SanDisk Debuts One-Touch Backup USB Drive

SanDisk's new Ultra Backup USB portable flash drive is the world's first to offer single-touch integrated backup software.

At this year’s CES show, storage and PMP vendor SanDisk has taken the wraps off a new Ultra Backup USB portable flash drive that offers an integrated backup solution, enabling users to back up critical files by just pressing a button. The company is also revving its Cruzer USB drives with a new look…presumably so folks deeply concerned with flash drive fashion won’t feel neglected.

The Ultra Backup USB portable flash drive will be available in capacities up to 645 GB, and comes with integrated backup software that copies a user’s photos, music, videos, and personal documents with just the single touch of a button. (No applications or system files are backed up though, so folks looking for a comprehensive backup solution will need to look elsewhere.) The backups are protected with both a password and AES hardware encryption, ensuring users’ data is safe even if the backup drive is lost or stolen.

SanDisk has also revved its Cruzer flash drives to have a more contemporary look, along with capacities up to 32 GB. The drives will continue to incorporate U3 Smart technology enabling applications to launch from the drive itself without being installed on a host PC; the drives also sport read transfer speeds of 25 MB/s and write speeds of 18 MB/s, along with 256-bit AES hardware encryption.

Both lines of USB drives should be available in April, with the Ultra Backup drives starting at $39.99 for an 8 GB version and scaling up to $199.99 for a 64 GB version. The new Cruzer drives will start at $24.99 for a 4 GB version and ramp up to $99.99 for a 32 GB version.