ALERATEC LAUNCHES HARD DISK SANITIZER/DUPLICATOR.

Aleratec, Inc., leading developer and manufacturer of "Prosumers' Choice" solutions for the Blu-ray, DVD/CD, Flash, HDD, USB duplicating, and DVD/CD publishing markets, has launched its innovative new stand alone HDD Cruiser(tm), a hard disk drive sanitizer and duplicator all in one unit. The HDD Cruiser will simultaneously sanitize up to 4 HDDs to assure that all confidential data is unreadable. It can also duplicate up to 3 HDDs simultaneously. The sanitizing capability is particularly important with the rapid advancement hard drives, upgrading drives in systems is commonplace and it is important that confidential data is removed from the old drives before they are recycled or discarded. The HDD Cruiser is a stand alone unit and no computer is required for operation so there is no need to tie up a computer for hours running complex software to duplicate or sanitize hard disk drives.

"Our Prosumer users have been pushing hard for an economical way to make exact duplicate copies of hard drives to expedite setting up new PCs or replacing old drives. Now all anyone has to do is load the files and programs they want on a master drive and the HDD Cruiser does the rest." said Perry Solomon, president and CEO of Aleratec. "The sanitizing capability of the HDD Cruiser to overwrite all of the data on a hard drive so that it cannot fall into the wrong hands is an even more important feature of the HDD Cruiser. Making certain that data on recycled hard drives cannot be recovered is an exploding problem. Recently Gartner published a report that puts the magnitude of the problem in perspective. Gartner reported last year that there would be 160 million PCs disposed of worldwide in 2007 which amounts to 460,000 a day. Of these 41% were stored, 32% were put in landfills, and 27% recycled. If users do not have a tool like the HDD Cruiser, you can be assured that most of these PCs have hard drives with confidential data still on them."

Data confidentiality has always been an issue with government classified information and with recent laws intended to protect the privacy of individuals health and financial information, it has become a legal concern to most industries. Industry and government are forced to confront the challenge of protecting the confidentiality of classified, corporate, client or patient data. Many organizations must now comply with new federal laws mandating rigorous standards for handling, distributing and using confidential client, corporate or patient information or be subject to very serious, even ruinous, penalties. Assuring the confidentiality of classified or private data on desktop and notebook computers when they are to be recycled or disposed of presents a special challenge and level of exposure that needs to be addressed. Aleratec has developed the HDD Cruiser to help ensure that the data on retired hard drives is not available to others.

The Aleratec HDD Cruiser provides 3 options for sanitizing hard disc drives, each providing a more advanced level of security. 1) One pass data overwrite is to write zeroes to every block on the hard drive. 2) Three pass data overwrite writes one pass of zeros, one pass of 1s and one pass of a randomly generated pattern to every block on the hard drive. You have the option to verify the random pattern to provide assurance that the overwrite was completed. 3) Seven pass DoD 5220.22-M has been derived from the Department of Defense 5220.22-M specification for secure overwriting of hard disk drive. After the overwrite process the hard drives appear to a computer as new drives without initialization or formatting.

Since HDD duplication or sanitizing can tie up a computer for hours, the dual purpose HDD Cruiser features a powerful stand alone controller so no computer is required for operation. The HDD Cruiser has individual, removable, locking, aluminum drive trays. In both sanitizing and duplicating the controller must access the entire capacity of each drive, so the drives must run for extended periods and cooling is of utmost importance. The HDD Cruiser has 10 ultra quiet cooling fans and the "only from Aleratec" aluminum drive trays offer the best possible thermal conductivity. The locking trays offer important tamper resistance to help prevent interruption of either a duplicating or sanitizing operation.

The Aleratec HDD Cruiser (Aleratec Part No. 350101, Ingram Micro SKU N68528) is proudly assembled in the USA from components sourced globally. With an estimated retail price of $1575, it is a must have for IT departments or anyone that is updating systems and recycling hard disk drives.

The full line of Aleratec DVD and CD recording solutions, duplication solutions, and accessories is featured at 4SURE.com, AAFES, Adorama, Amazon.com, B&H Photo Video, Best Buy, Buy.com, CDW, Circuit City, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, Insight, J & R, Mac Connection, MacMall, Micro Center, NewEgg, Office Depot, PC Connection, PC Mall, PC Nation, ProVantage, Quill, Ritz Camera, Staples, Target, Tech Depot and Wal-Mart in addition to other leading retailers. Government and Education customers may purchase from Government and Education Specialists including AAFES, B&H Photo Video Gov, Best Buy Gov/Ed, CDW-G, CompuCom, Daly Computer, EnPointe, Fed Tek, GCI, GE IT Solutions, GovConnection, GOVPLACE, Green Pages, GTSI, Horizon, Insight Gov, INTELLI-TECH, PC Mall Gov, Pomeroy, Sarcom, Sayers, Shi.com, Softchoice, Sparco.com, telcobuy, TIG, and Unisys. All products are available to resellers in the U.S. through D&H Distributing, DBL Distributing, and Ingram Micro, and in Canada through D&H Canada and Ingram Micro Canada.

About Aleratec

Aleratec, Inc. is a leading developer and manufacturer of "Prosumers' Choice" solutions for the Blu-ray, DVD/CD, Flash, HDD, USB duplicating, and DVD/CD publishing markets. Exciting new Aleratec Blu-ray, DVD/CD, USB duplicating, DVD/CD publishing solutions, and LightScribe DVD/CD media are establishing a higher standard in the industry with professional strength solutions at consumer prices that are exceptionally easy to use, creating the ultimate "out of box" product experience.

For more information visit, http://www.aleratec.com. or call or call 1-866-77-ALERATEC or 818/678-6900.