New York — Seagate will start shipping its second-generation network-attached storage (NAS) device, the Maxtor SharedStorage II, this month.
The major change is the addition of a 1TB size capacity to the SharedStorage family, faster data transfer speeds, gigabyte Ethernet and a new chassis. The 1TB model will ship on July 10 with a $899 suggested retail. This massive level of network storage may not be immediately needed by many consumers, but it soon will be necessary due to the growing popularity of digital camcorders and HDTV programming being viewed on computers, said Jane Wasson, Seagate’s network storage product manager.
The original Shared Storage product was introduced last year by Maxtor prior to its acquisition by Seagate, with capacities of 200MB, 300MB and 500MB.
Wasson said Seagate and Maxtor have learned many lessons during their first year in the NAS market. The most important is that the average consumer still does not understand the need for such devices even though they fully grasp the need for external storage drives. Seagate hopes these problems will be resolved via better retail sales associate training and consumers receiving more knowledge through word of mouth and the press.
