Through a “For Students by Students” project, Western Digital has teamed with design students over at California State University, Long Beach to develop fashionable cases for external hard drives. There are five new patterns for purchase, which are Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave. Western Digital is doing so to provide students a cheap solution to portable data, yet able to express their individual style through the selections of decay. The drives are plug’n’play Windows compatible, and include WD SmartWare™ software, which provides a simple, visual method for backup using a single-screen view of the drive’s contents.

“The contents of individuals’ portable storage contain all the ways they express themselves – music, images, and videos – and tell a story about who they are,” said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing of WD’s branded products group. “Expressing individual style is important. That’s why we teamed up with California State University, Long Beach design students, who have their finger on the latest fashion trends.”

Western Digital is also throwing some extra features into these limited edition drives. There’s a user-selected password protection combined with 256-bit hardware-based encryption to protect the user’s confidential data, which is typically found only on more expensive drive packages. The drive only comes on USB2.0 interface (sadly no USB3.0 available).

The new My Passport Essential Limited Edition comes only in 500GB capacity, and includes a 2-year limited warranty, yours for $119.99. The package is also packed in a ‘green’ and environment-friendly packing from recycled materials to minimize waste.

PRODUCT PAGE: Western Digital

PRESS RELEASE: Western Digital