Iomega recently revealed some new eSATA desktop hard drives with a new system protection program that combines total system backups with instant system recovery. The drive catching our eye the most is the 1.5TB UltraMax Pro Desktop Hard Drive eSATA 3GBits/USB 2.0, priced at around $600.

The Iomega 1.5TB UltraMax Pro Desktop Hard Drive eSATA 3GBits/USB 2.0 features both eSATA 3GBits and USB 2.0 interfaces. The eSATA 3GBits interface is the preferred for data backup, as Iomega says it is up to six times faster than the USB 2.0 interface. This product also “features a two-drive configuration with hot-swappable SATA II hard drives that are formatted with the FAT32 file system for use in Mac or PC environments.”

Personal storage product manufacturer Apricorn is bringing to computer users a new external hard drive solution which is secured via hardware encryption. The new Aegis Vault line is available in sizes ranging from 80GB to 250GB and is priced at around $140 to $270 respectively.

The Aegis Vault from Apricorn uses AES-128 bit hardware encryption with password protection to secure data. It can be configured into multiple partitions for public data sharing and features an administrator password option for corporate applications. It connects through USB, making it bus-powered, and works with Windows operating systems.

Finally, a USB drive for geeks who want to put some religion into their USB port and their lives. Normally it’s only after you’ve lost your important data that you would pray to Holy Mary, Mother Of God. Now you can do it at your leisure and hopefully she will listen and keep your data safe.

It will act as a good reminder to geeks to keep some religion in their lives. When she is hooked up, her red LED heart will beat, indicating how the Holy Mother watches over your computer’s innards. (If only she sang “Turn On Your Heartlight, huh?) Her halo is engraved with the prayer “Oh Maria, keep my data safe!”. So, it must work.

Information is a precious and delicate thing. Which is why we humans have a hard candy shell wrapped around our brain. If our gooey info-centers were just exposed on top of our heads, we would be in big trouble. And it’s not like you can back up grey matter.

Luckily hard drives can be backed up, though truthfully not very many people actually do it. Let’s say you back up all of that precious data onto an external hard drive. Good job! You are now on the road to information safety. But wait…What if your house burns down? Or you get flooded? Nothing you can do about those acts of God right? Wrong. Thanks to Maxtor teaming up with Sentry Group, you can now have a drive that is both fire resistant and waterproof. These drives can withstand 1550F degrees for about a half hour as well as spend up to a day submerged in water.

The new PocketRAID from Norazza isn’t something you spray in your pocket to kill bugs. It is rather what the company describes as the world’s smallest external RAID 1 system. It starts at around $440 for 160GB of storage, going up from there to a maximum size of 320GB.

The Norazza PocketRAID weights around 1.9 pounds and measures a small 5″ x 3″ x 1.5″. It’s configured for RAID 1 style storage, sporting two compact hard drives in its body. It’s capable of supporting both eSATA and USB data transfer and has a built-in backup button as well as LED status indicator lights.

G-Technology, a developer of external hard drives for computers, announced today a new triple rear interface design for its G-DRIVE mini portable hard drives. The new G-DRIVE mini Triple starts at around $180, depending upon the drive’s storage capacity.

The G-DRIVE mini Triple is available in sizes ranging from 120GB to 250GB. It offers for connectivity to a PC or Mac a choice of FireWire 400, FireWire 800 or USB 2.0. The drive is housed in an all aluminum enclosure with built-in heat sink and weighs under nine ounces. It’s bus powered and requires to external power source to operate.