Seagate ships pencil-sized GoFlex Slim drive
updated 09:10 am EDT, Tue April 5, 2011
Seagate GoFlex Slim drive shipping
Seagate fulfilled one of its CES promises on Tuesday and shipped the GoFlex Slim. The 320GB disk earns its name from an extremely minimalist shell that leads to a 9mm (0.35in) height about as thick as a pencil. In spite of the size, speed is a major factor and is helped along by a 7,200RPM spin speed and out-of-the-box USB 3.0 support, the combination of which can transfer at up to 40MB per second.
The 0.36-pound drive works with both Macs and Windows PCs from the start through the inclusion of an NTFS driver to support both reading and writing on Macs. Mac users can reformat if they like, and a special GoFlex Slim for Mac version will come pre-formatted in HFS+ along with getting a scratch-resistant metallic finish.
GoFlex Slim drives should be on shelves today and will cost $100 for the regular version. It works with USB 2.0 from the outset along with the claimed 3.0 support, but the GoFlex system will let it use optional adapters for FireWire and eSATA.
