Being waterproof's all well and good for gadgets; but if you wrap just about anything up in enough plastic and/or rubber casing, you can market it as waterproof. Now show me a fireproof gadget, and I'll be impressed.

SentrySafe isn't going so far as to refer to its new hard drive as fireproof--after all, I know a few folks with access to blowtorches who would be more than happy to prove the New York storage company wrong--but until asbestos comes back into fashion, we're going to have to make do with waterproof and fire-safe. That's two better than most other hard drives on the market.

The Fire-Safe/Waterproof Hard Drive is essentially a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini hard drive loaded with software such as Maxtor's SafetyDrill and encased in a SentrySafe enclosure that should help out, if the drive find its way onto a burning boat or a waterlogged oven: It's protected against fire for 30 minutes at up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit and can survive underwater for up to 24 hours.

"With this new product, SentrySafe is putting the 'hard' in hard drive," says the company's director of marketing communications, Sondra McFarlane (no doubt with a smirk caused by her own punnery). "We were able to take our knowledge, which we've gained from being in the security storage industry for more than 75 years, and partner with Maxtor to provide consumers with a highly desirable concept--the very first of its kind."

SentrySafe's Fire-Safe/Waterproof Hard Drive comes in 80GB and 160GB models, for $259.99 and $339.99, respectively.