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Seagate Introduces External Hard Drive That Automatically Backs Up To Amazon's Cloud (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the devil-is-in-the-details dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Seagate and Amazon have partnered up on a $99 1TB external hard drive that automatically backs up everything stored on it to the cloud. The Seagate Duet drive's contents are cloned to Amazon Drive, so you can be pretty confident that your important stuff will be safe. Getting set up with the cloud backup process requires plugging in the drive, signing in with your Amazon account -- and that's pretty much it, from the sounds of it. Drag and drop files over, and you'll be able to access them from the web or Amazon's Drive app on smartphones and tablets. If you're new to the Drive service, Seagate claims you'll get a year of unlimited storage just for buying the hard drive, which normally costs $59.99 annually. Amazon's listing for the Duet (the only way to buy it right now) confirms as much, but there's some fine print: Offer is U.S.-only; Not valid for current Amazon Drive Unlimited Storage paid subscription customers; You've got to redeem the promo code within two months of buying the hard drive if you want the year's worth of unlimited cloud storage; If you return the Duet, Amazon says it will likely reduce your 12 months of unlimited Drive storage down to three, which beats taking it away altogether, I guess.

6 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Hard drive or software? by Enigma2175 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This doesn't sound like they created a hard drive that automatically backs itself up, they created software that will sync your hard drive to Amazon. This is not new, difficult or news. Thanks for the slashvertisment though!

    --

    Enigma

    1. Re:Hard drive or software? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It would also be useful for the idiot-in-IT-that-told-me-we-had-reliable-backups-but-never-bothered-to-test-them-and-is-now-telling-me-that-we-just-lost-six-months-of-data.

  2. Everything! by DidgetMaster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That means it will also back up your OS files, your programs, and everything else you download off the internet. After your first free year of cloud storage, you will be paying for every GB of stuff uploaded...including a lot of stuff you don't care if it is backed up or not. It's like when cable charges you extra every month for all those channels you never watch.

  3. Awesome by jwymanm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just in time for 1tb caps everywhere.

  4. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's the catch. The backup is only good for 1 year. Beyond that you'll have to shell out the same amount that could have bought you a brand new 1TB HDD (or 2TB possibly when the year has elapsed and prices have dropped). It's a rip-off.

    You'd be better off just buying two drives for $50 each and mirroring them. Then your backup won't just disappear after a year and nobody will try to squeeze annual fees out of you.

  5. Re:Why? by Jawnn · · Score: 1, Insightful

    an external hard drive is not a backup. hello...