Western Digital is famous for their range of hard drives, be it internal or external ones. Well, the company has just announced that their range of 500GB My Passport Essential portable hard drives will now come in limited edition designs which are available exclusively only from Best Buy and WD’s store. If you’re one who wants to marry both form and function, then you can pick from several unique designs which are touted to appeal to a wide variety of personal styles, catering to outdoor enthusiasts and urban trendsetters alike. These designs were commissioned by students at California State University, Long Beach’s Industrial Design program, and you will be able to pick from Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave styles. Why these decorative patterns, you ask? Well, they were specially commenced for students who want to express their individual style while choosing a reliable, ultra-portable place to store their media and back up their valuable work. Of course, if you’re an expressive office drone, you can still pick it up but it might look a bit out of place with your suit and all.
Each of these drives will play nice with the Windows platform, and will ship with WD SmartWare software that offers a simple, visual method for backup. It is achieved via a single-screen view of the drive’s contents, and if you want to keep the data within all the more secure, it will also come with user-selected password protection alongside 256-bit hardware-based encryption for that added peace of mind. Those who are in the know will note that 256-bit hardware-based encryption is normally found only on much more expensive drive systems, so Western Digital is giving more bang for your buck here.
Too bad you are limited by the choice of storage space – the new My Passport Essential limited edition designs are offered in one capacity, which is 500GB. Good thing it comes with a 2-year limited warranty just in case Mr. Murphy decides to strike in an extraordinary manner. Retailing for $119.99 a pop, we’re stoked to know that each of these portable hard drives come in planet-friendly packaging that is made out of recycled materials, although we would have liked to see it feature USB 3.0 connectivity as well to be future proof to a certain extent.