Blade Runner hard drive by Philippe Starck for LaCie.

Photo credits: Alice Trong / Dvice.

LaCie have hired Philippe Starck to design the exterior of their new hard drive. The device is named Blade Runner which presumably refers to the fins or blades on its outer shell.

Starck almost acknowledges the source of his inspiration:

“In my design nothing is useless — style, symbolism or functionality. In the Blade Runner, the warm interior electronics are encased in a mystifying shell, and the blades are the radiator that cools it down. The suspension gives space for air to circulate around the hard drive, and the metal material increases the temperature conduction."

In fact if you have ever taken the covers off an old TV, video recorder or other piece of electronic equipment from the 1980s onwards, you would know that the design very closely resembles a standard aluminium heat-sink bonded onto high-power electronic components to help increase heat dissipation.

The design looks very smart so it is perhaps churlish to ask why, if the fins are needed to conduct heat, do they not appear on other hard drives?

Its mystifying!

Gratitude to Dvice.