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Seagate Introduces External Hard Drive That Automatically Backs Up To Amazon's Cloud (theverge.com)
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.
This will go along nicely with my Amazon Echo, which is very popular. Everyone has one and they are very useful. You should get one too. Right now the Amazon Echo is on Sale at amazon.com. Get it now! You will be glad you did.
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
Or go open source and sync your files over to a friend / relative's home: https://syncthing.net
I just hope that Seagate had the sense to implement encryption on their device and its backup storage.
Now I don't even have to get malware for this kind of service!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
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.
But it's a Seagate. Of course you would want another copy of it somewhere else. I've seen nothing on the warranty so I guess the cloud is the warranty too?
"drive's contents are cloned to Amazon Drive, so you can be pretty confident that your important stuff will be safe."
It either does clone to Amazon or is safe, not both.
Just in time for 1tb caps everywhere.
This might actually make them reliable enough for normal use. (66% failure rate on 1tb drives over an 18 month period. I'll never buy another.)
So, this is just an ad. How is this news?
I heard the cloud is fast and infinitely scalable so I'm looking forward to the awesome performance boost I should get by putting my swap on this.
I think this is neat in general. It's always good to backup your stuff, and for most people its too difficult to actually do that. I would love to see it as a NAS device instead of a drive though.
"Dave, this is your hard-drive. I captured video of you yanking off to cross-dressing nude midgets wrestling in whip-cream. Play $500 to the address found in folder "uscrewd", or the vid goes to Youtube. You got 3 hours to comply."
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Buy the hardware, pay for the 'service', automatically expose your data to loss, snooping, and outright theft. What a great deal.
'The Cloud' can go fuck itself.
If I've got a 1TB (or bigger) external drive, why the actual FUCK do I need 'The (shitty) Cloud' for?
MEMO TO COMPUTER INDUSTRY: Stop creating solutions for problems THAT DON'T EXIST!
Backup to NSA
an external hard drive is not a backup. hello...
Uhh, yes, it can be. I use several safe back up drives and have done so for years.
When previous so-called "unlimited" storage systems came out they were canceled and the storage system provider (and their sycophants here on /.) tried to pretend that one could "abuse" said storage merely by uploading too much data. Since this flies in the face of unlimited storage, it's worth asking what exactly does "unlimited storage" mean here?
Digital Citizen
Does this do actual backups like Apple's time-machine?
Or just another cloud service like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc etc. , bundled while a standard 1TB HDD?
Because a mirror is quite useless if you want to recover an old version of a document, or those photos you accidentally deleted 3 months ago.
You still need to do real backups.
A shame Slashdot can't find a more interesting way to monetise the site.
Good question. All my data easily fits in a 64GB or 128GB SD card. Plus, as the owner of an Office 365, I have 5 licenses entitled to 1TB of storage each in OneDrive. Works like a charm
Do I get to pick my own encryption key, or can Amazon always see my stuff?
All your drives are scanned for free. The subscription service allows you to request a restore.
The My Passport Wireless Pro has root ssh available out of the box. I installed rclone on it. That is a hdd that automatically backs up to cloud services!
They're backing up the backup.
If you can't trust the nice new external drive, don't buy it,
just backup to the cloud.
Seems like a marketing failure.
Go well
Not as in 0s and 1s, but as in razors, if you buy Gillette, you have to buy specific blades, until you are tired of the razor. Or as in ink cartridges, especially HP, and Tassimmo drink capsules etc. etc. I've also been supplied with a TV remote that has a specific button for the cable supplier's 'store' so I can easily get more digital stuff.
Of course, usually there's some kind of intellectual property lock that prevents others entering the supply market. I use non-HP in my printer but it complains that they are 'counterfeit', something that's fine by me but may scare non-tech consumers.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
I'm tired of appliances that have built-in support for connecting to third-party services that can't be removed. Recently I bought a Sony streaming player, and turns out that some time ago, due to a YouTube API change, it no longer connects to it, nobody's gonna fix it and I have an icon doing nothing that I can't remove. Same with my Nokia N9: Ovi Store, broken Skype application, Nokia Music Store. The original service provider is gone and now it's all polluting the applications list and there's no a way to delete them.
What's going to happen when Amazon and Seagate decide that they're not good friends anymore or Amazon "changes its priorities"? At least they should provide a way to get rid of the crapware or install a replacement on your own, but guess what.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
"Seagate introduces external hard drive that automatically sends all your data to Amazon."
Only if you take the time to move it off site once you've copied your data to it. If it can fall victim to the same threats that your primary device might suffer, it's just a copy, not a backup.