Seagate Technology, the world's leading hard drive supplier for the Consumer Electronics (CE) market, announced today that its award-winning U Series 80-Gbyte hard drive has been chosen as the storage device for Toshiba's RD-X1 Personal Video Recorder (PVR). The Toshiba RD-X1 is the successor to its RD-2000, the world's first combination of a hard drive and DVD-RAM for recording TV programs. Seagate is the sole provider of hard drive technology for the RD-X1, and this endorsement reaffirms Seagate's leading position in emerging markets for storage. One of the Company's strengths is the specialized design services and unique expertise it provides to its customers. For example, Seagate's CE Design Service Centers (DSC), formerly known as CETEC, offer a variety of testing, integration and mechanical analysis services to help customers such as Toshiba more effectively design hard drive-capable CE devices. With the end-to-end relationships nurtured through its unique DSC processes, Seagate maintains its advantage over other disc drive makers as the storage partner of choice for CE customers.

"Seagate's engineering team has worked closely with our engineers to test and develop our consumer products through its unique design processes and services," said Hiroyuki Tokoro, senior manager, Digital Media Development Center, AV Design Dept. 4, Toshiba Corporation. "The U Series provides quietness, reliability and robustness—all the qualities that a hard drive in a PVR should possess. Backed by Seagate's ongoing successes in the CE arena, we have no doubt that the Seagate U Series is the best choice for our innovative PVRs."

"Seagate continues to lead in enabling new CE applications for the home consumer market," said Joel Stead, Seagate senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing. "Toshiba is one of the biggest names in consumer products and Seagate is pleased to be named the sole hard drive provider for the RD-X1. Toshiba's endorsement is another big boost to our efforts to drive this technology into the CE marketplace. Today, Seagate is the most prepared, experienced disc drive company with whom to partner when bringing a CE device to consumers."

The integration of Seagate's 80-Gbyte hard drive and a 4.7-Gbyte DVD-RAM/R drive in the RD-X1 allows storage of up to 83.5 hours of video. The RD-X1 supports editing between the hard drive and DVD-RAM; it can save programs to the hard drive temporarily and use the DVD to build program libraries of scenes selected from the hard drive. The flexibility of recording to a Seagate hard drive—with high capacity, high-speed access, and the ability to record multiple video streams—makes it possible to pause, rewind and play back any part of a program even while the program is still being recorded. Viewers who arrive home while a program is being recorded can thus watch it immediately, without having to wait for the recording to be completed.

The U Series disc drive family is designed specifically for use in Consumer Electronics and volume PCs. Featuring the Company's exclusive "sound barrier technology" (SBT), Seagate products are the world's quietest hard drives for mainstream desktop computers and Personal Video Recorders. The U Series is available in a unique Consumer Electronics configuration: the U Series CE, for superior A/V streaming, quiet data seeks and reduced power use. Seagate's U Series disc drives offer best-in-class reliability for PC and CE applications. U Series ships with Seagate's exclusive 3D Defense System™ to lead the industry in ruggedness and data protection. Seagate's 3D Defense System includes the patented SeaShell™ packaging, soft SeaShield® protective cover, SeaTools™ Suite diagnostic software and the award-winning DiscWizard™ installation software.