Western Digital Joins E-ink Club With New Hard Drives

Western Digital added a trio of new external hard drives to their line of My Book and My Passport external hard drives today.

First up, we have the new My Passport Elite. This portable hard drive comes with either a 640GB, 500GB, 400GB, 320GB or 250GB 2.5″ SATA hard drive built in. It features continuous backup, 256-bit hardware based encryption and WD SmartWare software that lets you visually manage your data. Western Digital has also styled this drive differently than previous models with a curvier, more elegant design and a four bar capacity gauge.

The next two drives are where Western Digital shines. The new My Book Elite and My Book Studio drives axe the LED capacity gauge for a E-ink display like you would find in an E-Book reader like the Kindle. The screen displays the name of the drive, a visual capacity gauge and the amount of space left. The advantage of an E-ink display is that it doesn’t require power to show an image. So, when you unplug your drive, you will still be able to see all its vital information.

The only differences between the two is that the My Book Elite comes in capacities of 2TB, 1.5TB, 1TB, and 640GB, whereas the My Book Studio comes in only 2TB and 1TB flavors and has a longer warranty. The Elite only connects via USB 2.0 while the Studio also has Firewire 800 for those of us who need higher transfer speeds.

[via CrunchGear]