Seagate Technology has announced another first, following the launch of its 3TB portable storage device only three months ago, by launching the first 1.5TB 2.5-inch portable external drive.

With that kind of storage capacity in its newest FreeAgent GoFlex, Seagate figures users can store up to 60 high-definition movies, about 750 video games, thousands of photos or tens of thousands of hours of digital music.

USB 3.0

All of the company’s new GoFlex drives – including the 1.5TB model – ship with a USB 3.0 interface cable, which greatly accelerates the transfer speed of a drive when connected to a 3.0 port.

Seagate claims USB 3.0 to a USB 3.0 port provides up to 10 times greater transfer speeds as compared to being connected to a USB 2.0 port.

Seagate said it is pricing the latest FreeAgent GoFlex device at $250 (£161). The new 1.5TB GoFlex is now shipping in the United States; the company said it will sell it globally later this year.

Platter Limit

With the new drive, Seagate inched ever-closer to the physical limit of 2TB of capacity per platter, which is based on the current 512-byte sector standard for areal density adopted by the storage industry more than a decade ago.

For more than three years, Seagate has lobbied for a new 4KB sector standard, which will push disk capacity far beyond current limits.