Apricorn's Aegis Padlock is a portable USB hard drive, but one that looks like it came from a spy film: its front is dominated by a giant keypad lock. We hope to see how well that security works in practice through our full review of what promises to be a simple but effective means of locking down removable data.
Apricorn today ramped up its DVR Xpander to include a new 1.5TB model. The practical capacity is about 50 percent more than before and lets owners of recorders with active eSATA or USB 2 ports store as much as 843 hours of additional standard definition TV or 187.5 hours of typical HDTV programming. The company vows a quiet drive but also uses active fan cooling to keep the hard drive inside cool even in tight areas where passive cooling isn't enough.
Apricorn recently unveiled the Aegis Vault – a 2.5-inch drive protected with 128-bit AES hardware encryption – adding to its large lineup of Aegis portable media drives. The USB-powered drive features an encrypted partition that can be accessed through a password, and can be configured with public partitions for use in a shared environment. The Aegis Vault does not require the host computer to have special software installed to authenticate the drive, allowing any Windows-based computer to access the content in the encrypted partition when the correct password is entered. Pricing for the Aegis Vault starts at $170 for the 80GB version, with drive sizes available up to 250GB.
