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The hard disk has done wonders for the data-storage capacity of personal computers; unfortunately, it has also kept microcomputer users chained to their desks. Unlike the ubiquitous floppy, it is buried inside a microcomputer and cannot be removed without elaborate safeguards. Even if it could be, one jolt might send a disk drive's delicate innards skipping like a runaway needle across a phonograph record, making chopped liver of valuable data.

Capitalizing on such potential catastrophes, a few companies have developed devices for protecting proprietary data from acts of God and fellow workers. The latest innovation does those gadgets one better -- and faster and cheaper. Not only can its new self-contained hard-disk unit be plugged in and extracted like a videocassette, but it can be toted around in an ordinary briefcase or (the supreme test) sent through the U.S. mail.

The product, called the Personal Data Pac, is a 30-megabyte, two-and-a-half-pound portable drive from Tandon Corp., in Chatsworth, Calif. Among other things, it allows a business to jockey large proprietary databases back and forth among its offices. Perhaps more important, it promises to unshackle lateworking executives. Now they can cart a project home, provided they own the peripheral subsystem needed to plug the drive into a PC. The setup, including the subsystem, will cost about $900. Of course, you'll still have to work late, but at least the family gets to watch.