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Western Digital refreshes external hard drives with USB 3.0

Seagate recently launched its USB 3.0-based line of external hard drives including the FreeAgent GoFlex Ultraportable (1.5TB for laptops) and the FreeAgent GoFlex Desk (3TB for desktops). Western Digital followed suit today with its own line of USB 3.0 external hard drives that offer up to 3TB of storage.

The company announced new versions of its three popular lines of storage devices, including the My Passport Essential, My Passport Essential SE, and My Book Essential. All three are external hard drives. The first two are compact and portable drives (suitable to accompany laptop computers) and the last … Read more

Seagate GoFlex portable drive gets USB 3.0

Owners of Seagate's FreeAgent GoFlex Pro who've been wishing the portable hard drive came with USB 3.0 rather than merely USB 2.0 just got their wish.

Seagate announced today a new portable drive in its FreeAgent GoFlex family, the 1.5TB GoFlex Ultra-portable. The drive not only comes with USB 3.0 standard but boasts 1.5TB of storage, making it what appears to be the largest single-volume portable external hard drive currently on the market.

Other than the amount of storage, the new drive has the same superflexible design as the GoFlex Pro, meaning it can be used with any type of connection--be it USB, FireWire, or eSATA--merely by swapping out the adapters.

The GoFlex Ultra-portable comes with a USB 3.0 adapter, while the GoFlex Pro comes with a USB 2.0 adapter. These two adapters, like all GoFlex adapters, can be used interchangeably.

Note, however, that while the GoFlex Pro supports USB 3.0 too, you'll need to buy a separate adapter that costs around $40. Notably, the GoFlex Ultra-portable is the first portable external drive in the GoFlex family to support USB 3.0 out of the box.… Read more

LaCie unveils its first USB 3.0 RAID drive

If you are looking for a superfast USB 3.0 external hard drive with redundancy data protection, there's now another option. Following in the footsteps of Sans Digital, LaCie announced Tuesday its own version of a USB 3.0-based external hard drive with RAID support: the LaCie 2big USB 3.0.

The company says that the new drive is available in up to a 4TB capacity and comes with two separate internal hard drives. These hard drives can be set up either in RAID 0 for fast speed and maximum amount of storage (with no data protection) or RAID … Read more

Get a 2TB external hard drive for $99.99

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a first.

Not so long ago, finding a 1-terabyte external hard drive for less than $100 was a big deal. Today, a 2-terabyte drive has broken that same barrier.

Woot spinoff site Moofi has a SimpleDrive 2TB Turbo USB hard drive for $99.99, plus $5 for shipping. This is a new drive, not a refurb, and it comes with a very impressive 3-year warranty.

The SimpleDrive is, well, simple, a basic black mini-monolith that can sit flat or stand upright. As an aesthetic bonus, it comes in a curvy case, not some boring flat … Read more