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Seagate Launches First USB-Powered Desktop Hard Drive

dyt1983 said:
hmm, exFAT is also designed for the operating system from which it comes, and is not an ideal format for a cross-platform file system. It does however have a few features that make it ideal for large flash media.
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exFAT doesn't really have any platform-specific features, like ACLs and such, or support for extended attributes, multiple forks, among other features. It's a very basic format which fulfills the most basic needs of an OS. That's what I meant by that. Any OS will find its basic storage needs met by exFAT. It isn't suitable as a primary filesystem for any OS because of its lack of features, but it gets the job done for external media very well.
 
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Gudi said:
Uh yeah, sending electricity over a wire! God knows what will happen?
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The issue I've seen is that some computers don't provide a steady amount of current over USB, usually when you have multiple things plugged into an internal hub. If it's close to the limit, you might see the HDD turning on and off.
 
sudo1996 said:
The issue I've seen is that some computers don't provide a steady amount of current over USB, usually when you have multiple things plugged into an internal hub. If it's close to the limit, you might see the HDD turning on and off.
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We're talking USB-C (not any prior USB specification) and it's supposed to deliver up to 100W to peripherals like huge 5K monitors, so it should power a 3.5" Desktop HDD without problems.
 
Gudi said:
We're talking USB-C (not any prior USB specification) and it's supposed to deliver up to 100W to peripherals like huge 5K monitors, so it should power a 3.5" Desktop HDD without problems.
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Oh, I read "USB-C" a bunch of times and was still thinking of the old standard. Yeah, you're right, should be fine.
 
That's nice for desktop devices and when you dock or hub your notebook. Doesn't seem realistic for actual mobile use. I like the idea for desktops tho!
 
12vElectronics said:
How do people use and need 8TB for anything outside of work use?!
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I do a lot of audio and video production. I have 8 tb now and it's about 2/3 full.

The Seagate would be a good option for me if it wasn't USB 3. For what I do, it doesn't have the through-put. With Thunderbolt, I can edit a Final Cut project on my external drive. That just amazes me, compared to how external hard drives performed not too long ago. Even so, Seagate's price is pretty attractive.
 
Hellhammer said:
Say good bye to battery life as this thing likely draws more power than the Core m CPU inside the MacBook...
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Exactly. Now you'll pretty well need that $79 USB-C MultiPort adapter so you can keep that little MB juiced up while using that HDD. Anyway it still cuts out an otherwise necessary Seagate power cord..... 6/half dozen?

Note: As you need the USB-C port for the Seagate, you'll have to charge the MB thru the Regular USB port though.
 
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Hellhammer said:
Say good bye to battery life as this thing likely draws more power than the Core m CPU inside the MacBook...
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Which brings us back to why the Mac Book is such a terrible design. They really need to have at least two USB-C ports so that charging can take place as needed.
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12vElectronics said:
How do people use and need 8TB for anything outside of work use?!
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There are lots of uses for that space. For example:
  1. An iTunes volume
  2. Time machine disk
  3. A place to store transcoded DVD's. Like wise general video editing.
  4. College lectures.
  5. Installation images for various operating systems. For Linux these are often DVD sized.
  6. WWDC videos. OK for some that would be work related for others not so much. However if you manage to keep 3 years worth that is still a lot of disk space.
I look at it like this, I never thought that I'd fill up a 3GB drive yet I'm getting close to having to upgrade my iTunes volume. Also no internet access at home other than cell service. As such some stuff gets stored locally when connected to WiFi so I can t will be handy when the time comes.

For example connect to WiFi at work, the library & etc to do WWDC downloads and store them locally to view at my leisure. Even at the price point of this disk you can save a lot of money in a year avoiding paying for a high speed internet connection.
 
Markoth said:
exFAT doesn't really have any platform-specific features, like ACLs and such, or support for extended attributes, multiple forks, among other features. It's a very basic format which fulfills the most basic needs of an OS. That's what I meant by that. Any OS will find its basic storage needs met by exFAT. It isn't suitable as a primary filesystem for any OS because of its lack of features, but it gets the job done for external media very well.
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... until you want to store a lot of files with a large directory structure. Unfortunately exFAT lacks things found in even a basic file system (b-tree indexing, multiple FAT backups, contiguous extents flags, or even sparse file support) and that makes it good for TRANSFERRING a few files, but not really STORING them. It even needs the TexFAT extension in its native OS for adequate transaction performance. For instance, an exFAT-formatted 4 TB external drive with a media library on it will perform very poorly when you go looking for a file or two.

I'd love to use exFAT because on paper it appears to be a worthy cross-platform fs, but in practice it falls short of delivering, and corporate politics seem to conspire against any fs becoming truly cross-platform.
 
jayducharme said:
I do a lot of audio and video production. I have 8 tb now and it's about 2/3 full.

The Seagate would be a good option for me if it wasn't USB 3. For what I do, it doesn't have the through-put. With Thunderbolt, I can edit a Final Cut project on my external drive. That just amazes me, compared to how external hard drives performed not too long ago. Even so, Seagate's price is pretty attractive.
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So even USB 3.1 Gen 2 doesn't give enough throughput for your needs? What do you use that's sufficient – Thunderbolt 2?
 
star-affinity said:
So even USB 3.1 Gen 2 doesn't give enough throughput for your needs? What do you use that's sufficient – Thunderbolt 2?
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That's it. I haven't had any issues with TB2 (which I have on my drive), whereas USB 3 tends to choke. I'm sure USB-C will be fine, when it eventually is deployed more widely.
 
Bring SSD. Rotational HD are history. Once you try SSD, you never go back!

On the other hand... RAID 0 inside (2 x 4 TB)? That is the best way to lose data (if one drive fails or the controller, all is lost).
 
bladerunner2000 said:
Missed opportunity is on Apple releasing a laptop with more than one USB port. I don't see why Seagate needs to change it's products just to fix Apple's stupid decisions.
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Yeah you are right its not like Apple is one of the mayor laptop manufacturers and its users known for adopting new technologies at a higher price than the rest of the market.
Why should that matter to a company trying to sell a cutting edge product?
 
brent12 said:
No way 30 Amps.
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Maybe that's why it's so huge
WYCFL30.JPG
 
thobie said:
He was talking about POWER, you are talking about current, which makes no sense.
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When talking about battery more so when we are talking about mobile computer ie laptops etc...discharge in amps is where you wanna be concerned when talking about Thunderbolt, 3.0, 3.1 & 3.1c devices...
 
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