Seagate In-Lab Data Recovery Services Now Offers Cloud-based Data Returns

Anyone who has ever gone through the heartache of facing data recovery knows the process can be a tedious time consuming one. First you have to package up your drives, then ship them off to the labs and finally cross your fingers and hope and pray that they are able to recover your precious data. Then of course there is the waiting game to get your data returned, all the while you face delays which more often than not mean money!

Now days the best way to avoid this hassle is undoubtedly having a great back-up plan! There are plenty of great options out there that are very cost effective, with several actually being free depending on your needs. However, should you still find yourself in need of actual physical data recovery from a dead drive, popular hard drive manufacture Seagate, has for years offered very reliable very cost friendly In-Lab recovery services.

Until recently Seagate only offered the traditional recovery options, which meant submitting your case (details of your drive and data needing recovery), sending in your physical drive and waiting for the data to be recovered and returned. However, now there is a much faster more reliable option. Seagate recently transitioned to a cloud based platform which will offer faster return times as well as access to your recovered data anywhere you are. A real positive for anyone that is on a time crunch or might be worried about lost or misplaced packages.

The new cloud option still offers the same benefits of Seagate's traditional In-Lab recovery services. So you still get the 'no recovery, no cost' option, as well as 24/7 recovery tracking and full data back-up to a new external drive. You'll just see the added benefit of online password protection access to your recovered files. The files will be saved for 60days, with a guarantee of removal afterwards.

For more details checkout Seagate's In-Lab Recovery Services FAQ's

AVAST Antivirus Warns Consumers To Beware Of "America's Most Wanted" Websites

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Seagate Enters The SSD Arena With New "Pulsar" Drives

Seagate has officially entered the SSD market with the announcement of their new enterprise class Pulsar solid state drives (SSD).

Seagate today introduced the Seagate Pulsar drive, the first product in its new enterprise solid state drive (SSD) family. Designed for enterprise blade and general server applications, the Pulsar drive uses single-level cell (SLC) technology, delivers up to 200GB capacity, and is built in a 2.5-inch small form factor with a SATA interface. The Pulsar drive leverages Seagate’s 30 years of leadership in meeting large enterprise customer needs in product development, qualification, and support.


“Seagate is optimistic about the enterprise SSD opportunity and views the product category as enabling expansion of the overall storage market for both SSDs and HDDs,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president, Sales, Marketing, and Product Line Management. “Our strategy is to provide our customers with the exact storage device they need for any application, regardless of the component technology used. We are delivering on that strategy with the Pulsar™ drive, and you can expect additional products in the future from Seagate using a variety of solid state and rotating media components.”

The Pulsar SSD delivers the necessary performance, reliability, and endurance to match the application environments of enterprise blade and general servers. It achieves a peak performance of up to 30,000 read IOPS and 25,000 write IOPS, 240MB/s sequential read and 200 MB/s sequential write. Its SLC-based design optimizes reliability and endurance and helps provide a .44% AFR rating with a 5-year limited warranty. As an additional safeguard, the Pulsar drive leverages Seagate’s enterprise storage expertise to protect against data loss in the event of power failure.


Seagate began shipping Pulsar units to select OEMs for revenue in September 2009. With Seagate’s enterprise knowledge and expertise, OEMs have peace of mind knowing that Seagate has the global enterprise systems, people and processes in place to support their largest requirements.

“To deliver and serve the enterprise SSD marketplace effectively, it is critical for suppliers to understand the needs of their storage system customers with respect to design, manufacturing, supply chain delivery, and support,” said Dave Reinsel, IDC group vice president. “With its well-established OEM and eco-system relationships and a long history of serving global storage OEMs, Seagate is in a unique position to fortify its leading enterprise storage position with its entry into the enterprise solid state storage market.”

As the worldwide market leader in enterprise storage and the first enterprise HDD vendor to deliver an enterprise-class SSD solution, Seagate brings credibility, experience and leadership to this new market segment.

“The enterprise SSD market is now primed and well-positioned for growth from both a revenue and unit perspective, with Gartner estimating unit growth to double and sales to reach $1 billion for calendar year 2010,” said Joseph Unsworth, research director at Gartner. “Superior enterprise SSDs provide transformational capabilities when optimized in storage and server environments.”

