 32 days of climbing in sub-zero temperatures.
He was climbing together with an international team of 10 other climbers from China, South Korea, Turkey, Macedonia, Spain and Nepal.
The team climbed the mountain along the Abruzzi Ridge, otherwise known as the Southeast Ridge, from the Pakistani border.
The S$630,000 will help the underprivileged communities in Singapore, including children in need and the elderly.
“AWWA Community Home for Senior Citizens provides accommodation for elderly Singaporeans who are on public assistance or have no family or means of financial support. Seagate’s generous donation will go a long way in helping us support our residents through counseling services and regular activities to maintain their physical and mental health,” said Keith Lee, Director of Elderly Services, AWWA.
Seagate Technology raised the money as part of a charity drive organised to commemorate the company’s 30th anniversary in Singapore.
As a mark to give back to the community that Seagate has been operating in, Seagate employees participated in a variety of activities organized by the company at the Asian Women’s Welfare Association (AWWA) Community Home for Senior Citizens and the Children’s Society Student Care Centre (Henderson).
They provided an afternoon of entertainment for the elderly residents through song and games and and conducted a balloon workshop for the children.
Seagate employees also organized a charity bazaar at Seagate’s Ang Mo Kio office cafeteria for an afternoon, where they ran game stalls to raise funds for the two charities.
“We are extremely thankful to Seagate for their generosity. Most of the children from Children’s Society Student Care Centre (Henderson) come from low income families and the funds raised will be a great help in providing a conducive environment to enhance the development of these needy children, who are the future of Singapore,” said Chia Boon Khiang, Director of Funding, Singapore Children’s Society.
Singaporean adventurer and motivational speaker Khoo Swee Chiow will attempt to scale the summit of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, with the support of title sponsor Seagate Technology.
Khoo Swee Chiow will climb K2, one of the most notorious mountains in the world. Photo by Kevin Mayea.
The Seagate K2 2012 expedition, from 20 June to 20 August, will see Khoo Swee Chiow join an international team of 13 climbers from China, South Korea, USA, Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Spain, Nepal and Singapore.
“Swee Chiow has shown incredible tenacity and determination in realizing his dreams. His expeditions have made it possible for him to instill confidence, leadership and excellence in thousands of people through motivational talks,” said BanSeng Teh, senior vice president and managing director for Asia Pacific & Japan, Seagate Technology.Khoo Swee Chiow and his team will be climbing the mountain along the Abruzzi Ridge, otherwise known as the Southeast Ridge, from the Pakistani border.
On this climb, Khoo Swee Chiow is taking Seagate Backup Plus hard drives to store and backup his photos, videos and journal files for him to share his story when he returns.
Seagate’s newly designed external storage – Backup Plus hard drives – deliver easy setup, one-click backup and the ability to save and share content on Facebook and Flickr.
In addition to Seagate Technology, they will be supported by other sponsors including Microsoft, Canon, Millet, Adventure21, Iridium, Energizer, Oakley, Touch&Print, Banana Boat, Powertraveller, GoPro and Meteorological Service Singapore.
“K2 will be the hardest climb of my life, much harder than Everest. After more than 20 years of climbing, I feel the time has come for me to give it a go,” said Khoo Swee Chiow, who first climbed Everest in 1998.Standing at an elevation of 8,611 metres above sea level, K2 is known for its high level of difficulty and notoriously high casualty rate.
It has a daunting death rate of 26 percent per ascent, six times higher than that of the world’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest.
To date, only 302 climbers have successfully reached K2’s peak, a number that pales in comparison to Everest’s 3,500.
That’s one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) bits in one square inch of the disk.
That’s more than double the number of stars in the Milky Way, which astronomers estimate to number between 200 and 400 billion.
Seagate has squeezed 1,000,000,000,000 bits into every square inch.
Seagate has become the first hard drive maker to achieve the milestone storage density of 1 terabit per square inch.
“The growth of social media, search engines, cloud computing, rich media and other data-hungry applications continues to stoke demand for ever greater storagecapacity,” said Mark Re, senior vice president of Heads and Media Research and Development at Seagate.The technology demonstration promises to double the storage capacity of today’s hard drives upon its introduction later this decade.
Don’t be surprised to see 3.5-inch hard drives with an extraordinary capacity of up to 60 terabytes over the 10 years that follow.
Seagate reached the landmark data density with heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), the next- generation recording technology.
The current hard drive technology, Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), is used to record the spectrum of digitized data – from music, photos, and video stored on home desktop and laptop PCs to business information housed in sprawling data centers – on the spinning platters inside every hard drive.
PMR technology was introduced in 2006 to replace longitudinal recording, a method in place since the advent of hard drives for computer storage in 1956, and is expected to reach its capacity limit near 1 terabit per square inch in the next few years.
“Hard disk drive innovations like HAMR will be a key enabler of the development of even more data-intense applications in the future, extending the ways businesses and consumers worldwide use, manage and store digital content,” added Mark.Hard drive manufacturers increase areal density and capacity by shrinking a platter’s data bits to pack more within each square inch of disk space.
