— Steve Pipe – Sr. Manager, Internal Communications, brings you this installment of The Digital Den. 

From class projects and term papers, to Facebook updates and iTunes downloads, college students store and share a ton of digital content. They use flash drives, external hard drives or cloud-based services without thinking twice about the storage medium—many routinely use all three technologies, depending on what they’re storing and how they want to manage it.

Seagate wants to get college students thinking a little more about, well, the Seagate brand. The company also wants to know what drives their storage choices and buying decisions.

With help from Silicon Valley PR agency Eastwick, Seagate recently conducted storage focus-group sessions at San Jose State University and Santa Clara University. The 90-minute sessions at each university consisted of 12 students from engineering, marketing or communications backgrounds.

“The idea behind the focus groups was to get a better understanding of students’ storage preferences and needs,” said Brian Ziel, senior director of Corporate Communications at Seagate.  “What influences their purchasing decisions? What features would their ideal storage product have? What type of product would get them to store their content more frequently?”

Asking such questions can help marketing and engineering teams develop products that more closely align with users’ needs, added Scott Horn, VP of Global Marketing at Seagate.

“Great products come from a dialogue with customers, listening to their feedback and incorporating as much of that as you can into your design and marketing activities,” Horn said. “We want to build the kind of products people want to have in their homes, and get them talking about our brand with their friends and family members.”

At both Bay Area focus-group sessions, a business professor guided students through a series of questions that addressed broad technology trends and buying habits, covering tablets, smartphones and laptops, for example, before zeroing in on storage needs. Students were asked how much music they stored on their devices, how regularly they backup their data, what kinds of content they store, what storage media they use, as well as their familiarity with the different storage brands.

Students weren’t told which company was conducting the focus group until the end of each session. Each student-participant was entered into a drawing for a chance to win an iPad and a Seagate GoFlex Satellite™ wireless-storage device.

While many students said they liked the ease and convenience of cloud-storage services like Dropbox, others said they had security concerns about the cloud. Some, such as San Jose State marketing student Tiffany Quan, were very familiar with Seagate and its products.

“I like how the drive looks and the fact that it’s very portable,” said Quan of the GoFlex™ Ultra-portable drive she uses for backup and transporting files between her dorm room and classes. “I also like how I can switch out the adapter as my needs change. I’m thinking about getting a Mac because it’s got the fast Thunderbolt interface. With my GoFlex drive, I’m not limited to a certain port.”

So here’s the train of thought for this blog about tablet adoption. The E3 (Electronics Entertainment Expo) is taking place next week and I’ll be going down to check out the show.  While our friends over at KONSOLE KINGZ will be handling the show coverage for us directly, I’ll be keeping my eyes out for some of the new developments in gaming that’ll be announced. It got me thinking that while I still don’t want a tablet, I can see the advantages of having one at a show like E3 or upcoming shows like San Diego Comic Con or PAX Prime.

So this got me thinking about the popularity of tablets and how they’ve all but taken over the digital device world. Ok, not really, but you get the gist. But I am the only member of my family who doesn’t have one as between my sisters and father; they have an iPad for each generation of its release.

Before you check out this infographic on tablet adoption, here are some quick hits to wet your whistle:

Which OS is Most Popular?

• Apple – 61%
• Android – 30%
• Windows – 5%
• Blackberry – 3%

Usage?

• Gaming – 84% – Consumer
• Browsing – 73% – Business

Shipping Expectancy?

• 16.1 million in 2010
• 147.1 million in 2015

It’s also stated that by 2015, 1 in 3 consumers will be using a tablet. Anyone interested in taking a bet to see if I hold out that long before buying one? I will admit, if I had one it would make event coverage easier as well as give me more use out of my GoFlex Satellite. I’m already thinking of the benefits for my next family vacation. Hmm…

Have you already bought a tablet? What do you think of these statistics?

For those who may not celebrate Memorial Day, I was able to find this infographic to give an overview of the day; it’s origins and how people honor the holiday.

Memorial Day is an opportunity for us to reflect on friends and family we lost during their time in our nation’s service. A chance to reflect on the memories we have preserved for them and honor their life and contributions to our own lives.

It was recently announced that the entire James Bond collection of films is going to be released in Blu-ray format this September. Aptly being called BOND 50, this box set contains all 22 films with the usual bells & whistles of trailers, commentary, music videos and more. This couldn’t be better timed since one month later, the 23^rd James Bond film, Skyfall releasing nationwide. This trailer for BOND 50 does a great job of setting the tone of what to expect for the collection.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like James Bond. He’s the ideal fantasy of the kind of man you want to be or the man you want to be with. Always calm, cool and collected, he’s been making the world safe for king and country since his first cinematic appearance in1962 in the film Dr. No. (His first appearance was via the novel Casino Royale in 1953.) Depending on where you live, you can catch the James Bond movie marathon each year around Thanksgiving, or you can have a Bond party on your own like the lovely (and Bond-girl hopeful) Athena Stamos.

