Priced at $490, this is easily the most impractical 1TB hard drive in the galaxy. But it's so gorgeous, I couldn't resist posting a photo of it.
The LaCie Sphère is a silver-plated globe about the size of a softball. It was designed by Christofle, the centuries-old French concern known for its fancy jewelry and silver cutlery. The company hand-plates each stainless steel ball with silver, then polishes it to an icy sheen. The 1TB hard drive inside bus-powered — no ugly power cables gunking up these clean lines, folks (just an ugly USB 3.0 cable). A little blue LED at the base indicated the drive's status.
It's incredibly ostentatious, but whatever. If you're going to drop close to $500 on a hard drive, it had better look like something out of Kubrick. So if that's what you're going for, you're getting your money's worth with the Sphère.
Given the super-slick look of the thing, I would suspect it only accepts photographs and files documenting objects worthy of its beauty, and that if you tried to save a PowerPoint with slide titles set in 36-point Papyrus onto the drive, the file would immediately be deleted and your user account would be suspended. Of course, that doesn't happen. But if I owned one of these, I'd write a script to add that feature.
The Sphère hits select stores and online retailers later this quarter.
Top photo courtesy of LaCie. Bottom photo courtesy of Jean-Francois Jaussaud, Luxproductions.com
