I-O Data Intros New Line of External Hard Drives

I-O data said it would be delivering a 1.5TB SATA hard drive back in November, a drive that was meant to compete with Seagate's Baracuda 1.5TB SATA drive. Now, after weeks of waiting, the hard drives set to be released by the company by the end of the month are not SATA but designed for interfacing with the USB 2.0. Furthermore, their storage capacity even exceeds 1.5TB, reaching all the way up to 2TB.

The product line will be composed of four models, each differentiated from the other through their storage capacity. The actual dimensions of the product's shell are of 46 (W) x 223 (D) x 155 (H) mm. The drives are noteworthy not only for their high storage capabilities (notable especially considering that they are external), but also for their low-noise active cooling mechanism and their security features that safeguard the stored data against unauthorized access.

The drives keep the data secure by the use of the AES 256-bit hardware encryption technology. This will enable end-users to carry their data with them and not worry about it being accessed against their will. This will be very useful for office workers who need to carry business information without risking endangering trade secrets.

The hard drive encryption will come in handy especially well considering the high number of misplaced data-storage units. Every month, tens of thousands of USB flash drives, portable HDD or SSDs and even mobile computing platforms (such as netbooks or even larger laptops) get lost or forgotten on the backseats of taxis. Knowing that the data kept on the hard disk is secure even after said unit was misplaced (because of exhaustion from overwork or any other reason) will definitely relieve end-users of a fair amount of unneeded stress.

The products will become available in Japan before the end of the year and will come in capacities of 500GB (priced at $139), 1TB ($187), 1.5TB ($246) and 2TB ($496).