Paris-based LaCie sent over an email announcing that its Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series, designed by Neil Poulton, now supports SATA III SSDs (6 Gb/s interface). The company claims it's the fastest Thunderbolt solution on the market, offering read speeds of up to 635 MB/s. It also weighs a mere 1.4 lbs and takes up very little space on your desktop, measuring 1.6 x 5.5 x 3.3-inches.
LaCie said on Tuesday that this new SSD-based version is a "game changer" for content creators and professional users, as it delivers "fiber channel rack mount speeds in a portable solution." It can transfer a 50 GB project in less than two minutes, or edit six uncompressed 422 streams at the same time, the company said.
"We saw an opportunity to make the LaCie Little Big Disk even faster and jumped on it," said Erwan Girard, Professional Business Unit Manager, LaCie. "The new LaCie Little Big Disk can complete tasks in minutes that used to take hours. This saves our customers time and therefore money."
LaCie actually offers three SSD models: the 90000243 providing 240 GB (SATA II), the 9000321 featuring 512 GB (SATA III), and the 9000350 offering 1 TB (SATA III). All three feature double 2.5-inch SSDs, and two Thunderbolt ports so that up to six additional compatible devices can be daisy chained. All three can also be set up as a mirrored RAID set (RAID 1) which provides data protection if one disk fails, and as a striped RAID set (RAID 0) to maximize speed and capacity for large file storage and fast transfers.
"At just 1.4 pounds, the LaCie Little Big Disk is a portable powerhouse," LaCie said. "While meeting with a client, photographers can browse smoothly through digital photo libraries and experience zero lag time. Away from the studio, videographers can dramatically reduce the time to publish a project. They simply download their footage directly from a compatible camera to the LaCie Little Big Disk, and begin the edit process in the field."
Fitting in the palm of your hand, the LaCie Little Big Disk features an attractive aluminum chassis designed by Neil Poulton. Its unique heat sink design provides 60-percent more surface area which in turn draws heat away from the internal components, keeping it "cool and safe" at all times. The device's power button also lets users turn it off without breaking the daisy chain.
The two LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series SATA III SSD models are available through the LaCie Online Store and LaCie Storage Partners, costing $699 for the 512 GB version and $999 for the 1 TB version. The 240 GB model is only available through LaCie resellers like Amazon for around $699.
