Toshiba announced a new line of USB 2.0 portable external hard drives in 100GB, 120GB and 160GB capacities. Available in North America, Toshiba's new personal storage line of 2.5-inch HDDs provides a solution for back-up of cherished photo, video, music and data files for the growing digital home and home office.

The drive is automatically powered through a USB cable when the computer is turned on. Bundled with the NTI Shadow software, the back-up solution eliminates the need to push a button or click an icon to activate back-up once parameters are set. The NTI Shadow software runs in the background, capturing updates to files and automatically saving them to the external drive.

The drives are packaged in sleek black aluminum housing with a blue power-on indicator light. At 5.6-inches long by 3.5-inches wide and less than one inch tall (142.08mm by 88.0mm by 23.65mm), the drive is a space-saver on the desktop. They also incorporate Toshiba’s new, patent-pending shock mounting and ventilation system for a trouble-free mobile storage solution. For added security, Toshiba is including a one-year limited warranty program for its personal storage devices.

The Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive will be on retail store shelves in Spring 2007 at price points starting at $139.99