It’s not quite fair to say if you’ve seen one LaCie external drive, you’ve seen them all. But the orange silicon bumper and silver internal aluminum shell of LaCie’s Rugged SSD4 looks to be the same chassis used in last year’s Rugged Mini SSD, and similar to the company’s earliest Rugged drives, dating back 20 years. But this latest Rugged drive sports a fast 40 Gbps interface, making it a competitor to one of the best external SSDs, Corsair’s USB4-based EX400U.

Perhaps because of the brand’s historical tendency toward Mac users, LaCie isn’t expressly calling this a USB4 drive, instead stating the drive has a “USB 40 Gbps port.” But I tested it on our Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero-based storage testbed over USB4 and spot-checked performance on an M4 MacBook Air with Thunderbolt 4; the Rugged SSD4 was similarly speedy on both machines. And that’s how LaCie seems to be marketing the drive, as one that supports all recent versions of Thunderbolt and USB, giving you fast performance on whatever system you plug the drive into. For the most part, it seems like LaCie has delivered on that front, making this drive more universally appealing than its Thunderbolt 5-based Rugged SSD Pro5 that launched earlier this year.

We’ll have to put the drive through our usual slate of benchmark testing to see if it earns its fairly high asking price – the 4 TB model we tested is expected to sell for $479. But first, here are the specs for the drive, direct from LaCie:

LaCie Rugged SSD4 specifications

LaCie Rugged SSD4 Design and accessories

The LaCie Rugged branding comes with the requisite IP54 rating for protection against dust and water splashes (so long as you have the silicon plug over the port). And LaCie says the drive is also built to withstand drops up to 3 meters as well as up to 2,000 pounds of pressure. The drive certainly feels rigid, with or without its orange silicon protection.

In the box, you get the drive and the removable orange silicon bumper, along with a USB-C-to-USB-C cable that’s just shy of a foot long. The cable is also orange, which is helpful if you’re swimming in a sea of cables, most of which don’t have the bandwidth for a drive this fast. The cable also has “40 Gbps 240W” embossed on each end, indicating its speed and charge rating. Given its length, though, it’s unlikely you’re going to want to charge a laptop or anything more power-hungry with this short cable.

Software

As with previous LaCie (and parent company, Seagate) devices, the three-year warranty also comes with the company’s Rescue Data Recovery service, should the drive physically fail during the warranty period. Two months of Adobe’s Creative Cloud Pro is also included, though LaCie stipulates this isn’t valid in all countries, so check before buying if the software trial appeals to you.

Comparison products

LaCie has never been a particularly value-focused brand. And the Rugged SSD4’s launch prices ($134 for the 1 TB version, $249 for the 2 TB model, and $479 for the top 4 TB capacity that we tested) certainly aren’t going to compete with budget or mainstream external drives. But the SSD4 is cheaper than the company’s Pro5 Thunderbolt 5 drive (currently selling for $524 for 4 TB). Corsair’s USB4 EX400U is significantly cheaper, though, at $109 for 1 TB, $179 for 2 TB, and $309 for 4 TB.

Whether or not the LaCie drive is worth the extra $25-$170 (depending on capacity) over the Corsair drive will depend on your performance needs. But as we’ll soon see in testing, the LaCie drive is significantly faster than the Corsair in many of our benchmarks.

The LaCie Rugged SSD4 is also smaller than the company’s hard drive days, at 105 x 67 x 18 mm and 109 grams. But that is still larger and heavier than most of its external storage competition. It’s about twice the size of Corsair’s EX400U, and Crucial’s 20 Gbps X10 drive is less than a quarter the size of the LaCie. The Corsair drive has an embedded metal ring for easily snapping on the back of an iPhone and a few Android phones, if that’s important to you.

Still, the LaCie drive is small enough to fit in most pants or backpack pockets, so it’s only bulky in comparison to smaller modern alternatives. I do wish the company could find a better solution than the untethered silicon USB-C plug, though, because I’d probably lose that within weeks of using the drive – if not days.

Storage testbed update

In early 2025, we updated our external storage testbed to an AMD Ryzen 7600X-based PC with an Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero motherboard, installed in Lian Li’s Lancool 217 case. This was done in part because we needed a system with native USB4 support for upcoming drives (like this one).

All the drives in the charts below have been re-tested on the new X870E system, with the exception of the final Iometer sustained sequential test, which is less about top speed and more about how long a drive can write before depleting any fast cache. We also updated to CrystalDiskMark 8, rather than the older (and non-comparable) version 7 we used on the previous testbed.

