Fujitsu Handy Drive Stores Lots, Consumes Few Watts

Little notebook drives just got a whole lot bigger, thanks to a new line of portable drives from Fujitsu.

Big brand names like Seagate and Western Digital dominate the mainstream hard drive market, but don't overlook Fujitsu. The Japanese giant has been in storage for 40 years, actually, and in the mobile market owns a decent 15 percent of the market, manufacturing 2.5-inch drives in the Philippines and Thailand.

Fujitsu ups the ante today, introducing a new portable 500GB capacity to U.S. shelves. The USB 2.0, bus-powered drives carry the Handy Drive brand name and ship with Acronis True Image Home Backup, a software package that lets users create full drive images, and a password lock tool which disables read/write access to drive. Handy Drive is a new brand name in the US, although the name and products have been around in Europe and Asia for a few years.

The two-platter, 5,400-rpm drive uses the company's MJA2 series hard drives, which Fujitsu calls a breakthrough in storage density. Other manufacturers currently sell 500GB drives as well, such as the Buffalo MiniStation TurboUSB and the Western Digital My Passport Elite; which manufacturer actually started producing the drives first is hard to determine. Fujitsu's drives distinguish themselves in another way, however: low power. The Fujitsu Handy Drive uses just 1.4 watts during read/write, and sips a mere 0.6 watts when idle. Other drives run as high as 2.6 watts. The 250GB and 500GB capacities will be available in the U.S. in February for around $150 retail; 400GB and 320GB capacities will follow soon after. (full Story)