Hitachi, which has already made headlines this year by releasing the world's first terabyte hard drive, is going into the portable hard drive market with a line of USB devices sold through Best Buy. Hitachi announced the drives on June 5 and they're already on the market, complete with USB 2.0 interface and backup software. The drive's Spin rate is a paltry 5,400 RPM, which seems like a bit underwhelming - you can get backup drives from Maxtor that spin at 7,200 RPM - but at $140 for 160 GB, the price is definitely right. Cheap or not, whether these sleek-looking drives will distinguish themselves in a crowded marketplace is an interesting question.

Via USB Core