LaCie has long since established itself as a leader in the portable hard drive market and now they’ve pushed the rugged envelope that much further with the unveiling of a 500GB drive. They’re betting that this is “the most protected 500GB you’ll ever hold”, because the LaCie drive can handle a fair bit of physical abuse.

The drive is wrapped up in a shock-resistant orange rubber bumper and this is backed up by some internal shock protection too. The scratch-protected aluminum shell is pretty tough too. Naturally, the LaCie Rugged Hard Disk boasts a high-speed USB 2.0 connection for plug-and-play data swaps. It would have been nice to find some eSATA or FireWire options, but USB 2.0 should be fine for most consumers.

The 500GB LaCie Rugged Portable Hard Drive retails for $339.99, but it is currently out of stock. If you’re willing to go a little smaller, LaCie also has this drive in 80GB, 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB capacities.