Three USB external hard drives from Hitachi

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) unveiled three new consumer products they got by the acquisition of SimpleTech earlier this year. The new Hitachi branded products include the SimpleTOUGH portable USB drive, industry’s only water-resistant and shock-resistant external hard drive from a global hard drive manufacturer; the stylish and colorful SimpleDRIVE Mini portable USB drive; and the SimpleNET network storage adapter for easily sharing existing USB drive content over a home or office network. All SimpleTech external storage solutions now leverage Hitachi’s award-winning, reliable hard drives and strong global brand creating additional advantages for road warriors, prosumers, small office/home office (SOHO) users, or virtually anyone looking for a simple and reliable way to store, protect, and better manage their data.

“Today’s announcement further extends the Hitachi GST brand into the consumer market with the reliability, confidence and dependability you would expect from one of the world’s leading hard drive suppliers,” said Mike Williams, General Manager of Hitachi GST Branded Business. “Re-branding SimpleTech to the Hitachi brand is an important step in differentiating our solutions in the marketplace. We believe that given the global strength of Hitachi, the close relationships we have built with our end-users as SimpleTech, and the continued support of our retail and channel partners, we are well positioned to move our Branded Business and the industry forward.”

Hitachi SimpleTOUGH Portable USB 2.0 Drive is designed for active people. It is water and shock-resistant external drive. Engineered to sustain a 3m drop and able to withstand the pressure of a one-ton class commercial truck, the SimpleTOUGH drive can take on more falls, knocks and spills than any average external drive on the market. The Hitachi SimpleTOUGH drive includes a “never-lose” foldaway USB cable, ergonomic sides for easy carrying, and a cool topside LED for power status.

All SimpleTOUGH portable drives integrate Hitachi’s award-winning Travelstar hard drives, which can be found in virtually all top brand notebooks around the world. Known for its proven, dependable design, Hitachi Travelstar drives provide best-of-breed operating shock at 400G operating and 1,000G non operating shock, and feature the company’s TrueTrack Technology, providing added data protection against rough handling. Packaged in one streamlined solution, the SimpleTOUGH portable drive by Hitachi is USB powered for on-the-go convenience.

The Hitachi SimpleDRIVE Mini portable drive is stylish storage made simple. It continues SimpleTech’s legacy of offering a unique contemporary design with multiple colors, while delivering streamlined, yet simple ways to store and protect your data. The SimpleDRIVE Mini uses dependable hard drives from Hitachi so you can rest assured that your data is stored on a leading hard drive. Depending on your mood, personal style or capacity needs, you have color choices of red wine in 250GB, blue dusk in 320GB or carbon fiber for a textured black look at 500GB.

The Hitachi SimpleNET is a small network adapter that allows you to share and access existing USB hard drive content over a home or small business network. Simply plug a USB hard drive into SimpleNET and then plug SimpleNET into an Ethernet network. It’s that easy. The USB drive appears as a drive on the network so you can easily share your pictures, movies, music and documents with everyone on your network. With no proprietary formats or reformatting of the drive required, you can easily hot swap your USB drive between your computer and the Hitachi SimpleNET device at any time. The SimpleNET solution is easy-to-install and easy-to-use for Mac, PC and Linux users, and you can even connect up to two USB drives at once.