14 DAY TRIAL // Introduced more than four months ago at the CES 2011 fair as the world's slimmest external hard drive, the Seagate GoFlex Slim is now finally available for purchase and, later down the line, Seagate also plans to release a special Mac version of the drive.
The GoFlex Slim is one of the most interesting external storage solutions that have popped up in the last months as, at just 9mm thick, Seagate's solution is roughly the width of a pencil which makes it, according to the company, the world's slimmest HDD.
Moreover, the drive's specifications are in a stark contrast with its size as Seagate has decided to use a 7200RPM drive paired together with a USB 3.0 interface, a solution that should make up for some pretty impressive transfer speeds.
“The continued growth of personal digital media stores, our increasingly mobile lifestyles and the continued proliferation of mobile devices are driving the demand for slimmer, more portable storage solutions,” said Patrick Connolly, vice president and general manager of Retail at Seagate.
“Netbooks and slim laptops are great for consuming media, but are limited when it comes to creating and storing high-definition films and photos.
“With the benefit of using Seagate’s Momentus Thin drive, the 9mm GoFlex Slim ultra-portable hard drive breaks through these boundaries—delivering a beautiful, ultra-slim, lightweight storage solution to complement existing mobile computing devices so they can enjoy even more of the content they love, anywhere they want,” concluded the company's rep.
In addition to the regular version that is available right now for purchase, Seagate also plans to build a GoFlex Slim for Mac computers that will be HFS+ formatted out-of-the-box making it fully compatible with Apple Time Machine backup software.
The PC version of the GoFlex Slim 320GB is available for $99.99 USD and the Mac version is expected to start selling in May at the same price point.