Skip to main content

Verbatim InSight Drives Show Name and Free Space – Even Unplugged

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.”

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.

Editors' Recommendations

Ian Bell
I work with the best people in the world and get paid to play with gadgets. What's not to like?
Microsoft could finally kill HDD boot drives for good
Analysts say Microsoft is in talks with its OEM partners to transition from HDD to SSD as its main storage component by 2023.

Microsoft could have plans to scrap its use of hard disk drives (HDD) among its main storage components on PCs running Windows 11, according to a recent report by industry analyst firm Trendfocus, as reported by Tom's Hardware.

If Microsoft goes through with its plans, consumers could begin to see solid-state hard drives (SSD) instead, with the exception of dual-drive desktop PCs and gaming laptops, which require multiple types of storage, as Tom's Hardware noted.

Read more
How to wipe a hard drive on your PC or Mac
Internal hard drives together.

Many people spend a lot of time trying to preserve their hard drives or even upgrade them, but it isn’t every day that you try to completely wipe it clean. If you’re planning to replace your computer, you probably don’t want all the sensitive information to end up in the hands of a stranger.

Read more
How to clean up your hard drive
A hard disk drive that showcases the inner components.

Performing regular maintenance is crucial for ensuring a PC delivers a smooth experience for the system owner and keeping all the core functionality of the computer intact. Generally, as time goes by, data, files, applications, folders, and more all play a part in cluttering hard drives.

Without cleaning your hard drive, HDDs will ultimately turn your machine into a shadow of its former self — opening programs is now a tedious and drawn-out process, performing simple tasks takes longer than usual, and nothing operates as efficiently as it once did. Before you know it, your PC’s hard drive has reached a state where you have no option but to rely on external hard drives to store files on.

Read more