It still amazes me when I think about the fact that we've reached a point where we can carry around 1TB drives in our pockets. I typically carry an external drive or two in my laptop bag for carrying extra files, Windows 7 Images for Parallels, bootable backups and to backup my shots after my shoots before I leave the studio. Until the 1TB 2.5" drives came out this meant carrying two or three drives to accomplish this. Now I can carry one! I got the LaCie Rugged 1TB to put to the test. I wanted one drive that I could partition into three partitions and of course I wanted one that was bus powered over Firewire 800 (and USB when needed).
The LaCie Rugged meets those requirements. It has a triple interface with Firewire 800, 400 and USB 2 ports on back. Although it's bus powered, they even supply a USB to power cable for those situations when your single USB port isn't providing enough power, you can plug this cable into a second USB port to power the drive. They also provide FireWire 800, 400 and USB 2 cables.
Although the bright orange color stands out (you'll have no problem seeing it in your bag or maybe even a dark room), I ordered the optional 3 pack of sleeves to change the color of the drive.
You get black, silver and purple in the sleeve pack. Even the purple/blue is a little more subdued than the orange.
So far so good
In my short time of using this drive it seems fast (5400 rpm speeds) and quiet. I had no problems cloning my boot drive to one of the partitions that I made and loading up the other two partitions with the files I need to carry. Also they call this drive "rugged" for a reason. It's meant to be traveled with. It has a rubber outer case (the sleeves) and it's one of the only drives I've ever seen that advertises a maximum "drop distance" although they clearly state that you should avoid dropping it while it's running (duh!).
| Maximum Drop Height : | up to 2.2 meters in non-operating mode (dropping is not recommended in operating mode) |
While this is not the first LaCie Rugged drive I've purchased (I got my daughter one for her Time Machine backups when she went off to college), it's the first one that I've gotten for me.
You can get the 1TB LaCie Rugged here for $199
You can get the 3 optional sleeves in Black, Grey, Purple here for about $17
I agree that the LaCie Rugged drives are great. I’ve been dragging my 150GB Rugged around for a long time, just thrown in a backpack or laptop bag, and it’s still going strong. This 1TB model sure is tempting.
Hey Terry
Would you recommend a small portable drive like this for Time Machine backups on my desktop computer or would you recommend the larger external hard drives that are powered by an outlet.
Hi Sean,
Since portable drives typically cost more for the same capacities, I’d go with a larger desktop drive for a desktop system.
Thanks!!! That helps narrow my search
If I can ask you one more question. What brand of hard drive would you recommend most all I want to use the drive for is Time Machine.
Sean, I mostly use drives from OWC. http://macsales.com
I’m on the verge of picking up a couple of bus-powered portable drives myself. After a little bit of research, I ended up with the G-Technology G-Drive Mobile at the top of my list. I decided on G-Technology because one of my friends is a professional video editor, and the production company she works for just switched from Drobo’s to G-Technology (I suggested they go with Glyph, but their tight budget wouldn’t let that happen). A lot of their post staff had had good expereinces with G-Technology, so they went with it and so far all has been well.
I imagine your decision to go with LaCie was similar. You and perhaps some of your friends had had good experiences with LaCie, so you went that route. Is this accurate?
The G-Drive Mobile is roughly the same price as the Rugged LaCie. The Rugged comes with a couple more cables than the G-Drive Mobile. However, the bright orange of the LaCie doesn’t appeal to me as much as the sleek design of the G-Drive Mobile. Hmmmm…
Did you consider any other options in your hunt?
Be careful Terry. Purchased 70 of these units at the college I work for and many of them are coming back with the USB connection on the back pushed in and not accessible. Not as big a problem with the triple interface but the units we purchased were USB2 only and the students had no way to access their data after the USB port was inaccessible. Ports on the back are easily pushed in to the case.
Hi Terry,
thank you for you useful and informative review.
I’ve just bought the Lacie 500 MB Safe version, which sports a fingerprint reader and performs an on-the-fly hardware encryption to all the data transferred onto it. Only 7 Euros on the top for a great feature (I live in Italy). Even more interesting, the Safe version has got one USB and two FW800 ports.
Hi Terry,
Thank you for your reports, you have a great site. I would like to know if you think the Lacie Rugged 1TB would make a good back up for my WD external drive. This WD is the storage for my current images. My thoughts are the size makes this unit very easy to go mobile which bennefits it a good back up in a different location. Also can I install LR on this, and then run that on a laptop when I am on location shooting? How concerened should I be about the story Jimmy tells above happening again? Thanks again.