LaCie announced on Tuesday the shipment of what they claim and what in our time at CES earlier this year the world’s fastest portable external storage solution, the new Little Big Disk featuring Thunderbolt 2 technology. The device is packed with two 500 GB PCIe Gen 2 SSDs, achieving read speeds up to 1,375 MB/s.
According to the specs, the Little Big Disk has an interface transfer rate of up to 20 Gb/s and an average write transfer rate of 1,180 MB/s. The device is also pre-configured for RAID 0 striped set, uses AES 256-bit software encryption, and is Kensington lock compatible.
As shown, the external drive uses two heat-dissipating aluminum plates and a large thermo-regulated fan to keep things cool. This fan will only come on when needed, and will produce nearly zero noise when it’s activated. Two Thunderbolt ports are provided on the back for daisy chaining with other Thunderbolt devices such as the LaCie Thunderbolt Series products.
“Professionals can daisy chain up to five LaCie Little Big Disks plus a 4K display, and connect them to a computer via a single cable,” states the company’s PR. “Now it’s possible to create a plug–and–play 4K video editing environment that delivers scalable capacity, incredible speed and convenience to workflows.”
The new Little Big Disk ships with Intego Backup Manager Pro and LaCie Private-Public software. The unit measures 1.6 x 5.5 x 3.3 inches, and weighs 1.4 pounds without the included stand. A Thunderbolt cable is included with the drive along with the external power supply and quick install guide.
LaCie’s Little Big Disk retails for $1,299 and can be purchased directly from the company here.
Is that price a bit steep? The company provides four other Little Big Disk solutions providing Thunderbolt (1) connectivity. These include the 2 TB (HDD) model for $419.99 and the 4 TB (HDD) model for $599.99. There is also the 512 GB model (SSD) and the 1 TB model (SSD) that’s available at resellers for only around $419 and $999, respectively.
