LaCie announces limited edition Blade Runner 4TB hard drive

Indiana Jones would approve of this artifact
Indiana Jones would approve of this artifact

The stylish LaCie Blade Runner hard drive has nothing to do with the Ridley Scott-directed, Harrison Ford-starring sci-fi film from 1982, but it's every bit as unique.

Announced at CES 2013, the 4TB storage device by French designer Philippe Starck fuses together an anthropomorphic metal interior and an angular cage-like shell.

"In the Blade Runner, the warm interior electronics are encased in a mystifying shell, and the blades are the radiator that cools it down," said Starck in a press release.

"The suspension gives space for air to circulate around the hard drive, and the metal material increases the temperature conduction. In my design nothing is useless – style, symbolism or functionality."

LaCie Blade Runner tech specs

Beyond the "inspired by the mysterious, incredible power" marketing talk, the tech specs behind the LaCie Blade Runner include USB 3.0 with transfer speeds up to to 5GB per second (480MB per second on USB 2.0).

The hard drive's cage-like shell measures 5.6-inches by 7.6 inches by 2.9 inches and weighs 4.4 lbs. It works with both PC and Mac computers.

In addition to the 4TB space, the LaCie Blade Runner comes with 10GB of storage from Swiss cloud storage company Wuala. This free cloud service lasts one year.

Limited Edition: Blade Runner will run out

The LaCie Blade Runner is available right now, but the company is limiting its production to just 9,999 units.

It retails for US$299 at LaCie's online store and specialty retailers.

That's $100 more expensive than other 4TB on the market. Then again, the average USB 3.0 hard drive isn't designed by Philippe Starck.