Within the last two years, I have broken two of my external hard drives after accidentally dropping them less than two feet. Two times, I lost large portions of my work, which complicated my life; it was a terrible experience. Being a designer, I decided to work on a solution to this frustrating issue. This is how I created EWY (an acronym for "Everywhere With You"), an external hard drive with a protective sleeve. In this design, I also tried to solve other problem opportunities related to external hard drive use, such as how to store the USB wire as well as the overall size.

Design Team

Clement Puertolas, designer

minimallyminimal.com

This is a product concept I designed the external storage company LaCie —the idea for this product stems from working on a project where one of the design constraints was using metal for the product architecture. When thinking about how to protect this material from damage, I remembered a tire concept from Michelin which didn't use air but still offered great shock absorption in car tires; I also found the mechanical design very graphic and interesting. This reference was the main inspiration behind the protective covering within the design.

For this concept, the body of the drive was imagined as a folded sheet of metal with internal components while the outer rubber shell would be created using 3D print technology. While also paying attention to different user scenarios, I solved an issue with conventional hard drives and created a dual size wire feature so users can have the option between a short or long USB wire. In addition to these features, I also created a hidden compartment within the hard drive so unused wiring can neatly be stowed away.

Note: This is a student project concept and does not actually reflect the views or plans of LaCie.

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