Ready for some churchin' up? Then step on in to the house of Starck. Philippe Starck that is, the prolific designer who's left his mark on hotel interiors, motorbikes, and toilets across the globe. His latest contribution to the economy of stuff also heralds a return to LaCie (remember his "toaster" series?) with a pair of new hard disk drives: the LaCie Starck Mobile Hard Drive and Desktop Hard Drive. Both drives are conspicuously inscribed with Starck's name and flare for melding organic shapes within the rigid rules of geometry. Drives that must be pressed to flesh to be fully appreciated for their aesthetic and mass. And while the models we received feature off-the-shelf disks from
Samsung and
Hitachi, LaCie adds a few functional tricks to enhance that high-design form. Read on to see if the two struck the appropriate balance.
When you connect the unformatted disks to your Mac or PC for the first time, you are immediately presented with the option to format the entire drive to match your host operating system or to segment it with an "Exchange" partition for easy sharing across foreign OSes. A nice touch that works well right out of the box. Once formatted, the disks are pre-populated with the user manual and all utilities required to manage them, including Intego backup software. We didn't benchmark these drives -- what's the point, they are built around Samsung's 2.5-inch 320GB HM320II 5400RPM spinner and Hitachi's 3.5-inch, 7200RPM 1TB Deskstar 7K1000.B HDT721010SLA360. We're sure you can track down the
detailed specs and
benchmarks with little trouble. Besides, your motivation for buying these disks has less to do with performance than with perception.
Of the two, the 320GB LaCie Starck Mobile Hard Drive (available also in 500GB config) holds the least number of surprises. It's a relatively small disk with built-in USB cable that tucks into the back-end of the sculpted enclosure. It looks superb and feels even better in hand with its heavy, brushed aluminum enclosure making a fine visual contrast to the smooth-as-glass polished aluminum insert. But for most, we doubt that the look of your portable hard disk ranks too highly in importance. It doesn't for us. Instead we want to pack as much data into the smallest and lightest package possible. After all, we're not carrying around all this gear for exercise, we're carrying it out of necessity. Besides the weight, the drive's sharp edges and rigid materials pose a real threat of inflicting damage to your precious new laptop's exterior unless you take proper care to keep the two separate inside your laptop bag.
The 1TB LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive (also available in a 2TB configuration), however, is an entirely different device meant to sit on the desktop in view of anyone that enters your home and/or home office. This is where Starck's intricate touch becomes important; where for some, the choice of an external hard disk's appearance requires as much thought as the selection of a new sofa. Here Starck squeezes liquid metal into a rough enclosure of iron symmetry. A look that should perfectly complement the interior of any off-duty Terminator.
The LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive also offers a pair of functional acrobatics. First there's the projection of the iconic "t" in Starck's name onto the surface of which it sits. It glows orange when idle and flickers when there's disk activity. It even turns green when you touch the a small section of the polished aluminum surface on the front of the disk drive. See, the enclosure features a touch-sensitive capacitive "button" neatly integrated into the right-hand side face of the drive. A button that can be configured to launch any application, utility, or shortcut you choose. A longer touch-and-hold also gives a secondary launch function. In our case, we choose to mount/unmount the drive -- a daily occurrence when mated to our laptop. A novelty? Sure. The idea of taking our hands off the keyboard and mouse to touch the hard drive to launch an application borders the absurd. But the effect is pretty damn impressive and together with the projected "t" will certainly make this external USB 2.0 disk appealing to a certain segment of city-bred, cocktail sipping consumers with money to burn.
While the portable hard disk is certainly attractive, the idea of schlepping around all that extra material weight just to support the design leaves us as cold and harsh as the drive's rough external enclosure. Starck's take on the 3.5-inch external USB drive for the home base, however, is far more compelling. This thing's a beast... and a beauty, striking a novel and functional balance to that molten form. Just consider the long term effects of staring at a blinking orange crucifix before you betray your savings account. Prices start at $130 for the Desktop drive and $100 for the mobile.
Now hit the read link below to see the man describe this drive. We guarantee that it's unlike any product pitch you've ever seen.
posted Oct 6th 2009 11:01AM
Yes, the "liquid metal" look particularly suits the toilet lid upon which you shot most of these photos.
That toilet, sir, is design by Philippe Starck -- Thomas
Toilets are fitting places for Starck's designs
is that the cross of jesus christ?! i must get one!
Absolutely awful design, just like their "Porsche Design" brick external hard drive.
