Fabrik on Monday expanded its line of SimpleTech hard disk drives with a new line of desktop SimpleDrive models in capacities from 160GB to 500GB. The company offers users built-in backup software and online storage through the Myfabrik.com online service. Pricing starts at $99.
The drive enclosure itself was designed by Pininfarina, the famed design studio behind some of Italian automaker Ferrari’s most well-known creations. Created as an upsized version of SimpleTech’s existing portable SimpleDrive, the desktop version touts larger capacity as it uses a 3.5-inch internal hard disk drive instead.
Fabrik is offering the drive to start with a USB 2.0 interface, but in May will ship a USB 2.0/FireWire 400 combination interface — better suited towards Mac users and others who have FireWire on their systems. The drive includes “One-Click” backup software (Mac OS X and windows compatible) that, when installed, enables users to back up selected directories, files or volumes with a single button click on the drive itself.
A built-in light ring on the drive momentarily lights up and acts as a capacity meter, so you can see instantly how much space you have remaining.
What makes the Fabrik offering unique, however, is a free 2GB account on Myfabrik.com, an online service that enables you to store, organize and share your content. You can use the space to share multimedia files, for example, making them available either publicly or through your own customizable Web page. You can post content to eBay links, embed myfabrik.com “widgets” into your blog or other social networking sites such as MySpace.
The drive comes in several different colors, depending on capacity. Red (160GB); white (250GB), sapphire (320GB), onyx (500GB) and charcoal gray (750GB and soon, 1 terabyte, or TB).
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