Have you ever wished your 1TB external hard drive would have a little screen on the outside, friend? Well, it’s your lucky day because Western Digital’s new line of My Book Elite and My Book Studio has just that: a 12-character e-ink screen. But act fast, everyone is going to want this!
The thought process behind is probably that you, the digital media hoard, might have so many external hard drives that you will lose track of what’s stored where. But with e-ink labels, you will always know which external drive is storing your backups, personal files, or unmentionables even when the drive isn’t powered. This is of course assuming you have enough data to require more than one external hard drive.
The labels will be available on the USB-only My Book Elite (up to 2TB for $280) and the Firewire 800 and USB My Book Studio (up to 2TB for $300). I personally think the e-ink idea is kind of novel, but a Dymo labeler would probably work just as well.
Western Digital also updated its My Passport Elite portable hard drive by adding a dock and upping its storage capacity to 640GB for $170.