Trace Testing - PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

In this first test, the LaCie SSD4 was easily beaten by its slightly older, pricier, Thunderbolt 5-based sibling. But with a score of 1862, the SSD4 beat everything else here, including the USB4-based Corsair EX400U.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

In this real-world file transfer test, the SSD4 drive looked even better, outpacing the LaCie TB5 drive in our Windows 11-based testing, and again beating everything else, including Corsair’s EX400U USB4 drive. In fact, the drive was so fast here (and elsewhere) that I had to adjust the axes of a few of our charts.

Synthetic Testing CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark (CDM) is a free and easy-to-run storage benchmarking tool that SSD companies commonly use to assign product performance specifications. It gives us insight into how each device handles different file sizes. We run this test at its default settings.

Once again, the LaCie Rugged SSD4 lands on top when it comes to reads, though just barely, and the Corsair USB4 drive managed to edge out a win on writes. But both tests are close enough that this benchmark is essentially a tie between the two USB4 drives.

Because we have seen Mac-focused drives perform much slower on PCs and vice versa, I also spot-checked the performance of the Rugged SSD4 on an M4 Macbook Air via its Thunderbolt 4 port, using AmorphousDiskMark (CrystalDiskMark doesn’t run on Macs), and got slower but still very fast sequential performance of 3,440 MBps reads and 3,093.57 MBps writes.

Small file performance racks up another win for LaCie’s Rugged SSD4. It again sticks close to the Corsair drive on reads. But when it comes to writes, it’s in its own league.

Sustained Write Performance

A drive's rated write specifications are only a piece of the performance picture. Most external SSDs (just like their internal counterparts) implement a write cache, or a fast area of flash, programmed to perform like faster SLC, that absorbs incoming data.

Sustained write speeds often suffer tremendously when the workload saturates the cache and slips into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated.

On the one hand, the LaCie Rugged SSD4 lasted just shy of a minute writing at its top speed, above 3,600 MB/s, but that’s enough time to move about 200 gigabytes of data. And after that, while the drive did slow its sustained write speed, it kept writing between 1,600 and 1,800 MB/s for the 15-minute duration of our test data, and actually for a full 30 minutes of our Iometer run without dropping any lower.

And that ‘slower’ write speed the SSD4 delivered is after its cache depletion is actually as fast or faster than most other drives’ peak write speed. So while it would be nice to see LaCie’s drive write longer at its apex, it’s hard to complain much when even the competing USB4 Corsair drive started off writing at just under 1,800 MB/s and quickly dropped into the 1,600-1,700 range.

Bottom line

LaCie’s Rugged SSD4 drive sits in an interesting spot. For Windows (and presumably Android) users with USB4, Corsair’s EX400U is nearly as fast in many of our tests, while costing as much as $170 less in the 4 TB model we tested on the LaCie side. And for Mac purists who have the latest hardware, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro5 is significantly faster if you have machines with a Thunderbolt 5 port.

That said, for creators and enthusiasts with production workflows or portable file needs that span multiple platforms, the LaCie Rugged SSD4 delivers the fastest performance we’ve seen. Add in the three years of included data recovery,(which you won’t get from Corsair), and the Rugged SSD4 is easy to recommend for those who need speed and peace of mind while working in Windows, macOS, and maybe Android and iOS as well (though we didn’t test the drive on the latter two platforms). While other drives perhaps make more sense for one OS or another, the SSD Pro4 is the best drive we’ve tested for those who want speed without having to think about what platform they’re plugging into.

The Raspberry Pi is a flexible system with use cases ranging from retro gaming platforms to industrial use cases for factories and more. Today we’re sharing one research team's foray into science with the help of our favorite SBC and looking at how well it compares to modern, more expensive tools. Liam Taylor, Duncan Quincy, and Mark Smith recently deployed a set of Raspberry Pis to help monitor glacier calving in both Iceland and Peru.

According to the team, monitoring calving fronts is critical as extreme changes can result in environmental impacts for local residents. For example, things like tsunamis, floods, and the collapse of icebergs can cause serious damage, and monitoring these changes can help those living nearby respond before the problems worsen. Part of their research was to test the performance of a Raspberry Pi in monitoring these changes against more conventional tools they usually use, in this case, an unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV).

To test the Pi against the UAV monitoring system, the team traveled to Fjallsjökull, Iceland. Here they could survey glaciers both from the shore and from a boat. The area also had a great variety of calving margin heights that made it easier to test the accuracy of the Raspberry Pi.