Obviously being in the storage business, the notion of preservation is key for our industry. It’s one of the cool things we can contribute to. Making stuff available for future generations to enjoy really floats our boat. We want your content to be accessible anytime, anywhere, however you want it be it direct-attached storage (DAS), network-attached storage (NAS) or light, fluffy and in a cloud.

What excites me about the idea of BOND 50 is that these films have been preserved since the 60’s and can be enjoyed for many, many years to come. Knowing me, I will probably add them to my GoFlex Satellite at first opportunity. After all, if these discs are single layer format, which is about 25GB of space, I can put almost all 23 discs on one hard drive since it caps out at 500GB. But regardless how I watch these films, I know that the legacy of James Bond which has lasted fifty years already will likely be around another fifty and will keep things shaken, not stirred.

Who’s your favorite James Bond actor? I’ll rank  mine if you rank yours. Comment below, on Facebook or Twitter or agents of SPECTRE are coming after you.

Related Posts:
Seagate Helps Preserve the Internets Past
Fugitive Recordings: The Story Behind the Music

There are many ways to consume music and video these days be it Spotify, Slacker, YouTube, Hulu and several others that make “on demand” programming almost a staple. It’s become so ingrained into our regular lives; I can barely remember a time without it.

The (relatively) low price point for tablets and smartphones add to that accessibility of on demand programming letting you take yourself out of the living room and into the coffee shops, the libraries and even the commuter trains to enjoy your favorite shows.

Our society has really become one where you can get your media, your way. (I will randomly award a GoFlex Satellite to one person who can correctly tell me which fast food company had a similar slogan. I’ll announce a winner in the comments section 5/29/12)

Anyway, the same can be said for storage. I keep an external drive in my bag at all times and I’ll have a different drive in another bag just in case I take that one. The rise of cloud storage has really taking this anytime/anywhere mantra to heart to the point where you can literally get your media your way.  (BTW, R.I.P. ZumoDrive)

I remember growing up watching Star Trek and learning about the concept of IDIC – Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.  The short version of this concept is how there are millions of variables for things in the universe. The same can be said about electronic devices on the market. For example, if I’m on the go covering a show like CES? Then it’s my Slim and my Android phone. In a situation where I have the chance to be more stationary, then maybe my laptop and my GoFlex Pro. I don’t have to worry about whatever infinite combination I use to access my data because it’s always “on demand.”

So how do you access your media?

Drop me a line in the comments below, our Facebook page or our Twitter.

I also love looking at how their animation style has developed over the years. While obviously different films, the designs and effects you see in the first Toy Story to me pale in comparison to how visually stunning Brave looks to be.

As you can see from the infographic below, Pixar has had some amazing accomplishments in the world of entertainment including 3 GRAMMYS, 6 Golden Globes and 24 Academy Awards.

As the demands for quality grew within Pixar, I’d imagine their storage needs grew as well. As their company size increased, so did their server needs, systems, tools and their technologies. Who knows what kind of hard drives Bud Luckey had in his system as he started his initial designs for the famous cowboy, Woody? But whatever it was, I’m glad he saved often and completed his work for the rest of the world to enjoy.

What’s your favorite Pixar film? Leave a comment below, on our Facebook page or even our Twitter.

For you parents out there, you’ll understand the challenge of what to do with all the collected artwork and other school projects that your child has created over the course of the year. You don’t want to throw it away because you want to hold onto those memories, but you may have a finite living space to contend with. So it hit me (literally) as I stubbed my toe on a storage bin under my son’s bed that contains a lot of his schoolwork. I’ve been already taking pictures of his work and posting to Flickr to share with my family. So why not preserve the work by storing it on a hard drive? The portability of an external hard drive makes it an ideal solution and you can store them much easier. (Especially the GoFlex Slim /plug.)

Let’s be honest, we all know the glue sticks used in kindergarten aren’t going to last forever, right? So why not really hold onto the memory and admire the progression of our personal Picassos by storing their artwork digitally? Then as they grow from Boyz II Men, you can pass along a drive that they can share with their children.

Granted, this doesn’t completely resolve my living space issue. But that’s what grandma’s house is for.

If you know anything about me based on some of the blogs I’ve written, you’ll know that I’m into both gadgets and cars.  Project Detroit was the best of both worlds.  This baby is definitely not stock. Here’s a quick rundown what’s inside.

