Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

21 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. This is great! by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:This is great! by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      Is it as popular as Bennett Haselton?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:This is great! by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      Everyone has one and they are very useful. You should get one too.

      Perhaps I'm a victim of Poe's Law, but that sentence is something I'd expect to hear from Trump; the second sentence directly contradicts the first. If everyone has one, nobody needs to get one.

      STUPID STUPID STUPID, Annoyingly stupid. And possibly spam.

      No, I do not have an Echo for the same reason I have no stores' "rewards cards"--I think being stalked by corporations is even creepier than being stalked by human beings,

      There's no way in hell I'll buy a HD that automatically sends my data to someone else's systems. I have a 3TB extranal network drive to back up my computers, when they're full I'll buy another drive.

      I don't trust anyone with my data, especially corporations.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  2. 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. Re: Hard drive or software? by thundercattt · · Score: 2

      Seagate has built in software to do all this fancy stuff for Windows. Each Seagate I get, I simply reformat it using XFS instead and bye bye software.

  3. Go Open Source, with a Friend or Relative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Or go open source and sync your files over to a friend / relative's home: https://syncthing.net

  4. Wow! by fluffernutter · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  5. 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.

  6. Seriously? by deadwill69 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

  7. Oxymoron by I4ko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "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.

    1. Re:Oxymoron by npslider · · Score: 2

      They are just the middleman. The NSA stores the data.

      They keep it nice and safe.

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

    Just in time for 1tb caps everywhere.

  9. Re:That's wonderful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    They don't waste time with encryption. Their drives are designed to fail within 90 days. That's the real security feature right there.

  10. Given my experience with Seagate drives by david.emery · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.)

    1. Re:Given my experience with Seagate drives by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      I'll never buy another.

      If you took this approach then you should never buy another HDD again. Every major manufacturer has had a colossal lemon. My IBM Deskstar 40GB is the most reliable drive I've ever owned, I still power it up on occasion as a party trick just to show people that truly horrendous reliability is often highly dependent on the MODEL not the make.

    2. Re:Given my experience with Seagate drives by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Our org purchased a box of 8 external Seagate drives to distribute to various staff members. All 8 failed within about 2 years. I suspect there was a broken or defective manufacturing tool in place the day they were made.

      To be fair, that probably happens to every product every now and then, and our bad experience is not a statistically useful sample size.

      But on a gut level I now avoid Seagate. Assuming the published benchmarks and reliability surveys are reasonably accurate, my avoidance is probably not rational, but it's hard not to personally value direct experience over publications. I would guestimate there's a roughly 10% chance the publications are wrong or bribed, and that 10% is perhaps enough to claim I have a rational reason to value personal experience over the publications and avoid Seagate.

      As far as a direct cloud connection, I don't believe that's the job of a "dumb" device. Even if it's optional, how can I tell it's really "off" and not sending due to a hack or flaw?

      And, how do they update the software if a hole is found? It's a similar problem for most IOT devices that hasn't been worked out systematically yet. It's a full fledged computer connecting to the Internet inside with all the trappings of a full fledged computer connecting to the Internet.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  11. Swap files by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  12. 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.

  13. Automatic data INsecurity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    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!

  14. Encryprtion key by plazman30 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Do I get to pick my own encryption key, or can Amazon always see my stuff?