The Raspberry Pis were tested using both a Camera Module V2 and an HQ Camera Module using a 16mm telephoto lens. The Camera Module V2 proved too inadequate for their measurements, so the team opted to stick with the HQ Camera Module. The UAV chosen to compare against the Pi was a DJI Mavic 2 Pro UAV. The Raspberry Pis were then attached to a tripod with critical components like batteries stored inside a weatherproofed box.

The team mounted some of the Pis to a boat as they passed by while the UAV moved overhead. Recording the glaciers simultaneously allowed the team to get an accurate comparison of the charting ability of both devices. Using the pictures taken by the Pi, the team created a 3D render of the glaciers using photogrammetry.

Overall, the Pi provided an adequate substitute with a more affordable price point. Once the testing was complete, they left for Peru, where they used the Raspberry Pi kits to monitor glacier calving in the chilly south American region. You can read more about the exciting expedition in the team’s official report.

Update 28th November 2022: We've updated this article with new testing for the 2TB SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD on page 2.

Original Review published 17th November 2022:

The SanDisk Pro-G40 is a resilient and fast portable SSD with a USB-C interface for both Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 transfer modes. This gives it some flexibility, as it will work with a large number of devices with a high maximum speed. The metal core is surrounded by a silicon bumper edge to protect the drive from drops and other accidents while also keeping the internal M.2 SSD cool. The USB-C port is reinforced with metal for added protection, and SanDisk specs the full SSD with an IP68 water resistance rating. The drive comes with a Type-C to Type-C cable, an ample warranty, and solid support.

This drive is priced for professionals, and the combination of sustained performance and toughness is something we last recommended in the Samsung T7 Shield. The SSD technology in the Pro-G40 is a little bit older, but it has the advantage of DRAM and a Thunderbolt mode over the T7 Shield. Western Digital’s PCIe 3.0 drives, like the Red SN700, are known for their superb sustained write performance and overall consistency. This is also true of the Pro-G40, making it unrivaled if you need to transfer data quickly in the field.

Specifications

The SanDisk Pro-G40 is rated for up to 2,700/1,900 MBps for sequential reads and writes, respectively, in Thunderbolt 3 mode. It has a separate rating of up to 1,050/1,000 MBps in USB mode. The former is using a 40 Gbps connection, with the latter being 10 Gbps. This is valid for both available capacities.

The unit is fairly portable, weighing in around 120 grams with a 4.36 x 2.28 x 0.47 inch footprint. It’s also designed to be a bit rugged with an IP68 rating, meaning it is dust- and water-resistant. SanDisk also states it can survive a three meter fall with up to 4000 pounds of crush resistance. The company backs this up with a 5-year warranty.

Software and Accessories

The SanDisk Pro-G40 comes with a relatively short 20cm (or about 8”) USB Type-C to Type-C cable. Western Digital has a variety of downloads available for its drives, and SanDisk also provides its own SSD Dashboard software. This should cover any basic needs.

A Closer Look

The SanDisk Pro-G40 is a pleasant drive to behold. The aluminum core is rugged and also helps with heat dissipation. The USB-C port is reinforced with metal for added durability. The drive is also protected from drops with its rubberized edges. The design is simple but effective.

We do not recommend opening the casing as it does require some finesse. The case has ample thermal padding to ensure efficient heat transfer. Inside we see the PCB with the SSD, the Thunderbolt controller, the bridge chip, and a USB-C port.

The drive is in the standard M.2 2280 form factor with a controller, two NAND packages, and DRAM. The Thunderbolt 3 controller is a Titan Ridge JHL7440 and the USB bridge chip is the 10 Gbps ASMedia ASM2362. This bridge is commonly used in retail portable SSDs. As the drive has DRAM there is no need to worry about the slower Host Memory Buffer tech we see in slower devices, although this would be passed over Thunderbolt 3 (TB3).

This controller is familiar as it’s the same one we saw on the WD Red SN700 and is also present on the WD Black SN730s used with the WD Black AN1500. Older, but reliable. The drive itself is the SN750E, much as the SN550E is in other WD/SanDisk portables. There’s been reports that these external-only controller revisions have reduced sustained performance when shucked and used as a standard drive in a PC. It doesn’t make much sense to shuck this drive, though.

