Wednesday, 30 July 2008

Fabrik Introduces World’s First Eco-friendly Drive

Storage and backup vendor Fabrik has announced a new external hard drive claimed to be the world's most eco-friendly external hard drive which uses an external rack made of bamboo and recycled aluminum.

The SimpleTech drive communicates through the company's faster Turbo USB 2.0 port. Standard USB 2.0 hardware transfers data at 480 Mbps. The drive offers 500 GB of storage for personal computers running Apple's Mac OS X or Microsoft's Windows. The product comes with Fabrik's automated backup software, which, besides storing data in the drive, can also connect to the company's online backup service.

The company chose an energy-saving drive from Western Digital, although future versions may contain drives from other manufacturers. There is no on-off switch; instead, the drive turns itself on and off, depending on usage. An Energy Star-qualified power adapter is also included.

"At Fabrik, we're making an effort to support the environment, while adapting our products to better meet consumer needs and interests. We know we have a lot more work to do across the board as a company, but we're committed to change and hope we'll make a small dent in improving the environment—through our products, services, partner choices and company best practices," said Fabrik VP of marketing Matt McRae, in a statement.

The drive is estimated to cost about USD 150.