Seagate announces GoFlex Turbo external drive

Seagate on Monday announced the availability of the new GoFlex Turbo hard drive, with a speedy 7200 rpm drive speed as well as SafteyNet data recovery.

The GoFlex Turbo gets its speedy moniker by first using a 7,200 rpm hard drive mechanism, faster than the usual 5,400 rpm mechanisms found in portable hard drives. It extends the speed with an included USB 3.0 interface, which is also compatible with older USB 2.0 ports (at a slower speed). Last, but not least, the drive has "Turbo" lettering on the side of the hard drive's case, which of course lets you know that this drive is the fast one.

More notably, the GoFlex Turbo also includes a two-year subscription to SafteyNet data recovery service. It's known that hard drives fail from time to time, even seldom-used external drives. SafetyNet gives users the peace of mind that if the external drive fails, you will get one recovery attempt pre-paid in order to recover your important data. At retail, each recovery attempt can cost up to thousands of dollars. Think of SafetyNet as a two-year insurance policy on your data. What data merits this service? Basically, irreplaceable data, like a Ph.D. thesis, raw data from a research project, or video and photos of your child's first steps.

The GoFlex Turbo is now available from Best Buy for $119.99 for 500GB and $139.99 for 750GB.

Earlier this month, Seagate added Android support to its GoFlex Satellite disk drive. Specifically, a version of the GoFlex Media app has now been authored for Android. The drive was previously compatible with Android tablets and phones by using the device's browser, but not through a dedicated application.

This article, written by Joel Santo Domingo, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.