Iodyne
Next Gen Hard Drive Development
Challenge
Until now, the performance of solid state hard drives has been limited by cooling technology. Almost all of the hard drives on the market today can only sustain a fraction of their maximum data transfer speed due to overheating.
Iodyne saw the chance to unlock an unprecedented level of performance by using a cutting edge piezoelectric airflow generator to cool the integrated circuits used to store data inside the device.
Outcome
Iodyne came to IDEO to develop the product architecture for this new hard drive including the
- Industrial design and engineering of the enclosure
- Manufacturing and assembly strategy
- E-Ink display interaction experience
- App and Hardware ecosystem interaction experience
- Mounting/Storage/Cable components
The outcome was the launch of a groundbreaking new hard drive that would allow users to fully utilize the unprecedented level of performance unlocked by this new technology.
This is a visualization of the piezoelectric airflow generator that actively cools the NAND flash memory ICs inside the device and allows it to sustain an unprecedented steady state read and write speed that is critical when working with large video and audio files.
Iodyne has been producing top of the line commercial grade hard drives for the film industry for close to a decade. IDEO designed Iodynes first product offering, the Pro Data (Right), a high capacity high performance bench top solid state hard drive built for raw data capture and processing.
We explored a wide array of internal component layouts and form factors. We prototyped and tested these models with video editors, producers, camera men, and technicians before honing in on a preferred architecture.
These are only a few of the industrial design mockups that we created as we explored different proportions, form factors, assembly methods, E-Ink implementations, and more.
Throughout our research we found users, even seasoned pros, using masking tape to label hard drives. The E-Ink display allows the user to create a custom label or default to the latest file name on the device for easy and reliable identification.
We observed users sorting through stacks of hard drives by plugging in each drive, booting it up, and scrolling through the contents. By including a NFC chip in the drive, users are able to access a cloud based preview of the files stored on the device by simply tapping the drive with their phone.
A large part of the industrial design and engineering challenge was to ensure proper airflow through the hard drive without compromising the aesthetics, structural integrity, assembly, and sealing of the enclosure.
These hard drives are not stand alone devices. They need to seamlessly interface with audio/video recording and editing equipment. Real estate on these rigs is a hot commodity and mounting systems need to be extremely modular and robust. This is only a small subset of the mounting solutions that we prototyped and tested.
This mounting concept did not make the final cut, but was one of my favorites. The magnetic one way latch allowed users to quickly and securely mount and remove the hard drive from the rig.
It would not be complete without some process shots (clockwise from top left) the 3D printing farm cranking out engineering concepts and industrial design mockups, a team sketch storm, a toy inspired attachment concept, and a line up of ID models.
