Seagate Introduces New Maxtor Desktop and Notebook Hard Drives…

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. — October 2, 2006 — Seagate Technology (NYSE:STX) today announced the availability of new Maxtor-branded desktop and notebook PC hard drives to the worldwide distribution channel in a move that gives system builders and resellers a broader selection of product features, warranties, service and support, and pricing. Designed and manufactured with Seagate’s hallmark quality and reliability, the Maxtor DiamondMax desktop and MobileMax notebook disc drives will enable system builders to reach a wider range of customers.

“With Maxtor DiamondMax and MobileMax hard drives from Seagate, system builders and resellers will be able to deliver our desktop and notebook PC hard drives across a fuller spectrum of customers and applications,” said Karl Chicca, Seagate senior vice president and general manager of Personal Storage. “Seagate-branded hard drives will continue to deliver leading-edge technologies, top capacities and performance, rich feature sets and best-in-class channel service and support, while our Maxtor drives feature mainstream capacities, features and performance to meet basic notebook and desktop needs.”

With the launch, Seagate is refreshing Maxtor’s popular line of DiamondMax 3.5-inch desktop hard drives and introducing the new MobileMax 2.5-inch line for notebook PCs. DiamondMax drives initially will be offered in capacities up to 320GB and with mainstream features, cache sizes, and performance.

MobileMax drives will feature capacities up to 80GB and a 5400-RPM spin speed to support mainstream laptop and white book applications.

The new Maxtor drives come with a three-year warranty, while the Seagate-branded hard drives offered through the channel, including Barracuda and Momentus drives, will continue to carry an industry-leading five-year warranty.

“Distributors and value-added resellers often have a different set of requirements compared to system OEMs,” said John Rydning, IDC’s research manager for hard disc drives. “Seagate’s decision to preserve the Maxtor brand for the distribution channels provides more choice for its customers, and options for Seagate to profitably package, price, and deliver products and services for a variety of unique market requirements.”

Two Strong Brands – More Choice

Seagate will continue to provide distributors and resellers with tools, programs and incentives designed to create demand for and sell a broad range of computers built with Seagate brand hard drives. That best-in-class support includes pricing incentives, rebates, quarterly profit sharing, stock rotation, early pay discounts, price protection and a regulated hierarchy of authorized distributors.

Seagate’s support for Maxtor brand hard drives will include volume incentive programs and basic levels of service and support for resellers and system integrators. The Maxtor brand business model also will be based on open distribution with a standard pricing structure and volume discounts that will enable Maxtor authorized distributors to respond quickly to customer needs.

Channel Lauds Seagate’s Dual-Brand Approach

With the addition of Maxtor DiamondMax and MobileMax hard drives to its product portfolio, Seagate now offers distributors, resellers, system integrators and direct marketers two powerful brands for expanding their business as more of the world’s information is converted to digital form. Here’s what some of Seagate’s channel partners have to say:

“By adding a line of desktop and notebook hard drives that offers Seagate’s signature quality and reliability but in a different value tier, Seagate is going right to the heart of our business – the bottom line,” said Steve Ichinaga, senior vice president and general manager of the System Integration Division at Synnex. “The new Maxtor drives will help us protect the profitability of our Seagate premium drives and compete much more effectively with drives offering great value and basic levels of support.”

“Seagate’s dual-brand strategy gives CDW customers more choice, enabling them to meet their precise I.T. requirements,” said Chuck McEwen, manager of CDW’s storage specialty team, which provides in-depth advice on storage solution design and selection. “The Maxtor line provides capabilities for entry-level systems while Seagate-branded drives are for high-performance solutions with the largest storage capacities.”

“Newegg prides itself on delivering the best computer hardware values and selection on the web,” said Sean Tang, director of product management at Newegg. “By extending its hard drive portfolio to include DiamondMax and MobileMax drives, Seagate is helping us meet our customers’ diverse storage needs.”

“The addition of DiamondMax and MobileMax to the Seagate family of hard drives is a boon to Microbytes and our customers,” said Paul Filion, vice president of operations at Microbytes Computer Wholesalers Inc. “The expanded line of Seagate drives will broaden our reach and enable us to better meet the needs of customers who want basic drives with a basic support infrastructure.”

“The new Maxtor hard drives give us a way to address more value points in the market using a single vendor, increasing our reach and effectiveness,” said John Luo, general manager at Shanghai Co-side Enterprise Co., Ltd. “The drives also allow us to better fit the hard drive to the customer requirement and ultimately improve customer satisfaction.”

About Seagate

Seagate is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of hard disc drives, providing products for a wide-range of applications, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Branded Solutions. Seagate’s business model leverages technology leadership and world-class manufacturing to deliver industry-leading innovation and quality to its global customers, and to be the low cost producer in all markets in which it participates. The company is committed to providing award-winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world’s growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at www.seagate.com.

Seagate, Seagate Technology and the Wave logo are registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC. Maxtor, Barracuda, DiamondMax, MobileMax and Momentus are trademarks or registered trademarks of Seagate Technology LLC or one of its affiliated companies. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. One gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity. Accessible capacity may vary depending on operating environment and formatting.