Digital Trends

LaCie Hard Disk Design by Neil Poulton 500GB

January 29th, 2008 | by Jason Tomczak

Features and Design

Neil Poulton, one of the key designers behind the most stylish and unusual LaCie hard drives, recently created an ultra-minimalist, high-gloss black hard drive enclosure that looks like a tiny onyx monolith. The drive uses USB 2.0, has no logo and no markings whatsoever on the visible surfaces and oozes cool. The back of the drive is where we find the USB 2.0 port, power input and on/off switch. There's also a well-camouflaged fan grille opposite the USB 2.0 port.

Other than the superbly glossy finish and the blue LED light glowing from under the front of the drive enclosure, this drive is a standard USB 2.0 drive. The 500GB (also available in 1TB) disc spins at 7200 RPM and has 8MB cache. As hard drive supplies change, the cache in your Hard Disk may vary between 8MB and 16MB.

The drive works with Linux, Mac OS X 10.3 and above, Windows 2000, XP and Vista. It measures 4.6" x 7.6" x 1.8" and weighs about 2lbs. The power cable is roughly 8' long, so it's easy to use on a surface somewhat far from an outlet.

LaCie includes easy-to-use backup software that works smoothly on both Mac and Windows systems. The software (LaCie 1-Click Backup Software for Mac & PC, and LaCie SilverKeeper Backup Software for Mac) is pre-loaded on the drive, so you won't need to use a CD to do any installations. Also, included in the box: USB 2.0 cable, power supply and installation guide (not very informative or necessary).

Image Courtesy of LaCie