The Seagate Pulsar SSD is available to OEM customers for qualification. More information can be found at http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/servers/pulsar/pulsar/

Source: Seagate

Seagate Ships New Serial ATA 6Gbit/Second Barracuda XT Hard Drives

Seagate Ships World's Fastest Desktop Hard Drive; First Drive to Feature Serial ATA 6Gbit/Second Technology

Seagate Teams With Technology Leaders to Bring SATA 6Gbit/s Complete Solutions to Market

Seagate Technology today began global shipments of the world’s fastest, largest-capacity mainstream desktop hard drive – Barracuda XT, a 7200RPM product featuring 2TB of storage capacity and a blazing fast Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/second interface. The 3.5-inch desktop drive, the industry’s first to feature a SATA 6Gb/s interface, meets the capacity demands of gaming, digital video-environments and other storage-hungry desktop computing applications while delivering the highest performance in its class.

The introduction of the Barracuda XT drive marks the shift to the next generation of desktop computing speed as Seagate doubles the storage bandwidth of current computers.

“Capacity and performance remain the defining attributes of hard drives for PC gamers, digital multimedia content developers and many other customers requiring high-end systems at home and in the office,” said Dave Mosley, executive vice president of Sales and Marketing at Seagate. “Seagate is meeting these requirements with the first 7200RPM desktop hard drive to combine 2TB of storage capacity with the fastest Serial ATA interface to date.”

The Barracuda XT product, a four-platter drive featuring an areal density of 368 Gigabits per square inch, delivers the highest performance – burst speeds of up to 6 Gigabits per second – for all PC applications, maintains backward compatibility with the SATA 3Gb/second and SATA 1.5Gb/second interfaces, and uses the same cables and connectors as previous SATA generations to ease integration. The hard drive’s SATA 6Gb/s interface enables system builders using SATA 6Gb/s drive controllers to build high-performance desktop PCs, full-tilt gaming rigs, and home and small business servers, and its 64MB cache optimizes burst performance and data transfer speeds.

“Marvell is pleased to be announcing the industry’s first commercially available SATA 6Gb/s solution and working with Seagate to introduce this technology,” said Dr. Alan J. Armstrong, vice president of Marketing, Business Storage Group at Marvell. “Marvell has been working with a broad group of partners and customers to bring this solution to market. As early adopters of Marvell’s SATA 6Gb/s technology, both ASUS and GIGABYTE offer motherboards to complement SATA 6Gb/s hard drives.”

The Serial ATA 6Gb/s Solution: Barracuda XT Drives and Motherboards from ASUS and GIGABYTE

With Barracuda XT drives and SATA 6Gb/s motherboards from ASUS and Gigabyte, computer makers can build the highest-performance PCs, workstations and entry-level servers. ASUS was first to market with a SATA 6Gb/s motherboard; the company’s P7P55D Premium began shipping in August. The new GIGABYTE P55 series GA-P55-Extreme motherboards are also now shipping .

“At ASUS, we are once again at the forefront of innovation by being the first to launch a native SATA 6Gb/s interface on a motherboard,” said Joe Hsieh, corporate vice president & general manager, Motherboard Business Unit & Desktop Business Unit, ASUS. “An expansion bridge integrated into the P7P55D Premium helps achieve real SATA 6Gb/s throughput to support bandwidth-hungry applications. The ASUS solution eliminates transmission bottlenecks in current technology and ensures users truly enjoy faster data speeds and double the storage bandwidth. For other P7P55D Series models, ASUS also provides an expansion card to achieve the same results.”

“GIGABYTE has worked closely with our partners Seagate and Marvell in making the highly anticipated SATA 6Gb/s technology a reality,” said Tony Liao, associate vice president of Marketing at GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. “As the leader in motherboard innovation, GIGABYTE is always excited to bring the very latest technologies to market, and with the release of the world’s first SATA 6Gb/s hard drive from Seagate, our customers’ expectations will be blown away with double-the-bandwidth performance for lightning-fast data transfer and storage.”