They also tighten the data tracks, the concentric circles on the disk’s surface that anchor the bits.
The maximum capacity of today’s 3.5-inch hard drives is 3 terabytes (TB), at about 620 gigabits per square inch, while 2.5-inch drives top out at 750 gigabytes (GB), or roughly 500 gigabits per square inch.
The first generation of HAMR drives, at just over 1 terabit per square inch, will likely more than double these capacities – to 6TB for 3.5-inch drives and 2TB for 2.5-inch models.
The technology offers a scale of capacity growth never before possible, with a theoretical areal density limit ranging from 5 to 10 terabits per square inch – 30TB to 60TB for 3.5-inch drives and 10TB to 20TB for 2.5-inch drives.
Seagate will be at the IT Show 2012 in Suntec Singapore at Level 6, Booth 6381.
From left: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex UltraPortable (USB 3.0), Desk, Home, Satellite.
Check out the discounted prices and free gifts for their range of external desktop or portable expansion drives or network attached storage drives. (*Satellite comes with free Seagate Satellite Hard Pouch worth S$29.90.)
| Capacity | IT Show 2012 Prices | Usual Prices |
|---|---|---|
| Seagate GoFlex Home Satellite* | ||
| 500 GB | S$289 | S$299 |
| Seagate GoFlex Home network storage system | ||
| 1 TB | S$229 | – |
| 2 TB | S$259 | – |
| 3 TB | S$329 | S$349 |
| Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk USB 3.0 external drive | ||
| 1 TB | S$179 | S$189 |
| 2 TB | S$209 | S$229 |
| 3 TB | S$299 | S$309 |
| Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex UltraPortable drive, USB 3.0 | ||
| 500 GB | S$119 | S$149 |
| 1 TB | S$189 | S$199 |
| 1.5 TB | S$239 | S$259 |
Planning to enjoy some romantic music during Valentine’s Day? Here are some gift ideas from a selection of stuff that I’ve covered in my blog previously.
Valentine's Day doodles by Suelyn Howe
First off, some doodles from Suelyn Howe that you can print out for use as your Valentine’s Day gift tag or card.
Bose OE2 (S$219) and OE2i (S$269) available in Singapore.
Now the audio gizmos. For improved depth and clarity, check out Bose’s new on-ear headphones, the OE2 (S$219) or OE2i (S$269), which deliver better audio performance than their predecessors and feature an updated look and stylish design.
To listen to music from a smartphone, check out the Pure White BlackBerry Bold 9900 (prices vary with Telcos), which is incredibly sexy and sleek.
With the unique white colour, she is sure to stand out in a crowd and always be looking for reasons to pull her phone out of her handbag.
Long evenings chatting on the phone to the boyfriend (that’s you) and BBM flirting (with you) will now be done in style!
For both listening to music and talking to you on the smartphone, check out the Bose Series 2 Bluetooth headset (S$249).
The headset assures conversations remain clear and natural – even in challenging environments, or when surrounding noise levels change suddenly.
Bose Bluetooth Headset Series 2 (S$249)
For streaming music and movies, check out the Seagate GoFlex Satellite.
It is the first battery-powered external hard drive to wirelessly extend the storage capacity of any Wi-Fi enabled device such as your Bold 9900, iPad or any other tablet and mobile device.
Couples can stream their favorite videos, music and pictures from their GoFlex Satellite (S$299) straight to their mobile device.
With 500GB (or 300 HD movies), the GoFlex Satellite allows you to connect up to three devices simultaneously.
What’s even better – if you are on a road trip or in a café and you have no internet connection, the Satellite will still work as it creates its own Wi–Fi network.
The GoFlex Satellite mobile wireless storage has been named an International CES Innovations 2012 Design and Engineering Awards Honouree.
Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by a panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the media to honour outstanding design and engineering in cutting edge consumer electronics products across 32 product categories.
Started in 1976, the Innovations Design and Engineering Awards are sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA),“A first for the industry, the GoFlex Satellite drive extends the limited capacity of mobile devices by wirelessly streaming media without the use of an external power source,” said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Seagate Branded Solutions. the producer of the International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow.
The Seagate GoFlex Satellite external hard drive will be displayed at the Innovations Showcase in the Venetian Ballroom during the 2012 International CES, which runs January 10-13, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The GoFlex Satellite was first announced in end-August. The 500GB version became available in Singapore in September at S$299.
Seagate is streamlining its flagship family of desktop drives under a single product that focuses on performance and big capacities – to cater to the explosive growth in content creation and consumption by businesses and consumers.
The new Barracuda family makes it easier for consumers to find the product they need and reduces costs for Seagate’s original equipment manufacturer and distribution channel customers by reducing the number of product qualifications and amount of inventory they need to manage.
