Sometimes, style matters. If you're interested in having four very unusual terabytes sitting on your desktop, check out the new LaCie Blade Runner drive, designed by Philippe Starck.

The custom-biult 4 TB USB 3.0 drives are being produced in a limited edition of 9,999. The design resembles nothing so much as a metal blob suspended inside a heat sink — which the designer says is, more or less, the point.

"The warm interior electronics are encased in a mystifying shell, and the blades are the radiator that cools it down," Starck said in a prepared statement. "The suspension gives space for air to circulate around the hard drive, and the metal material increases the temperature conduction."

As far as conspicuously designed tech goes, you could do a lot worse. The $299 price tag doesn't represent that much of a premium over competing drives, and StorageReview.com clocked it at close to 180 MB/sec for both read and write speeds.

LaCie tells us the limited edition units are still available, albeit with a waitlist that means it'll be a couple of weeks before you get the drive in hand. For more information, visit the LaCie website.