Seagate to Demonstrate Serial ATA 6Gb/s Technology at IDF

Seagate will demonstrate SATA 6Gb/s technology with technology partners at the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) booth, #425, at IDF, September 22 - 24 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Source: Seagate Press Release

Seagate Introduces BlackArmor NAS 420 And NAS 440

Seagate Introduces BlackArmor Family Of Storage Solutions For Small Business New products include BlackArmor NAS 440 and BlackArmor NAS 420 storage servers with up to 8TB of capacity


SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. - March 24, 2009 - Demonstrating its ongoing commitment to provide small businesses with solutions that meet both current and future storage needs, Seagate, the world’s leading provider of storage solutions, today announced a complete portfolio of products designed to protect data for sustained business continuity and optimum uptime. First introduced in 2008 as a portable Full Disk Encryption drive, the new Seagate BlackArmor product line is the family name for a suite of network-attached, workstation and portable storage solutions designed to meet the digital asset management needs of small business professionals.

Designed as a simple, easy-to-install and easy-to-manage solution for businesses with little or no IT support, BlackArmor storage solutions are perfect for small office environments with up to 50 employees as well as self-employed professionals. Additionally, the BlackArmor line of solutions provides software management tools that are compatible across the family, providing a consistent user experience and future growth path with minimal training or the need for additional support.

“With increasing economic pressures, small businesses and home offices may become even more likely to have limited or no on-site IT support and many will be reassessing their IT environments,” said Ryan Brock, AMI Partners’ vice president of Channels. “Cost-effective, easy-to-use solutions that offer data security and reliability along with a strategic growth path and single-vendor support will be very attractive to this customer base.”

The first two products to be announced for this new family of small business storage solutions are the Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 and BlackArmor NAS 420 servers, which are designed to provide organizations with a centralized, secure way to manage their business-critical information. Each is a four-bay NAS device, populated with Seagate disk drives. In the case of the BlackArmor NAS 420, it comes with two drives in a four drive chassis. The BlackArmor NAS 440 comes fully populated with four drives. Capacities vary from 2TB in the BlackArmor NAS 420, to a maximum capacity of 8TB in the BlackArmor NAS 440.

Unparalleled Security, Accessibility and Peace of Mind
For companies of any size, keeping business data accessible and secure is vital to maintaining the confidence of their customers, partners and employees. Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 and Seagate BlackArmor NAS 420 network storage servers help companies ensure they operate efficiently, while keeping their business data secure, available, accessible and protected. Seagate’s years of experience developing robust, secure storage solutions offers customers the right blend of features to meet immediate and future business needs:

• Ease of Use: Self-contained, out-of-the box solutions with on-board LCD Screen, displaying settings and status information – including event alerts – and intuitive management utility for easy configuration and data access;
• Protection: Delivers continuous and automatic backup of business-critical data on up to 50 networked computers(1) with full-system backup and RAID options to help provide data protection and redundancy;
• Security: Individual file to entire volume encryption with intuitive software management for access control at file and folder level with password protection and encryption; included bare metal restore and recovery CD to protect against hardware failure.
• Flexibility: Offers the ability to scale from two to four drive configuration with two, four, six and eight terabytes of storage so companies can pick the right solution to meet their business requirements;
• Accessibility: When away from the office, customers can access and share business content securely from the road with an Internet browser without any extra installs or software. Companies can invite colleagues and clients to access select files and folders without needing an FTP site, while keeping their firewall intact and maintaining the security of their network;
• Continuity: Designed with hot swappable, user-serviceable drives and RAID options to enhance performance and scalability, the BlackArmor 440 and 420 network storage servers help ensure business continuity. The four USB ports can be can be used to attach external USB drives for offsite rotation in order to guard against the consequences of natural disasters; BlackArmor network storage servers also ship with an external power supply and user-serviceable fan to cover foreseeable failure points and thus minimize downtime.
• Investment Protection: Part of an all-inclusive small business storage portfolio, which offers interoperability amongst all products and strategic storage growth path. Each customer’s purchase has a three-year limited warranty and the peace of mind of knowing their business is backed by a storage industry leader.

Technical Specifications and Pricing
Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 and BlackArmor NAS 420 network servers support Windows® XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later. Both network servers can be purchased through channel partners and select retailers at the following manufacturers’ suggested retail prices (MSRP):

Seagate BlackArmor NAS 420 network servers – four-bay, two drive configuration
$799.99 USD for 2TB
Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 network servers – four-bay, four drive configuration
$1,199.99 USD for 4TB, $1,699.99 USD for 6TB and $1,999.99 USD for 8TB scheduled available for May.

