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Now this is what we were hoping for from Thunderbolt. LaCie just stuck a Thunderbolt port on its USB 3.0 Rugged series of external drives, meaning it’s now a tiny, indestructible speed monster.
LaCie is claiming that the fully bus-powered Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt Series is the fastest mobile storage available. We want to get our hands on it in person before agreeing, but it’s just nice to see impressive Thunderbolt stuff finally coming out.
The claimed top end speeds are certainly impressive:
The LaCie Rugged SSD delivers record-breaking speeds up to 380MB/s – making it the fastest bus-powered product ever. Respectively, the hard disk version performs up to 110MB/s, a 35 percent improvement over FireWire 800.
The 256GB SSD version is £295, but listed as out of stock right now. The 120GB SATA6Gbit/s SSD is £170, and the 1TB 5400rpm drive is £209. [LaCie]
Awesome! Just what my 13″ MacBook Pro 256GB & TimeMachine has been crying out for since birth. Let’s HOPE LaCie offer a black or grey option over that not very professional “It will match my trousers” hipster orange!!!
Uh oh, my Dell monitor is connected to the Thunderbolt port via a Thunderbolt to DisplayPort cable = need to purchase a daisy chain cable. Ah.
Thunderbolt LaCie…All I’m thinking is Final Fantasy XIII. Its a shame I can get a hardrive with more memory for a fraction of the price and for me that outways any added thunderport connnectivity. Third party companys need to get on this
Glad I’m not the only one who made the FF13 connection. :p
I thought about getting a thunderbolt external hard drive a couple of days ago. My 2TB drive cost me £160, and connects via FW800. A 2TB drive with thunderbolt would have cost me £400. Worth it? Nah.