First Hard Drive With 40 Gbytes Per Disc

Sydney. - June 12, 2001 - Seagate Technology announced today it is shipping its newest U Series disc drive, the first offering up to 80 Gbytes on just two platters and a record-breaking areal density of 32.6 Gbits per square inch. The new U Series is the sixth generation of the best-selling hard drive in history. U Series was the first disc drive ever designed for value through simplified design, and it quickly became the most popular drive ever used in high-volume PCs, Personal Video Recorders, Game Consoles, Audio Jukeboxes and other Consumer Electronics (CE) devices.

U Series is the best-performing drive in its class. In a unique Seagate advance, the new U Series spins up faster than ever, improving time-to-ready by 35 percent over previous generations to improve PC boot-up time. It features faster internal transfer rates of up to 54.5 Mbytes per second, an 8.9-msec seek time, the largest cache in its class at 2 Mbytes, and the Ultra ATA/100 interface for external burst transfer rates up to 100 Mbytes per second. With Seagate's exclusive 3D Defense System(tm) and "sound barrier technology" (SBT), U Series offers the best combination of ruggedness, performance and quiet operation for mainstream PC and CE applications.

This generation of U Series also offers a disc drive created specifically for Consumer Electronics (CE) companies who demand outstanding acoustics performance. U Series CE, now shipping to CE OEMs, utilises fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) motors to achieve idle acoustics of 27 decibels, the lowest in the industry. Combined with best-in-class robustness and performance characteristics, U Series CE's acoustics performance makes it the ideal drive for any acoustically-sensitive application.

"Seagate continues to gain PC and CE market share with the best-selling U Series. Being first to market with 40 Gbytes per disc should enable Seagate to keep building on its recent success with all major PC makers and a growing list of over 30 consumer electronics customers," said Dave Reinsel, research manager at IDC. "U Series supplies an astute range of capacities that serves the fastest growing capacity points from 40 and 80 Gbytes using just one or two discs, as well as serving the 20-Gbyte sweet spot with its low-cost, single-head design."

"As the first 40-Gbyte-per-disc product shipping in volume, U Series changes the economics of high-capacity storage with 60 and 80 Gbytes packed onto only two discs. At the same time, it provides the best value for today's popular PC capacities," said Brian Dexheimer, Seagate executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. "We've worked closely with our PC customers to meet their needs with the best combination of performance, acoustics and reliability. As a leader in research and development, now we've also leaped to the industry's highest areal density using stable, proven technologies."

"Seagate was first to deliver hard drives for CE devices, and the U Series has led the industry in popularity in this growing market," said Michael Sklar, Seagate senior director of Consumer Electronics Business Development. "The new 80-Gbyte U Series is ideally positioned as a value solution that can support up to 120 hours of TV-quality video. Just as importantly, CE device makers continue to partner with Seagate's Consumer Electronics Testing and Engineering Center (CETEC) for its unparalleled combination of development services to help them design and build tomorrow's entertainment devices."

Seagate's latest generation of U Series disc drives delivers 5,400-rpm performance and best-in-class reliability for PC and consumer-electronics applications. U Series ships with Seagate's exclusive 3D Defense System to lead the industry in ruggedness and data protection. Seagate's 3D Defense System includes the patented SeaShell(tm) packaging, soft SeaShield(tm) protective cover, SeaTools(tm) Suite diagnostic software and award-winning DiscWizard installation software, hailed as the best disc installation software by PC World for the past four years in a row.

Seagate is the world's leading provider of storage technology for Internet, business and consumer applications. The Company's products include disc drives for the Enterprise, PCs and Consumer Electronics, as well as Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions and Server Appliances. Seagate's market leadership is based on delivering award-winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world's growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at www.seagate.com.

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Seagate, Seagate Technology, U Series, 3D Defense System, SeaShell, SeaShield, SeaTools and DiscWizard are trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC. All trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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