Seagate Releases BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 External Drive

With USB 3.0’s launch occurring mere months ago, it was to be expected that equipped devices would be seen all over CES, and so far, that’s proven true. At the “CES Unveiled” press event, I stopped by Seagate’s booth to see what was new, and lo and behold… a USB 3.0 external hard drive. That in itself seems simple, but there’s a bit more to this drive that makes it well worth a look.

First is the fact that this 2.5″ drive is 7200 RPM, so it’s actually able to push speeds that make choosing the USB 3.0 connection beneficial. Second, if you’re using a notebook that doesn’t offer a 3.0 connection (aka: all of them up to now), Seagate includes an ExpressCard right in the box that opens up the support… talk about one heck of a nice feature.

To top it all off, this BlackArmor PS 110 drive includes Acronis’ fantastic backup software, which assures your data is safe, both in the backup respect, and also the grubby-hands respect. You have the option to encrypt all of your data with the AES 256-bit algorithm, which means your data is very, very secure.

One last feature which doesn’t seem to be a big deal, but might be for some, is that this 2.5″ drive is a bit shorter than most. Seagate redesigned the internals of the enclosure itself in order to compress the innards around the drive as much as possible. In a quick comparison, I’d guess that Seagate shortened it by at least 0.5″. Not a major difference, but nice nonetheless.

Unlike so many products at CES, the BlackArmor PS 110 is actually available now, and for $179.99. That’s a bit higher than most other 2.5″ drives of the 500GB density, but the inclusion of Acronis’ backup software and the USB 3.0 ExpressCard helps make up for it.