Seagate's New Drives Encrypt Data, Simplify Drone Photography

LAS VEGAS—An old adage describes the difference between reporters and photographers like this: Photographers must carry effectually tons of equipment—cameras, lenses, lights—in the field, but when they get dorsum to the studio, their piece of work is already generally finished. Reporters, on the other hand, behave around only a notebook, simply when they get back habitation, they must spend hours deciphering their notes and writing a story.

CES 2022 bug art The era of drone photography takes this adage to the extreme, calculation immense complication and expense to a photographer's field equipment. As a consolation prize, storage behemothic Seagate and drone manufacturer DJI announced a new hard bulldoze at CES that volition permit drone operators offload their footage immediately after the drone lands, no laptop required.

At $349, the DJI Copilot (with branding from LaCie, Seagate's premium brand) isn't inexpensive, but it has great ambition to simplify a field workload.

You tin can copy footage straight from your drone'southward camera or memory carte onto the Copilot, which volition be available this spring, and apply a companion Android or iOS app to view and organize the footage. In farthermost weather that prevent you from using your telephone, the Copilot's integrated display provides confirmation that the footage has been backed upward. Inside, in that location'due south a 2TB hard disk, which can store up to 65 hours of 4K footage shot at 30 frames per second, or as many as xx,000 RAW-format images.

The bulldoze can ingest data either via a USB port or an SD card slot, and a microSD-to-SD card adapter is included. Connecting to your telephone is accomplished via a trio of cables: Lightning, micro USB, or USB-C. Other niceties include a congenital-in power banking concern to charge mobile devices, and a protective bumper to make the bulldoze driblet-resistant. Once you're back in the studio, you connect your drive to your PC or Mac via a USB-C port.

The Copilot isn't the showtime collaboration between Seagate and DJI. Final yr, the companies unveiled the DJI Wing Drive, a $119 device that can import drone footage via an SD card, simply lacks the power depository financial institution and integrated screen of the Copilot.

Faster, More Secure SSDs

For more conventional storage needs, Seagate likewise unveiled a new secure hard drive and a Thunderbolt 3-equipped SSD at CES.

Seagate Fast SSD The new Seagate Fast SSD can transfer files at upwardly to 540MBps thanks to Thunderbolt 3 via USB-C. If you lot don't have a Thunderbolt 3-equipped PC, the bulldoze also is uniform with USB 3.one and USB 2.0, and Seagate thoughtfully includes USB-C and conventional USB Type A cables. The compact, gray drive is about half the size of an iPhone half-dozen and is available in iii capacities starting this jump: $399 for 1TB; $199 for 500GB; and $139 for 250GB.

Meanwhile, Seagate's family of LaCie rugged difficult drives is getting new security features. The new 2TB LaCie Rugged Secure includes disk encryption, with locking and unlocking performed via the Toolkit software. Toolkit stores the encryption key on your figurer instead of on the bulldoze for added security.

The $139 LaCie Rugged Secure will go on auction this spring, and the visitor said other Seagate drives will also be compatible with the Toolkit encryption software, including the Fast SSD.