Gadgets and Gizmos

SanDisk Flash Drive

SanDisk has made the first USB flash drive with automatic on-line backlup call Cruzer Titanium. The drive comes with a six month subscription to Belnsync back- up service and a two-year subscription to Boomerangit.com.

Lost files can be retrieved using any Internet connected computer if the drive is lost, destroyed or corrupted. Bommerangit provides tracking of lost or stolen electronics by essentially providing a vin number for items registered on their site.

The Cruzer, which SanDisk believes to be the first USB drive of its kind, is the most recent in a wave of products that link to the internet to offer new features that would have been impossible on offline, stand-alone devices. After initial registration, when the user is online and the device is plugged in, the Cruzer will sync automatically with the online storage account whenever new data is added.

If the computer is not online when files are copied to the drive, the backup will take place the next time there is an internet connection. Files deleted from the drive will be kept online for 30 days, as long as the total of backed up files from the device and deleted files do not exceed the physical capacity of the drive.

The idea behind Cruzer Plus is to protect users against accidentally deleting files, such as documents, photos, music, video, spreadsheets, or work presentations, SanDisk said. Backed-up files can be recovered by signing into the backup account. The service allows Windows 2000-, XP-, and Vista-based Cruzer Titanium Plus users to sync files whenever the USB drive is plugged in to an online PC.

Changes to the USB drive store that are made while offline are automatically mirrored once a connection to the Internet is re-established. The Titanium Plus, which is just a notch below SanDisk’s flagship Cruzer Contour line, comes with its own device password encryption and hardware AES encryption to protect sensitive data.

Also included is two years of free service from BoomerangIt, a service where you affix labels to your equipment that offers cash rewards for lost goods in hopes that people will mail the items back to you. The Cruzer Titanium Plus available now for $60.