The new Barracuda hard drive – to be available first at online retailers – is designed for desktop, tower or all-in-one personal computers; workstations, home and small business servers; “Our OEM and channel customers want to reduce overhead costs by having fewer product lines to qualify and manage in their inventory,” said Scott Horn, vice president of Marketing at Seagate.network-attached storage devices; direct-attached storage expansion; and home and small-business RAID solutions.
Capacities of the family range from 250GB to 3TB.
The simplification of the Barracuda family comes as Seagate begins volume shipments of its 1TB-per-disk Barracuda hard drive. Seagate plans to end production of its Barracuda Green drive in February 2012.
Seagate analysis shows that its new Barracuda drives have a nearly identical power-consumption profile as energy-efficient desktop drives but deliver much higher performance. Barracuda XT, Seagate’s fastest desktop hard drive, will be folded into the new Barracuda family and re-emerge, in name, as the company’s desktop solid state hybrid drive.
Technical specifications
The new Barracuda hard drive features a SATA 6GB/second interface, 7200RPM spin speed and up to 64MB cache to deliver high performance across all capacities.
Seagate’s SmartAlign technology, a feature of Seagate’s Barracuda Green drives, will continue to ship with the flagship Barracuda drives to help the hard drive industry segue from the current 512-byte sector standard for hard drives to the new 4096-byte sector size.
The new 4K standard enables the use of stronger error correction algorithms to maintain data integrity at higher storage densities and capacities.
GoFlex Home is a consumer network attached storage (NAS) hard drive for the home. Easy to set up and use, it allows the access, sharing, streaming, and backup of files and media for computers, network TVs, media players and game consoles connected to the home wireless network.
The Seagate GoFlex Home comprises a drive dock and a hard drive.
Secure access can also be opened to computers and iOS/Android tablets and smartphones over the Internet.
Over the weekend, I helped my friend set up an NAS drive for his desktop, netbook, two laptops, iPhone and Android tablet. He had bought the Seagate GoFlex Home 3 TB storage drive during the recent COMEX 2011 but hadn’t had the time to set it up yet.
I helped by using eye-power because he decided to give it a go himself and actually got the thing working in less than 15 minutes. That was the reason why I recommended the drive in the first place, it works with most consumer home Wi-Fi routers with little set-up or configuration needed.
The GoFlex Home comes with two cables and an software installation CD. The following steps were all that was needed to get the personal storage cloud going:
1. Connect the GoFlex Home drive dock to the Wi-Fi router by using the provided Ethernet cable.
2. Pop the GoFlex hard drive into the GoFlex drive dock and plug the power supply into the drive dock and the wall outlet. Switch on the GoFlex Home by pressing the Power button on the drive dock.
3. Pop the CD (or download from Seagate’s website) into the computer (can be a Mac or Windows PC) to install the software needed to access the hard drive. Simply select a language, key in the product information found on the drive, give the drive a name and register it. The name has to be unique globally since it will be used to identify the drive should you access it from the Internet.
4. Install the software on other computers that require access to the shared drive. Up to 5 people/computers on the home network can access the GoFlex Home. By paying to subscribe to the Seagate Share Pro, you get access for an unlimited number of people/computers to the GoFlex Home.
There are three ways to access the drive. One is to use the installed Seagate Dashboard software (on Windows PCs), which allows all features of the drive to be configured and managed. You can add computers and user accounts, backup, access and share files as well.
Use Seagate Dashboard software to configure and manage GoFelx Home
The other way is to use a browser-based Seagate Share either for a computer in the home network or out in the Internet.
Free iOS/Android app
Both are easy to use with a simple interface, using drag-and-drop or standard dialog boxes we’re familar with.
The third method is via the appropriate free app on a iOS/Android smartphone or tablet, also over the Internet.
The GoFlex Home comes with a USB port which is very useful. You can connect an additional external hard drive to expand the capacity of the original GoFlex hard drive. You can also connect a USB hub for connecting more than one USB device.
In my friend’s case, he connected his printer to the USB port and all his computers on the Wi-Fi network got to share that printer. 
No more plugging/unplugging the old printer from one computer to another.
The included backup software allows up to three connected computers to be automatically backed up to the GoFlex Home. Upgrade to Premium Backup ($49.95) to back up an unlimited 
number of computers on the GoFlex Home network. You can upgrade at the Application Store that can be accessed through the Seagate Dashboard software.
For each user account set up on the GoFlex Home, three folders are created – a Public, Personal, and Backup folder. The Public folder holds files that can be stored and accessed by everyone on your home network. The Personal and Backup folders can only be accessed by the the user.
What I like about the sharing is the granular control available for the files shared. You can specify who you want to share files with, choose to share just certain files or entire folders, set passwords, and set expiry dates for the shares. Administration is intuitive and easy to pick up. You can send a URL of a shared file via email.
Stream media to other computers and media players on the home wireless network.
The GoFlex Home is available in 1TB (S$179), 2TB (S$239) and 3TB (S$339) capacities.
