Today we got a chance to go hands-on with LaCie's Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2. LaCie has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to Thunderbolt connectivity. With the release of Thunderbolt 2, LaCie is once again leading the charge.
The first thing that jumps out is the size. This thing is tiny and beautiful. It has no problem holding its own next to the Mac Pro. Even though it is small, there is considerable weight due to the aluminum enclosure. This, along with a small fan, keeps the Little Big Disk cool while also making the unit almost silent.
The Little Big Disk has a lot of technology packed under the hood. Opening the device, you will find two Samsung XP941 PCIe M.2 SSDs connected via a PCIe switch. The SSDs are configured in a software RAID 0, since there is no hardware RAID functionality. With Thunderbolt 2 connectivity, the Little Big Disk has a single 20 Gbps channel, as opposed to two 10 Gbps channels in the original Thunderbolt specification.
With write speeds over 1000 MB/s and reads topping 1300 MB/s, the Little Big Disk is perfect for 4K video applications.
The demonstration we saw had three Little Big Disks connected to a Mac Pro. Two of the units were in a RAID 0, which delivered 1900 and 2500 MB/s for writes and reads, respectively.
The Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 will be shipping later this quarter. Pricing is still up in the air, but considering this is targeted at video professionals, it won't be cheap.
