Seagate Technology has a lot stored up for VARs. The company is about to release 11 new products in handheld, gaming, DVR, notebook, desktop and enterprise categories covering enterprise, desktop, mobile and consumer electronics markets.
The products will be available for purchase starting
in the third quarter, the company said. Over the next six months the drives will be shipped to OEM and distributor partners across North America.
“”There’s no other hard drive supplier in the industry that we believe can match Seagate’s new product portfolio with this unmatched launch of 11 new products,”” said Jeff Loebakka, vice-president of marketing at Seagate. “”We believe that we are going to be able to participate in 95 per cent of (the storage market).””
“”Seagate is a very strong leader in the channel with strong relationships through distributors, system builders and system integrators. We feel that many of these products especially on the personal and notebook side are going to be very strong for those partners,”” added Loebakka.
In the enterprise storage class, it will introduce five products including the NL35 Series disc drive, which offers 500 gigabyte storage capacity in a 3.5-inch form factor. The product is targeted at system builders for use in near-line storage solutions – a new class of storage between primary and archive storage that offers customers a low cost per gigabyte.
The company launched a new product line called Savvio 10K.1 high density drive in March, which now comes with serial attached SCSI (SAS) storage with 10,000 RPM and a choice between 73 or 36 GB capacity. Seagate distributors, system builders and system integrators now have access to 2.5-inch enterprise-class drives to enable them to create performance-dense smaller server and array systems, said Bill Schilling, product marketing director for enterprise storage at Seagate.
“”The big deal behind this product is with the smaller form factor, it’s 70 per cent smaller than the standard 3.5-inch 10,000 RPM drive,”” said Schilling.
“”Our integrators will be able to deliver two new storage arrays that contain 24 to 30 drives in 2U packaging with more performance than what 3U arrays deliver today.””
Also announced: A Cheetah 15K.4 SCSI, fibre channel, serial attached SCSI (SAS) drive and a Cheetah 10K.7 drive in the network and server segment, and the Barracuda 7200.8 SATA drive in the entry PC server segment.
New offerings in the personal storage category include the Barracuda 7200.8 PATA/SATA drive for use in the PC and near-line segment. It ships with 7,200 RPM and is available with 250, 300 or 400 GB of storage space. The product is designed for use in advanced applications including high-performance PC’s, ATA-based servers, PC gaming systems, PC-based home media servers and near-line storage, said Jennifer Bradfield, product marketing director for personal storage at Seagate.
Also coming is the Momentus 7200.1 PATA/SATA drive, available in Q4, and Momentus 5400.2 PATA drive for the notebook sector. The company will be making available a 1-inch, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch external USB drive for pocket external, portable external and desktop external segments respectively.
Among the consumer products in the pipeline are the DB35 Series PATA, SATA drive for DVR, ST1 PATA flex drive for handheld devices and 1-inch CF Type II drive for photography – all available in Q3. The ST1 is Seagate’s first 1-inch drive and is designed for use in media players. It offers up to five GB of storage for music players or 2500 songs. It also ships with RunOn Technology, which helps to eliminate skipping when listening to music while jogging.
“”What we’re really doing is responding to the market place,”” said Loebakka. “”What your seeing is the fruition of years of planning and development recognizing the trends and listening to the customers.””
Seagate will offer a full-suite of marketing, information, materials and support for the channel when the products launch later this year.
“”The channel is a really critical component of our overall business,”” said Loebakka. “”If anything we’re going to be more focused on making sure we empower those partners to integrate our products and deliver great solutions to their customers.””
