LaCie, a maker of rather cool external hard drives, unveiled another one of this sort today in the form of a stylish media unit. It is called the LaCinema Classic and a 500GB version of it retails for around $170.

The LaCie LaCinema Classic is designed to hang out in the media room. Its black and sleek casing is designed by Neil Poulton, known for other LaCie drives. It connects to a HDTV system via HDMI output and works with numerous video, music, and photo formats, including MPEG4, MP3 and JPEG as well as HD-JPEG.

An included remote lets users navigate the on-screen menus. Other features include a compact form, USB port for showing content off of USB drives, DivX support and stereo and coaxial S/PDIF outputs. It is available now.

LaCie