Seagate Ships First Consumer Electronics Hard Drives Using New Video Straming Industry Standard

New drives adopted by eight of the world's leading ConsumerElectronics device makers; Developed to meet customer needs

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.—Seagate (NYSE:STX), the world's leadinghard drive maker, is shipping its new Consumer Electronics (CE) harddrives to eight of the world's leading Digital Video Recorder (DVR)device makers: Toshiba, Thomson, Sony, Pioneer, Pace, Nokia, Motorolaand Echostar. A result of Seagate's close collaboration with top CEcompanies, Seagate's new CE hard drives are the industry's first toimplement the new ATA standard streaming command set adopted by theT-13 committee as the new industry standard. Because of the Company'sunique design, manufacturing and customer-focused processes, Seagate isthe hard drive supplier that global CE brands want to work with.

"Seagate drives have been at the heart of the consumer electronicsrevolution since it's beginning in 1997," said Brian Dexheimer,executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Customer Service."Based on our intimate customer relationships over the years, indevelopment meetings and at our CE Design Service Centers, we developedthese drives to deliver the features CE manufacturers asked for - quietacoustics, high reliability and top streaming performance. TheseSeagate CE drives are also compatible with ATA/7 standard firmware,providing flexibility to CE OEMs who want to optimize the drive fortheir application. And Seagate consumer electronics engineers are readyto help solve HDD integration issues through Design Service Centers.Seagate is the only hard drive company to provide consumer electronicsmanufacturers with a comprehensive partnership - products, technologyand services."

What makes a Seagate CE hard drive different?

Seagate's new CE hard drives are based on industry standards, ratherthan proprietary solutions, built from the ground up to be compatiblewith the new ATA/7 streaming commands standards. Customers told Seagatethey no longer want to choose between varied, incompatible methods forensuring reliable video streaming in digital video recording devices.Seagate's ATA/7-compatible streaming commands give CE manufacturersgreater flexibility in tuning the drive for best results with specificapplications.

With easy-to-use stream management commands, Seagate's CE drives areoptimized for the sequential work of streaming continuous A/V files.This delivers more consistent video streaming performance than PC harddrives designed for fragmented text-based documents. CE manufacturersalso require that A/V streaming be a higher priority than therepetitive error-checking procedures used in PC applications, whichslow down video streaming. Seagate's CE drives are optimized for A/Vstreaming performance, with manufacturer-defined error-checkingparameters for smoother streams.

Seagate also designed these new drives to meet CE powerrequirements. Seagate CE drives' power management technology uses lesspeak power at startup than other drives in their class, allowing DVRmanufacturers to use less expensive components in their powerarchitecture. Seagate drives are also the world's quietest, for pureaudio enjoyment with virtually no discernible operating sound. And therugged design of Seagate drives delivers high non-operating shocktolerance and low failure rates.

Seagate has successfully deployed the new CE technologies itscustomers asked for - leveraging the unique design, manufacturing, andcustomer-focused business processes that have made it the world'snumber-one hard drive maker. Seagate's Advanced Manufacturinginitiative gives customers flexibility - automated factory lines canadapt within hours to meet unexpected requirements during a suddendemand swell for a popular CE system. Seagate's global supply chainprocesses provide Six Sigma-proven methodologies to ensure that whenDVR manufacturers are on the production line, the hard drives will bethere as well.

Seagate Design Service Centers (DSC) continues the Company'sleadership helping CE manufacturers optimize their mechanical,electronic, and software environments to take better advantage of thehard drive. DSC increases reliability, speeds time-to-market, anddecreases development costs. DSC can also help with compatibilitytesting between the hard drive and optical storage vendors whoseproducts are also becoming integrated into DVR units.

Seagate's specialized CE hard drives and unique CE services providestorage for the new world of digital entertainment, enabling personalvideo recorders (PVR), video game consoles, audio jukeboxes, home mediacenters and networked entertainment systems.

Seagate is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacturing andmarketing of hard disc drives, providing products for a wide range ofEnterprise, PC, Notebook and Consumer Electronics applications. TheCompany is committed to delivering award-winning products, customersupport and reliability, to meet the world's growing demand forinformation storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at www.seagate.com.