IVY to visualise external data

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 18th December 2007
Comments (21) Stumble
The IVY external drive shows you exactly what's inside.

The IVY external drive shows you exactly what's inside.

Sick of having to connect your portable drives to your PC in order to see their usage? A student at Eindhoven Technical University may have the answer. In a design project dubbed de groene banaan (the green banana) the student has come up with an intriguing concept for an external storage device known as IVY.

The technology within the device is pretty basic – it's just an external hard drive – but it's the outside where the real innovation lies. The front of the device is an OLED screen which displays a block diagram visualising the usage of the device.

Put simply: big files appear as big blocks, little files appear as little blocks. A drive containing your collection of DVD ISOs will look quite a bit different to one containing your photo collection.

The more you use the drive, the more personalised the appearance is. Your drive will always look different to any other. That said, unless you have a particularly photographic memory it would still be nice for there to be an option to add a customisable text label to the cover if only to avoid arguments over ownership.

IVY is currently nothing more than a fascinating concept, but I'd certainly like to see a manufacturer take the idea and run with it: instant visualisation of how the storage is being used and how much is left without the need to plug it in? Do want.

Couple it with some Minority Report-esque animations and I'll be willing to pay a substantial premium over the cost of a standard external drive.

What do you think? Genuinely innovative idea, or have I just been blinded by shiny things again? Get posting in the forums.
Quote Jamie 18th December 2007, 14:01
Do want!
Quote steveo_mcg 18th December 2007, 14:11
That would be quite cool on the door of your desktop.
Quote Redbeaver 18th December 2007, 14:16
...if they have it in other colours :D
Quote Phil Rhodes 18th December 2007, 14:22
I think I preferred the inflatable USB key. Comedy value, don't you know.
Quote mrb_no1 18th December 2007, 14:54
lol.... i like both ideas, the inflatable usb is definitley unique. Both nice ideas though

peace
Quote TGImages 18th December 2007, 14:55
How about not just sized blocks but colored too... perhaps even customizeable?
JPGs as red, MP3s as green, office files as blue, etc. Then you would have both sizes of and type of files.
Quote Firehed 18th December 2007, 15:07
At least it's somewhat practical. I wonder if it's being driven by some variation of KDirStat/WinDirStat/Disk Inventory X...
Quote phuzz 18th December 2007, 15:07
The visualisation itself reminds me of Spacemonger, which is particularly handy in finding out what's filling up your disk, or exactly which user thinks that a 40Gb of mp3's is ok to keep in their home drive.
Quote yakyb 18th December 2007, 15:44
wow i like the idea would be cool to somehow port to a MP3 player or something

nice find for spacemonger ;)
Quote yakyb 18th December 2007, 15:45
i wonder if it could also show defragmentation?
Quote Salazaar 18th December 2007, 17:59
I was going to say that this reminded me of Sequoia View http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview// until I realised it was designed at the same university, presumably by the same (or similar) team.

Edit: And the fact that they say it's based on Sequoia View on their webpage, d'oh!
Quote Cupboard 18th December 2007, 18:30
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Rhodes
I think I preferred the inflatable USB key. Comedy value, don't you know.

www.usbwine.com

Much better...

This drive could be good, so long as you don't have to install any software.
Quote liratheal 18th December 2007, 19:31
I'm somewhat sceptical.

Yes, it sounds cool, looks cool, and doubtlessly would be cool.

But does anyone else remember the Optimus Maximus keyboard?

If this doesn't go that way, then hell yes I'll buy one.
Quote DXR_13KE 18th December 2007, 20:35
usb wine...... :D and that gave me a stupid idea.....
Quote Amon 18th December 2007, 23:42
I need to get me one of those
Quote bahgger 19th December 2007, 00:36
That's neato :) I don't think having a display that is constantly on would be a good idea though.. Just when the device is connected! I'd buy a portable HDD like that :D
Quote Tyinsar 19th December 2007, 07:35
To me a simple label works better and is cheaper.
Quote Amon 19th December 2007, 07:50
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyinsar
To me a simple label works better and is cheaper.
Yeah, remember when we did that for 1.44MB floppy diskettes? I mean, how many sticker labels can we honestly reapply on those things to tell us what's on them.... until they jam the drive.
Quote rhuitron 20th December 2007, 21:32
Super Cool? Yes.

But will it blend?

With me black/Gray/White laptop? Or my manly-ness?? No, I am afraid not.


But freakin cool!
Post something when they have the colors right, and I will be first in line.

5/5
Quote liratheal 20th December 2007, 22:05
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhuitron
Super Cool? Yes.

But will it blend?

With me black/Gray/White laptop? Or my manly-ness?? No, I am afraid not.


But freakin cool!
Post something when they have the colors right, and I will be first in line.

5/5

I bet the colours are changable :B
Quote Tyinsar 21st December 2007, 01:28
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amon
Yeah, remember when we did that for 1.44MB floppy diskettes? I mean, how many sticker labels can we honestly reapply on those things to tell us what's on them.... until they jam the drive.
Personally I just name my drives and remember what type of files I put on each one. For backups I don't change them much (plus a thick stack of labels wouldn't be an issue even on an external drive anyway (besides being ugly)).

I think it's a cool technology but it's just not practical for me.
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