LaCie 1TB External Hard Drive is Big, Rugged… and Big

If you’ve been an avid reader of the tech blogs for some time, then you’ve probably come across more than your fair share of portable hard drives. There’s also a good chance that you’ve seen LaCie’s line of rugged drives too, but this one is the biggest one to date.

Crunchgear’s Devin Coledewey took the biggest of the big kahunas out for a spin and his conclusion sounds exactly like what you’d expect it to sound like. This thing is big. And rugged. Oh, and did we mention that it’s big?

That’s because this is the first time that we’ve seen a one-terabyte model of the LaCie Rugged XL external hard drive. Like all the smaller drives that have preceded it, this one comes wrapped up in a heavy rubber jacket, protecting it against all sorts of bumps, bruises, drops, and other debacles. The rubber also adds a nice grip.

The performance is pretty much in line with competing portable 3.5-inch drives, pushing a typical data transfer rate of about 30MB/sec over a USB 2.0 connection. This works for a single larger file, though one terabyte of several smaller files can take longer (16.5MB/sec).

The LaCie 1TB drive comes in at about a $30 premium over the average 1TB competitor, so it’s up to you whether it’s worth its $140 asking price. You don’t get anything more with performance or portability (it can’t be bus-powered), but you get a little peace of mind with the rubber bumpers.

Source: Crunchgear