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More detailed information about the Seagate BlackArmor family of solutions can be found at www.seagate.com/blackarmor.

Source: Seagate Press Release

Seagate Releases New Firmware Fix For Bricked Drives

Seagate has released a new firmware update that, this time , should fix the issues faced my many users. The company has published detailed instructions for how you can identify which model of hard drive a user has and whether it needs a firmware upgrade. Models affected are the Barracuda 7200.11, ES.2 SATA and DiamondMax 22.

I highly recommend anyone looking to flash their drive back them up before hand. While so far there have been no reported issues with the new firmware that is no guarantee. The last firmware released by Seagate was faulty and bricked several previously working drives.

Seagate will be offering data recovery services through their i365 subsidiary to any customer that was affected by this issue. Since this is a bios issue the data on the drives that are not inoperable is unaffected and should still be on the drives and can be recovered.

Seagate's Firmware Update Bricking Drives

According to several reports on the seagate support forums Seagate's recent firmware update for Barracuda 7200.11 drives affected by a faulty firmware is actually doing more harm than good and in many cases is bricking previously working 500 GB hard drives.

The thread is packed with owners of ST3500320AS model 500GB Barracuda drives who have attempted to update their firmware according to the Seagate knowledge base article. The update which is supposed to prevent failures is actually causing drives to be bricked.

For now the update has been "temporarily taken offline as of Jan 19, 2008 8PM CST for validation." There has been no official word from Seagate regarding the new issues faced by their users, however the company said yesterday they would provide free data recovery services for affected users so we can assume they will extend that offer to anyone that is affected by this latest issue.

Seagate Issues Firmware Update Following Hard Drive Problems

Hard drive manufacturer Seagate has acknowledged a firmware issue in certain products, including some Barracuda 7200.11 model hard drives manufactured through December 2008 that has been causing many drives to freeze up during data transfers or failing all together.

For users affected by the issues Seagate is now offering a firmware upgrade that it says will fix the issue as well as data recovery for drives that are already bricked. Here's the full statement from the company's spokesman Mike Hall:

Seagate has isolated a potential firmware issue in certain products, including some Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and related drive families based on this product platform, manufactured through December 2008. In some circumstances, the data on the hard drives may become inaccessible to the user when the host system is powered on.

As part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, we are offering a free firmware upgrade to those with affected products. To determine whether your product is affected, please visit the Seagate Support web site at http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207931.

Support is also available through Seagate's call center: 1-800-SEAGATE (1 800 732-4283)

Customers can expedite assistance by sending an email to Seagate (discsupport@seagate.com). Please include the following disk drive information: model number, serial number and current firmware revision. We will respond, promptly, to your email request with appropriate instructions. There is no data loss associated with this issue, and the data still resides on the drive. But if you are unable to access your data due to this issue, Seagate will provide free data recovery services. Seagate will work with you to expedite a remedy to minimize any disruption to you or your business.

For a list of international telephone numbers to Seagate Support and alternative methods of contact, please access http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/

According to the Seagate knowledge base entry, the issue may affect a large number of drive models with Seagate recommending that users with 1.5TB, 750GB, 640GB, 500GB, 320GB, and 160GB Barracuda 7200.11 drives, along with some Maxtor and ES.2 models, all install the firmware update.

The company hasn't provided a direct link for the firmware download, instead they are urging users to use the following tools and instructions to determine if you have one of the affected products. If you do, it is recommend that you update the firmware on the disk drive to prevent this condition:

• Click here for instructions on how to find the serial number on your drive.
• Click here to use the online serial number validation tool to check whether your drive requires a firmware update or not.

When typing in your serial number into the validation tool, make sure to use ALL CAPS. Using lower case characters will invalidate the result. If the online serial number validation tool states that your drive is affected, you need to contact Seagate Customer Support for a firmware update to your hard drive.

