Toshiba Announces External 1.8-inch USB 2.0 Hard Drives

January 6th, 2008 at 2:00 PM - Conferences by Bryan Chaffin

LAS VEGAS -- Toshiba announced Sunday a new line of portable hard drives based on the companyis 1.8-inch hard drive, the same hard drive line Apple has used in some iPod models. The new drives are USB 2.0 devices, and will be offered in capacities of 60GB, 80GB and 120GB. Toshiba made the announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which kicked off this week in Las Vegas.

Toshiba said that it plans to include encryption and backup software with this product line to protect data should the devices ever be lost or stolen.

Pricing has not yet been announced, but the new product line is scheduled for release in the Spring of 2008. The devices support Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, as well as Windows 2000/XP/Vista, for those so inclined.

Toshiba also announced a 320 GB external hard drive based on its 320 GB 2.5-inch hard drive. That device is priced at US$199.99, and will be available later in January of 2008 from the companyis storage Web site.

Toshibais new 1.8-inch external USB 2.0 hard drives.