Portable hard drive that uses e-ink technology

(Western Digital)

Digital storage company Western Digital (WD) unveiled a portable hard drive that comes with its own customizable e-ink labelling system.

The superfast drive is designed for Mac uses. Its constantly-on e-ink display shows you what's stored on the drive even when it is not plugged into a power outlet.

"Many of our customers store their content on multiple external drives, making it difficult to know what content is on each drive," said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing of WD's Branded Products group.

"The e-label smart display is an elegant and practical solution for organizing and keeping track of one's digital life and work. WD SmartWare software makes it easy for users to protect their valuable content with automatic and continuous backup and encryption."

WD's My Passport Studio drive comes with user-selected password protection and 256-bit hardware-based encryption to keep your digital files safe. It is also fully compatible with Apple's TimeMachine software.

My Passport Studio is equipped with FireWire 800 for fast transfers of large files as well as USB 2.0 for greater compatibility.

Design-focused storage device manufacturer Sanho is also using digital displays on their portable storage devices. The company recently unveiled their HyperDrive Album - a 640GB portable photo backup device that lets you view stored high resolution photos on a 4.8" screen.

The drive comes in 320GB, 500GB and 640GB configurations and has a 3-year limited warranty. The drives are priced from $149.99 to $199.99 and are available now.