LaCie Skwarim 30GB pocket hard drive
By Tony Smith
23rd March 2006 16:50 GMT
Don't ask me what the word 'skwarim' actually means - I don't know
and neither, I suspect, does LaCie. It's pronounced 'square-im',
and it's meant to suggest of the hard drive's shape, which is
indeed square. Though with its fluorescent pink hue and
eyestrain-inviting pattern, this certainly isn't a square product,
in the other sense of the word. But has LaCie gone too far to try
to make storage funky?
What we have here is an 8.5 x 8.5 x 1.3cm box weighing 99g and
containing 30GB of raw, unformatted storage capacity. The casing
has a slightly rubbery feel and, of course, that colour and
pattern. In outdoor lighting, it doesn't look so but but under
electric light it's a shock to the eye and possibly the brain -
this is not, perhaps, a product for folk susceptible to migraine
headaches.
The case has a built in USB cable and connector that dock into a
perfectly sized bay in the side of the drive. Pull out the cable
and you'll see a small red LED that lights up when the Skwarim
draws power from the bus, though it's not an activity light. I
found the USB cable to be too small to be useful. While the
connector itself leaves ample room for other devices in adjacent
ports, the short cable means the drive itself gets in the way. And
if you've a desktop system with USB ports half way up the front or
back of the case, the drive just dangles down.
LaCie bundles a colour-coordinated USB extension cable, but I'd
have rather it just shipped a standard mini USB cable and shaved a
centimeter off the Skwarim's case.