Software:
Windows 7, Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Visual Studio 11 Beta, Visual Studio 2010, Expression Blend 4, Windows Azure SDK, Windows Phone 7.1 SDK, Phidgets APIs, .NET Micro Framework SDK, Netduino SDK, IIS, ASP.NET MVC 3, SQL Server Express, Kinect for Windows SDK, NuGet, nAudio, Coding4Fun Kinect Socket Service, Coding4Fun Toolkit for Windows Phone, Silverlight Toolkit for Windows Phone

Hardware:
A Ford 2012 Mustang, 2 Sony VAIO Z 2011 series laptops, 2 Samsung Series 7 slates and 1 Samsung Series 7 dock, Xbox 360, Netgear N600/WNDR3700 wireless router, Cradle Point MBR900, Verizon USB LTE card, Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone, 2 Kinects, OBD-II to USB cord, two 4″ linear actuators, a linear actual controller, Netduino Plus, Seeed Studio Relay Shield, 2 Casio Green Slim projectors (XJ-A250), SSID Rear projection film material, Sparkfun protoshield board, Digital Addressable RGB LED w/ PWM strips, Phidget 8/8/8 interface board, USB to Serial cord, 4 12V DC to 5V DC power supplies, optical reduction lenses for the HUD system, Microsoft Streets and Trips USB GPS dongle and external speaker system

So what about storage, right? Well what I love about this group is that they aren’t afraid of clouds — they’re using cloud services for their storage hookup.  Here’s what they are doing:

Using the built-in wireless network, the Mustang is able to communicate with cloud services including Bing Maps, Viper’s Smart Start system as well as store real-time telemetry data such as speed, location, RPM and fuel level in Windows Azure.

How cool is that?  Ladies and gentlemen, I have found my dream car. Now about that sticker price…

But cloud storage isn’t for everyone.  For some it’s a brave new world of anytime/anywhere accessibility. For others who may not be so technologically inclined, it’s a dark scary place…or bright and fluffy depending on what your image of clouds may be.

So let’s demystify this a bit – the cloud is just a server…or, a bunch of servers. It’s a collection of hard drives sitting in a data center run by a few guys who know a bit more about computers than the average bear and are waiting for you to access it with your music, photos and anything else you love and cherish.  Just like any other server, it will store your data just as a regular hard drive would. So there you go, don’t be afraid of the cloud.

The first time I used Dropbox, I thought it was a great way to have my info wherever I wanted it. I dabbled with ZumoDrive because it had an app that worked on my Android phone allowing me access to my music.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a total cloud convert. I will always be reliant on my external hard drives because they give me a great sense of security and stability with my data. But a cloud solution can give you a sense of freedom that you don’t always have with traditional storage because of the accessibility of data centers.

Although I suppose there is a bit of a personal stake in this. After all, who do you think supplies the hard drives used in those data centers?

Seagate is a “cloud friendly” company. We understand the importance of cloud storage for businesses and consumers alike.  We know you want you the convenience of having your data secure and available at any given time because life happens. So take a load off and relax because we’ll enable you to have access to your data from the cloud to something as close to you as, say, your pocket.  And isn’t keeping your information close what it’s all about?

Related Posts:
Life’s Good…in the Cloud
What Would/Could You Do With 5GB of Free Storage?
The Shift to the Cloud and its Two Masters

5MB Seagate ST506 Winchester (circa 1980)

We asked an open question on Facebook recently to see when the last time people had backed up their hard drive. I was a bit surprised by the number of people who actually had – especially within the last month.

Backing up your hard drive may not be something you think about on a regular basis. It’s the equivalent of using that weird shaped brush to clean your refrigerator coils. I mean really, when was the last time you actually did that? And don’t get me started on dusting air vents.

But I digress.  Imagine a situation where you’re going about your day working along and whistling a happy tune.  Then *bloop*, you’re computer dies. You’re stunned. You’re shocked. You may start using words full of color as an expression of your frustration.  Then it slowly begins to sink in and you ask yourself “When was the last time I saved my work?”

When I was in design school, we lived by a simple motto – “Save Often.”

We had to. The work we were doing was very precise and trying to replicate it again was difficult and time consuming.  Why should this be any different? Whether it’s a spreadsheet, a blog, digitizing photos or music composition, the work you’re doing is of the utmost importance.

So “Save Often.”

Your digital life should get the same treatment as your work. Accidents are called accidents because they don’t happen on purpose.

So “Save Often.”

Backing up your hard drive may sound intimidating, but it really isn’t. In most cases, you can automate the process so while you’re in a blissful slumber, your computer is slowly gaining sentience preparing for the technological uprising all while saving your important data.  If you’re more of a “hands-on” type of person, you can go through a quick process to get things started while you catch up on the last few episodes of Desperate Housewives before the show ends it’s seven-year run.  There may be minor differences depending on your system, but everyone knows the importance of data storage (at least they better), so it’s much easier than you may think.

Regardless of what method you choose, “save often.”

So what are you waiting for? Go back up your hard drive today.