I have several of the Porsche Design ones because they were the cheapest ones on bid for my school district. They're laughably free of design. I mean who would've thought of a square grey plastic box that stacks? Genius!
The Porsche Design ones, there are no visible part lines when the drive is sat on the desk. Designing what looks to be like one solid piece, yet with electronics inside, that is suitable for mass production, takes a lot of creativity.
Fancy looking ones with visible, obvious part lines separating the product into its halves, not only are much easier to design, but shows its designers' lack of interest in details ( adding some accent really, is just adding, that's not detail ).
PHILIPPE STARCK BUILT THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
Well I'm sorry. I'm not Philippe Starck.
Where's the arc reactor?
Ouch. No Firewire anything? I have a LaCie drive actually the d2 Quadra and its quite nice (and even more stylish), the interfacing options on the thing is what got me to pay the premium. eSATA, FW400, FW800, USB2.0, the things got the lot.
I mean this looks ok....but not THAT nice....
I'm glad that I'm not the only one that noticed both hard drives are sitting on a toilet seat. LOL. Must be a Starck toilet se
noice.
i want one ... as a gift
cheap plastic candy white might fit the mac part better.
When you say Starck the only thing I think of is the Microsoft squeak mouse.
Since when America is interested in talking about design?
oh do stfu
LaCie products are usually just overpriced and 'nice looking'. Kinda reminds me of Apple.
No wonder the pictures were taken in the rest room …
Not really. I once got a 1TB external drive from LaCie at Costco, was pretty cheap, and it still works.
That's 'design'? Looks like the drive is melting.
PS, who is the polar bear holding the drive in some of the PR shots?
I tried telling my camera to focus but it wouldn't :(
I guess my industrial design background gives me bias, but I don't understand the hate going on here for Starck. Sure those drives aren't for everyone (myself included), but the guy is an outstanding designer. But as far as the product goes, probably too expensive for just USB, though I do like the portable external more than the desktop version.
That's funny, most people I know with an ID background think he WAS a great designer but now laugh at his overblown ID. I'd say his record is awfully spotty these days to say the least...corny crystal goblet sippy cup anyone? Awful. Perhaps it looks better in person but here the front looks cheesy to me and the cross just seals it. Well at least it follows the lacie tradition of heavier and more expensive and cumbersome than necessary.
I've always seen Starck's design as trying too hard.
These look good, I quite like the Neil Poulton designed ones as well.
i realize that NYC city space can be scare (i also live in the city) but god, it's your job, maybe you guys could think of better ways or places to take pictures rather than on the rooftops and in bathrooms. just get a tripod and maybe a cloth or something.
Used to own a Lacie HDD. It died after 6 months. Never again.
Agreed. I tried them for a production environment at work and all of them failed within 3 weeks. Never again.
I for one, happen to like the design. The vast amount of consumer electronics in the world are stuck in the 90's with its ugly white/cream plastic and unimaginative design. Technology needs to embrace design and form, as well as function.
is that a polar bear skin that is also being modeled in the second pic?
The toilet seat is nothing compared to photographing them on the bathroom FLOOR next to two urinals. Ewwwwwww.
They are nice looking for sure. Too bad the one I owned had a Seagate drive in it, died after just a few months with no warning.
500 gb? weak sauce bring the 1-2 tb hotness
"Philippe Starck that is, the prolific designer who's left his mark on ... toilets across the globe." -- you really thought that's a suitable end of the sentence? Really?
LaCie: Makers of storage devices that turn your precious data into fodder for the bit-bucket.
LaCie: Makers of storage devices that go crunch.
LaCie: Proud to use Seagate Barracuda drives, that even Seagate won't support.
LaCie: Driving their customers to the competition in style.
LaCie: The very reason you should backup your data on at least two different types of media.
LaCie: Heir to the reputation held previously by Lucas Electronics.
LaCie has to have the worst external hdd manufacturer ever. I sold their crappy products for 6 years and still deal with them in my new IT job. If it's not their power supplies that fail, it's their internal hdd's or components. they don't even make their products cheap! give me a bare drive and any other enclosure any day.
Interesting hard disk.
I think that I have succeeded as objets d'art
Wow, these comments are bitchier than backstage at a fashion runway.
What the hell is wrong with a company trying to up its game? Make nicer-looking products? Differentiate itself from the competition? Would you have us living back in the era of off-white PC towers? Even the video reviewer starts off with what he believes to be urbane wit, but it is only reverse snobbery. Surprise, then when we find out the product actually has rather interesting and useful features.