Amazon and Seagate Team Up For External Hard Drive That Automatically Syncs Data to Cloud

Amazon and Seagate teamed up to bring an automatic cloud-syncing hard drive, it was announced Wednesday.

The Seagate Duet syncs all data on the drive to the cloud, providing a secure dual backup for customers. Users can access their documents, files, photos and videos in the device anywhere by using Amazon Drive.

“With the Amazon Drive mobile app, people can easily back up files from their smartphone or tablet to the cloud,” Seagate said in a release. “With the Seagate Duet drive, they can view and back up their favorite memories and files stored on their computer as well as on their smartphone or tablet using the Amazon Drive mobile app.”

The “extremely user-friendly” 1TB storage drive is a black, slim, lightweight device and offers fast local transfer speeds and offline access, Seagate says. Customers can drag and drop files from their Mac or PC to the drive, which are then automatically synced to the cloud.

The drive is now available for pre-order only in the U.S. on Amazon.com for $99.99. The device will be released on Dec. 10, according to the website.

With the purchase of the Seagate Duet, customers will benefit from a one free year of Amazon Drive unlimited storage, which normally has an annual cost of $59.99.

The drive is good news for those who prefer dual backups, especially since Apple has allegedly halted its production of the AirPort Time Capsule. The Time Capsule router backs up data wirelessly with OS X Leopard or later and is sold at $299 or $399, depending on the storage.