Seagate’s 5mm hard drives already have a home in slender laptops; today, they’re coming to to Android tablets through the company’s new Ultra Mobile HDD. The 500GB disk augments the existing 5mm design with a speedy 8GB flash cache, a tougher enclosure and firmware that improves both the energy consumption and shock tolerance. In theory, the Ultra Mobile HDD gives Android slates the capacity of a laptop drive without giving up the speed or resilience of flash storage. It will be a while before anyone can verify those claims, as Seagate hasn’t mentioned any customers or ship dates. The company does have something to tide us over, though — it’s previewing a Rescue and Replace service that will offer both data recovery and drive replacements later this year, starting at $30 for two years. Check out details of both the Ultra Mobile HDD and the recovery service in the press releases after the break.

Filed under: Tablets, Storage

Source: Seagate