Verbatim InSight Drives Show Name and Free Space – Even Unplugged

By Ian Bell Published October 5, 2009

Verbatim InSight — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Verbatim continues its push into the mass storage business with its new InSight Portable USB Hard Drives that sport a unique feature: a 32 by 128-pixel front LCD display that shows the drive’s name and free capacity, even when the drive is disconnected from the computer. The feature may prove useful for folks who are constantly switching between different external hard drives for projects—we’re thinking of audio and video professionals—as well as folks looking for easy way to track backups and other storage needs without resorting to the dredged masking-tape-and-Sharpie system.

“The new enclosure design for InSight Portable Hard Drives adds a touch of elegance to the external hard drive product category,” said Verbatim’s director of HDD product marketing Charles Klinker, in a statement. “The ability to quickly glance at several drives and identify the one that has pictures of the kids, your music collection, or video library, for example, adds a level of convenience not previously available in portable hard drives.”

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Verbatim is shipping the drives in 320 and 500 GB capacities and USB 2.0 connectivity—the drives power off the USB bus so no external power supply is necessary. The drives utilize 2.5-inch hard drives spinning at 5,400 RPM with 8 MB of cache and feature a piano black finish that some users may love…and other users may find elegantly designed to highlight fingerprints and smudges. The drives carry suggested retail prices of $119.99 and $149.99 for the 320 and 500 GB versions, respectively, and ship with Neo BackItUp Essentials for Windows.

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