1GB of SK hynix DDR4 is matched with 1TB of 96-layer BiCS4 TLC, the latter arranged in two 512GB packages. This makes this drive closer to the Red SN700 or Black SN730 than the Black SN750. This has the potential to be extremely consistent with sustained writes which should enable it to match or exceed the Samsung T7 Shield. This is older hardware: 112-layer BiCS5 TLC is becoming more commonplace, as in the WD Black SN770, however it is more than ample for portable use.

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SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD 2TB

Comparison Products

The 2TB SanDisk Pro-G40 was tested in both the Thunderbolt and USB modes. It’s up against the Samsung T7 Shield, the Samsung X5, the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro, the SanDisk G-Drive Pro (previously G-Technology G-Drive), the Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q, and the SanDisk Extreme Pro v2. Only the final two are also at 2TB; the rest were tested at 1TB. In most cases, 1TB of TLC should be sufficient to reach high performance with a portable drive.

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

Built for gamers, 3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The 2TB SanDisk Pro-G40 is the top performer in this test in Thunderbolt mode. It even beats the Samsung T7 Shield in USB mode, so this drive is perfectly adequate for gaming.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The Pro-G40 is a bit weaker in PCMark, but still puts up good numbers in both modes. It also beats Samsung’s portable drives, which is certainly a checkmark in its favor.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

The Pro-G40 is best-in-class in DiskBench, although the Thunderbolt-capable drives are all pretty close. In USB mode, it also edges out the T7 Shield. This drive is simply excellent for file transfers.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

We also see excellent sequential performance, as we did with the 1TB model. The performance in 4K random work is also reasonably good. Once again, the Pro-G40 beats the T7 Shield in USB mode. There are limits for these interfaces, but the Pro-G40’s hardware is ample to get the most out of them.

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery, and Temperature

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states via sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

As with the 1TB, the 2TB Pro-G40 has excellent sustained write performance. The larger capacity means the pSLC cache can be larger, theoretically twice the capacity, but it’s still static. This larger capacity is still an improvement — particularly for smaller batches of writes. The cache can also still recover quickly.

TLC performance is about the same, although this is to be expected; it’s likely that the flash is twice as dense and therefore has the same amount of dies. Larger dies within the same generation may be a bit slower, for example with low queue depth 4K random read latency, but in practice this difference is small. The 2TB model is cheaper per GB, so is therefore ideal if you need the capacity, but it doesn’t bring better performance.

The drive performs very close to the SanDisk Extreme Pro v2, which is to be expected as the hardware is the same. Even the 20 Gbps ASMedia ASM2364 bridge chip on the Extreme Pro v2 is fast enough for the TLC flash. However, the Pro-G40 is more rugged and there are performance advantages to Thunderbolt versus USB, as demonstrated in other benchmarks above. The Pro-G40 is particularly attractive if you need the full package.

Unsurprisingly, the 2TB drive had the same thermal characteristics of the 1TB. It idled at 45C and hit a maximum temperature of 61C. This is a cool-running drive at any capacity.

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SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD 1TB

RATING: ★★★★ ½ (4.5 Stars)

PROS

+ Excellent all-around performance
+ Class-leading sustained write performance
+ Rugged, aesthetically-pleasing design

CONS

- Price

OUR VERDICT
The 1TB SanDisk Pro-G40 is the best portable SSD we’ve tested, getting strong marks in every performance category. It’s fast and rugged. If you can take advantage of the Thunderbolt capability and overlook the price, it’s hard to beat.

Comparison Products

We are testing the 1TB SanDisk Pro-G40 in both TB3 and USB modes. It’s up against the Samsung T7 Shield, the WD Black P50, the Samsung X5, the Kingston XS2000, the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro, and the SanDisk G-Drive Pro (previously G-Technology G-Drive).

Trace Testing - 3DMark Storage Benchmark

3DMark’s Storage Benchmark focuses on real-world gaming performance. Each round in this benchmark stresses storage based on gaming activities including loading games, saving progress, installing game files, and recording gameplay video streams.

The Pro-G40 takes the crown in 3DMark when run in TB3 mode, but performance in USB mode is less impressive. Still, you should be buying this drive for its Thunderbolt functionality, with USB fallback being a bonus. In any case, this drive is serviceable for gaming.

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices.

The Pro-G40 scores well in both modes in PCMark 10. It falls behind the LaCie which uses the same Thunderbolt controller and similar flash, but a different SSD controller. This might just be a quirk of the test. The Pro-G40’s latency is better in Thunderbolt mode, as expected, which is nice.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom, 50GB dataset. We copy 31,227 files of various types, such as pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.

