Seagate Shipping World's First 3TB Storage Device

It had to happen sooner or later, and in this case it happened sooner than the industry expected.

Hard drive and storage device maker Seagate Technology announced June 29 that has made available the industry's first 3TB desktop storage device, a new version of its popular FreeAgent GoFlex.

Only a few weeks ago, Seagate was touting its 2TB GoFlex drives. At this rate, 4TB storage devices are only another few months away, a veteran storage analyst told eWEEK.

Seagate's FreeAgent GoFlex 3TB, priced at $249, features 3.5-inch HHD platters and a USB 2.0 interface. USB 3.0, while now available, is not in widespread use at this point.

Larger-capacity disks are invariably slower-moving, so users who want to speed up data flow between a PC and the new storage device will need to obtain a desktop adapter. Choices include USB 3.0 bundled with a PCIe x1 USB 3.0 card ($79), FireWire or USB 2.0 ($49), or straight USB 3.0 ($39).

Seagate, which has been lobbying for a new 4KB sector standard (a major increase from the outdated 512 bytes on most of the current drives), features a 64-bit operating system in the 3TB GoFlex machine.

The new sector standard, once adopted, will help address increases areal density in storage disks, which are now limited to 2TB per platter by the old 512-byte standard.