Seagate Introduces New Cheetah 15K.7 AND Cheetah NS.2 Hard Drives

Earlier this week Seagate announced two new members of its award-winning Cheetah enterprise-class hard drive family: the Cheetah 15K.7 hard drive and the Cheetah NS.2 hard drive. Current economic challenges have put even more focus on reducing spending to ensure long-term business sustainability. For businesses that have an existing investment based on a standard 3.5-inch enterprise infrastructure, the new Cheetah drives bolster sustainability through easy drive/system integration, and provide improved levels of system performance, capacity, reliability, and lower power consumption.

In support of sustaining the environment, where reduce, reuse and recycle are keys to this best practice, Cheetah drives reduce power consumption, drive replacement costs, and costs per GB. Built for 3.5-inch Tier 1 storage applications, the Cheetah 15K.7 drive and the Cheetah NS.2 drive are the largest capacity mission-critical drives offered at 600GB, and have the highest reliability in the industry. The Cheetah 15K.7 drive delivers the highest performance of any 3.5-inch drive, while the Cheetah NS.2 drive takes power-savings to the furthest extreme by featuring the lowest power requirement of any 3.5-inch Tier 1 drive.

Both drives feature 2 nd-generation PowerTrim technology, which dynamically optimizes drive power consumption at all levels of activity. Using PowerTrim technology, the Cheetah NS.2 drive provides power savings of over 20% when compared to its prior generation design.

“Seagate recognizes IT budgets are constrained, and these new 3.5-inch Cheetah drives are aimed directly at helping enable many businesses sensibly grow and scale as their information needs continue, while at the same time providing the reliability required to avoid costly interruption or downtime,” said Sherman Black, senior vice president, Seagate Core HDD Marketing and Strategy. “While many organizations are making the transition to 2.5-inch enterprise-class drives which include the Seagate Savvio drive family, 3.5-inch Cheetah drives are the leading standard for existing enterprise systems. Seagate remains committed to serving the market with a full lineup of storage solutions for a broad range of needs and budgets.”

“External storage system OEMs continue to consume the majority of 3.5-inch performance-optimized HDDs shipped each quarter, whereas server manufacturers consumed nearly all of the 2.5-inch SFF performance-optimized HDDs that shipped in 2008,” according to John Rydning, IDC’s research director for hard disk drives. “Seagate’s new 3.5-inch Cheetah disk drives with up to 600GBs of capacity will fill a critical need for both its customers and end users looking to extend the life of existing external storage system platforms.”

“It’s a core tenet of Dell’s philosophy to offer our customers the best technology and services solutions to meet their needs,” said Praveen Asthana, director of Dell Storage. “By offering a selection of these new drives from Seagate, we are able to provide our customers Tier 1 reliability at 600GB while empowering them to place their own priority on performance and power consumption.”

The Cheetah 15K.7 and the Cheetah NS.2 drives are the second generation of Cheetah drives available as Self-Encrypting Drives for designated OEMs, providing government-grade data security, and instant secure erase for drives repurposed, reused, recycled, or returned for expired lease, repair or warranty.

“Many organizations are considering drive-level security for its simplicity in helping secure sensitive data through the hardware lifecycle from initial setup, to upgrade transitions and disposal,” said Eric Ouellet, Gartner research vice president.

Cheetah 15K.7 Drive Specifications

• Capacity 600, 450, 300GB
• Interface 6Gb/s SAS-2.0, 4Gb/s FC
• Spindle Speed 15,000 RPM
• Seek Time 3.4 ms
• Reliability 0.55% AFR / 1.6M hours MTBF
• Cache 16MB
• Form factor 3.5-inch
• Cheetah 15k.7 Product Overview (PDF)
  

Cheetah NS.2 Drive Specifications

• Capacity 600, 450, 300GB
• Interface 6Gb/s SAS-2.0 (600 and 450 GB drives), 4Gb/s FC
• Spindle Speed 10,000 RPM
• Seek Time 3.8 ms
• Reliability 0.55% AFR / 1.6M hours MTBF
• Cache 16MB
• Form factor 3.5-inch
• Cheetah NS.2 Product Overview (PDF)
  

The Cheetah NS.2 drive is available and shipping today while the Cheetah 15K.7 drive is currently available for OEM qualifications and will start shipping next quarter to the channel.

Source: Seagate Press Release