Seagate brazenly exposes more than a dozen new and
improved drivesRemember the last time Seagate launched an entirely new product line?
Neither do we, which is why Seagate’s recent announcement of across-the-
board updates and revamps—as well as several entirely new hard drives—is
big news indeed. Read on for the most pertinent details on Seagate’s most
pertinent products. Most of these products will be out this fall.Quick Start
The .8 in the name means eighth-
generation. With a 16MB cache and
Native Command Queuing, could this
be Seagate’s lucky number?Privacy is becoming as scarce as virginity. Security
cameras are sprouting up everywhere, cellphone
cameras are invading our health clubs, spyware
programs are probing our hard drives, automotive black
boxes are recording our driving habits, and dumpster
divers are stealing our identities. Now comes the latest
technology for chipping away at privacy: tiny chips
called RFID tags hidden inside the products we buy.
RFID (radio-frequency identity) tags are promoted
as a better way of identifying products than old-
fashioned bar codes. The tiny chips are embedded in
the product itself or the packaging. A special radio
scanner can detect an RFID tag and read the data
it contains: an inventory code, manufacturer code,
shipping code, retail price, or just about anything. RFID
tags are supposed to make inventory tracking and retail
checkout more efficient, thereby saving money that can
be passed along to consumers. They might even make
checkout lines obsolete.
Whoa, say privacy advocates. RFID tags can also
compromise our privacy, because often they aren’t
deactivated after checkout. Anybody with an RFID
scanner could retrieve the data, maybe years later.
Conspiracy theorists suggest even more frightening
possibilities: enemy soldiers could locate our tanks by
scanning for their RFID-tagged ammo; stalkers could
more easily follow their prey; government agents could
bug everything you buy; pickpockets could find tourists
carrying RFID-chipped passports; terrorists could
make bomb detonators that wait for crowds of people
wearing RFID-tagged clothing to pass nearby.
Most of those fears don’t make sense. RFID chips
have very limited range—from a few inches to a few
feet—because they lack a power source and have
antennas smaller than those on many insects. (Some
RFID chips look like specks of dust.) Amazingly, these
tiny chips draw power not from a battery, but from the
scanner that reads them. The scanner’s RF radiation
contains just enough energy to stimulate a weak signal
from the chip.
In other words, RFID chips are momentary
transponders, not constant transmitters, and their
signals are feeble. To stalk someone wearing an RFID
chip, you would have to be almost close enough to
touch them. To find a tank by scanning for its RFID-
tagged ammo, you would have to be inside the tank.
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt to disable an RFID
tag once its job is done. I foresee a lively business
in RFID zappers that emit bursts of RF radiation or
electromagnetic pulses to fry the evil little chips. Just
make sure to keep the zappers away from your digital
devices.Is RFID Paranoia
Rational?
14 MA XIMUMPC SEPTEMBER 2004
Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine and
now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.▼▼FAST FORWARD BY^ TOM R. HALFHILL Hard Drives Gone Wild!
Seagate hopes to dominate
the high-end notebook
market with this new 100GB,
7,200rpm drive.The Pocket Drive conceals a
USB connector that uncoils
and then retracts back into the
drive’s puck-shaped body.Barracuda 7200.
Compared with the seventh-gen-
eration drive released in 2003,
the eighth-generation 400GB
Barracuda sports 150GB more
capacity while using the same
three-platter design. It also offers
double the amount of cache at
16MB and will be the first Serial
ATA drive to ship with Native
Command Queuing (NCQ). This
queuing technology improves
performance by allowing the
drive to re-order commands in the
manner it deems most efficient
(this feature must be supported
by the host controller, however).
Available in both Serial ATA and
ATA/100 interfaces, the 7200.
drive will also be released in
smaller capacities with less cache,
but the fully loaded version will
challenge the likes of Maxtor’s
DiamondMax 10 and Western
Digital’s 74GB Raptor.Momentus 7200.
Hitachi’s luscious 7,200rpm 7K
2.5-inch hard drive has reigned
supreme in laptop land for some
time now, but Seagate is looking
to change all that with its 100GB
Momentus 7200.1 drive. This is
Seagate’s first-generation notebook
drive—hence the .1 at the end of
its name—but with a capacity of
100GB and a 7,200rpm spindle
speed, it has already spanked the
60GB Hitachi drive, at least as far
as specs go. Like the 7K60, it also
sports an 8MB buffer, and will be
available in both ATA and Serial
ATA configurations.5GB Pocket Drive
Inside Seagate’s Pocket Drive is
the ST-1, a brand-new 1-inch 5GB
hard drive the size of a Compact
Flash card. It’s the first signifi-
cant competitor to Hitachi’s 4GB
MicroDrive.