Verbatim InSight USB drives display name, free space even when disconnected
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted August 17th 2009 9:58AM
posted August 17th 2009 9:58AM
Verbatim Launches InSight Portable USB Hard Drives with an Always On Display
InSight Hard Drive Displays Drive Name and Available Free Space, Even when Disconnected
CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With the announcement today of its new InSight(TM) Portable USB Hard Drives, Verbatim(R) Americas, LLC, the world's leader in storage media technology, takes hard drive design to a new dimension. The sleek, durable enclosure is enhanced with a premium piano black finish that will appeal to professional as well as home users. Additionally, the InSight Portable Hard Drive features an Always On display, which automatically calculates and continuously displays the customizable drive name and available free space, even when the drive is disconnected from the computer. Shipping now, the palm-sized external hard drive will enable Windows(R) and Mac(R) users to instantly add 320GB or 500GB of stylish, removable capacity to their notebook or desktop systems.
"The new enclosure design for InSight Portable Hard Drives adds a touch of elegance to the external hard drive product category," says Charles Klinker, Verbatim's Director of Marketing, HDD Products. "Users have the option to personalize their drive's name, e.g., TUNES&PICS, which, along with the free space, shows on the 32 x 128-pixel display even when the drive is unplugged from the user's computer. 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."
Both 320GB and 500GB-capacity drives include Nero BackItUp Essentials, a complete data protection solution, allowing full, automatic system backup and restore functions. Easy-to-use, the software guides the user to set up scheduled backups by date and/or time. Nero BackItUp Essentials also features data encryption with password control options, providing data security and peace of mind when traveling or storing the drive.
Designed to fit easily on a desktop or to be taken on-the-go, Verbatim's new InSight Portable Hard Drives weigh less than 6 ounces (164 g), and measure 6 in. X 3.4 in. X 0.63 in. (153 mm x 87 mm x 16 mm).
The 2.5" drives have a 5400rpm spindle speed and 8MB of cache memory to optimize performance. Equipped with a USB 2.0 port, the bus-powered drives achieve high-speed transfer rates of up to 480MB/sec.
Backed by a 5-year limited warranty, InSight Portable Hard Drives deliver unique functionality, safety, security, and reliability to all computer users.
Availability and Pricing
Designed for Windows Vista, XP or 2000 and Mac OS 9.x or higher systems, Verbatim InSight Portable Hard Drives are available through Verbatim retail partners such as Best Buy. Suggested retail prices are US$119.99 for the 320GB drive and US$149.99 for the 500GB drive. Backed by a 5-year limited warranty, the complete package includes the InSight Portable Hard Drive, a USB cable, Nero BackItUp Essentials Software for Windows, and a Quick Start Guide
It took you "geniuses" long enough to figure that people want to know the storage on a device without actually powering it on.
Cost used to be an issue in the past. Even a lousy digital watch LED would have needed some extra engineering if it was to be fitted on a drive like that. First the drive needs to be able to either read the file system or piggy back on the OS capabilities and check how much storage is being used. The first approach would require a tiny computer in the drive enclosure which contains all the software required to read various file systems, while the second would require software installed on the host computer to update the storage information.
Neither easy nor practical.
Love it:0 getting it :)
...OLED or it didnt happen...
1 TB or it didn't happen
Something tells me the moment I format it to something other than FAT32 (NTFS if lucky) that "always-on" display will be "forever broken."
No doubt.
Remove the display and take the $50 off the price. :)
best buy has it for 99 bucks:)
Word.
Nah, this would be the perfect application for eInk. Not sure if that's what they use though, the photo looks more like LCD. Probably a monochrome LCD powered by a tiny rechargeable battery, with a backlight when connected to a USB port.
Lexar has been doing this for a while. I have a 4gb flash drive with an e-ink display (as far as I can tell), which shows how much free space I have, even when the drive is not plugged in.
I have a small phrase for the screen 'Whats point?'
*the
Nope, intentionally missed out.
OS 9 compatible ah? I'm sure the dozen people who still know what it is (Macromedia Freehand FTW!) will be thrilled. Seriously, Mac users, unlike some other OS users, tend to keep up with the world and update their systems. I reckon less than 1% of the entire Mac community uses an OS which predates Tiger.
Do you have a point?
I had a USB key similar to that from Corsair:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/27/corsairs-flash-readout-usb-2-0-drive/
It worked fine, but was a bit bulky. I guess with a 2.5" drive though, that should not matter at all.
Not just known for blank DVD's, the Verbatim name goes back to the 5.25" floppy disk when PC's first came out. The company started back in 1969.
If you had the money a stack of these could be useful for backups and archiving, as you can use something vaguely descriptive as the drive name and check which drive has the right amount of space etc. Would love to replace my stacks of DVD-Rs with hard disks..
Because you can't afford a sharpie, but you can afford at least $50 extra per drive for a display? I guess you did say "If you had the money", but if I had the money, I'd skim the extra $50 for my cool hardware fund, not blow it on shiny, unstackable, display-bearing designer storage.
Seriously, if you're considering hard-drive archival, why not get a SATA dock or two and use barenaked drives, instead of duplicating the enclosure and interface with each volume, and tape labels on for ball-point pen record-keeping. They also stack better.
thats a great idea, not sure if they were designed to be stackable... i could see names like, music, movies, tv shows, p0rn, games, lol
These things will be seen as hulking monsters next to the coming wave of high-capacity USB sticks arriving in the next few years.
Verbatim baught out Smart Disk. Smart Disk already sold this type of drive because I have one. The One Smart Disk sold was a 120GB drive that had a full size screen that you could write on through a notepad program that was included with the drive and would leave a date stamp everytime you changed a file or folder on it. You had to unmount the drive through safely remove hardware and then it would scan over in dark blue ink then leave the updated blue characters behind. You could view it whether the device was on or off. You could even draw on the screen using a mouse through the notepad program. All they did when they purchased the company was take the Smart Disk and make it cheaper and sell it for the same or more money.
You see, when I think of Verbatim, I think of my old 5 1/2 floppies that I used to use.... It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. :D
5 1/2's will fit in this right??
"Equipped with a USB 2.0 port, the bus-powered drives achieve high-speed transfer rates of up to 480MB/sec."
WOAAA! Those 5400 rpm drives are faster than an SSD!
Hawt dang!
i am so getting this. it looks so nice.