Drinks and USB storage don’t exactly go hand in hand. Verbatim’s new Insight external hard drive, however, seems to suggest you can marry the two together, with an enclosure that looks like a perfect tray for serving coffee to your guests.
Unusually-styled, the InSight features a glossy piano black finish across a sleek-looking chassis, with 6 x 3.5 x 0.7 inch dimensions. The front end of the external disk curves just a bit upwards, while the rest of the body lies flat, bringing to mind its undeniable potential for doubling as a drink tray. I’m even sure it will make a classy-looking serving piece for sundae and chips too.
The highlight of the design, however, is a small, always-on display along the front-end that shows the available free space on the drive. It’s a simple touch that adds a world of function and I expect many enclosure manufacturers to follow suit. The drive’s customizable name is displayed on the screen too, so you can have an automatic label without having to use stickers that could ruin the finish.
Verbatim’s InSight houses 2.5-inch SATA drives in 320GB and 500GB configurations (each drive comes with 5400rpm spindle speed and 8MB of cache). It works with all Windows and Mac PCs and comes pre-installed with Nero BackItUp Essentials, which provides the system with automatic backup and recovery capabilities.
There has probably never been a sexier external hard drive than this. Even better, none that could double as an attractive serving tray. The Verbatim InSight looks tightly-sealed enough to withstand minor spills, though you can’t quote me on that when you bring it in for warranty. It’s available now for $119.99 and $149.99 for the 350GB and 500GB options, respectively.