Apricorn's USB Hard Drive Goes Portable

Apricorn has announced what may be the first USB hard drive that doesn't need or come with a separate AC adapter. The 20GB EZ Bus Mini hard drive will cost $200 and the 40GB version will be $280 upon release, scheduled for June 21.

USB storage devices are supposed to be the ultimate in plug and play: You plug one into your PC, and you have another drive. That's pretty much how it works with flash drives, but USB hard drives have always required the additional step of plugging them into a wall socket for AC power. Spinning platters need more power than the 500 milliamps that a USB port can provide.

Or at least they did until now. The latest 1.8-inch drives have power requirements within USB's capabilities. Of course, this limits the drive's capacity. For the time being, if you want 120GB, or even 80GB, of portable storage, you're going to need a wall socket.

On the other hand, you'll pay less for it. You can buy an 80GB USB hard drive with an AC adapter for about $100.

The Pocket Market

Apricorn doesn't consider other external drives--larger in both size and capacity--its primary competition, says Mike McCandless, vice president of sales and marketing. The EZ Bus Mini measures only 4 by 3 by 0.6 inches, and weighs just 4.3 ounces.

"We're going after the memory key market," McCandless says, referring to the popular key chain-size flash RAM drives. "It fits in your pocket like a memory key."

And on a price per gigabyte basis, it's much cheaper. A $280 flash memory drive contains only about half a gigabyte of data.

In keeping with the portability goal, the EZ Bus Mini comes with an attached USB cord that fits into the drive casing itself when not in use. That way, you don't have to carry a separate cable or worry about dangling cords. The drive will also come with a travel pouch.

Apricorn will bundle software as well. To protect your secrets should your drive be stolen, the product will come with Cypherix Cryptainer LE, which uses 128-bit Blowfish encryption to secure important files. Included too will be Centered Systems' Second Copy synchronization program, plus Apricorn's own EZ Gig drive-imaging backup program.