DiskBench is bandwidth-limited so we expect the Thunderbolt-capable drives to perform better, and they do. The Pro-G40 pushes the limits of what is possible with this interface. It’s not as performant in USB mode, but it manages to beat the Samsung T7 Shield, which is a cheaper competitor for that mode.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / CrystalDiskMark

ATTO and CrystalDiskMark (CDM) are free and easy-to-use storage benchmarking tools that SSD vendors commonly use to assign performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how each device handles different file sizes.

The Pro-G40 has exceptional sequential performance in Thunderbolt mode, seen both in the ATTO and sequential CDM results. In USB mode it matches or beats the T7 Shield. The 4K low queue depth and latency performance happen to be limited by the interface for respective drives, but the Pro-G40 is still among the best.

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery, & Temperature

Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data.  Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use Iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

Temperatures are gauged at both idle and load states via sensor and an infrared thermometer. The typical ambient temperature is at 24C. The load state involves sustained writes at maximum speed with measurement ensuing if and until throttling is demonstrated to discover the equilibrium temperature.

The 1TB SanDisk Pro-G40 does not disappoint during the sustained write benchmarks. It has a small pSLC cache, as also found on the Red SN700 and Black SN750, followed by consistently high TLC performance. The pSLC cache on this drive is static, which can improve endurance and performance consistency. For example, by caching smaller random writes and demonstrating stronger full-drive performance, respectively. This cache can recover quickly to absorb random writes, if necessary.

This also means this drive can out-write anything on the market when in Thunderbolt mode. Even in USB mode it beats the T7 Shield, a drive specifically designed for sustained performance. The Pro-G40 would be excellent for professionals who do a lot of file transfers and need guaranteed performance, particularly in less salubrious environments.

The drive idled at 45C and only hit 60C after a full drive of writes. While the design may be insulative when idle, good thermal contact with a metal case helps the drive stay far away from any throttling state. The case itself remained below 50C and safe to touch.

Test Bench and Testing Notes

We use an Alder Lake platform with most background applications such as indexing, windows updates, and anti-virus disabled in the OS to reduce run-to-run variability. Each SSD is prefilled to 50% capacity and tested as a secondary device. Unless noted, we use active cooling for all SSDs. Portable SSDs are tested with write caching explicitly enabled for the device within Windows.

Conclusion

The SanDisk Pro-G40 is a truly exceptional portable SSD that checks all the right boxes. Its performance is excellent in almost every test and its ability to sustain high write speeds puts it a cut above drives like the Samsung T7 Shield. It is also rugged without looking ridiculous or taking up a lot of space. 

The metal core and reinforced port help make it dust- and water-resistant, but the tight thermal interface also helps the drive dissipate heat under sustained loads. The ability to operate in both Thunderbolt and USB modes also makes it more flexible or faster than drives that only use one or the other.

There is some room for improvement, though. It’s possible to get 20 Gbps out of USB, as with the WD Black P50, although this implementation is usually disregarded in order to jump up to Thunderbolt 3 or newer technology. SanDisk could have also offered a longer cable or a separate Type-C to Type-A cable to improve compatibility, but a small, single cable enhances portability. The Pro-G40 could also have instituted newer hardware for the internal drive, but this would not have appreciably improved its performance. With all these design considerations in mind, the only real drawback to this SSD is its price.

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Data security is of the utmost importance to many professionals, especially those governed by regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, GDPR, GLBA, PCI-DSS, CCPA, etc. Those users must meet strict handling requirements and leverage encryption technologies to keep data away from unauthorized access. This is especially important with the precipitous rise in ransomware attacks.

Cigent is a data security company whose primary intent is to keep your data safe, and it has a portable SSD for those who not only need to securely store their data for compliance, but who also desire responsive access for a smooth and speedy workflow. Thanks to an enterprise-grade SSD controller and paired with Kioxia's BiCS4 TLC flash, the K2 offers complying performance, exceeding 1 GBps read/write in our testing.

On the security front, Cigent’s K2 Secure SSD offers a zero-trust and continuous authentication approach to defend against ransomware, placing protections as close to your data as possible. The K2 comes with special firmware and hardware-accelerated AES 256-bit encryption that works in conjunction with the company’s D3E software. Together, these technologies keep your data secure from ransomware without a detrimental impact on performance

Specifications

The K2 Secure SSD is available in capacities of 480GB, 1TB, and 2TB, carrying sequential performance ratings of up to 1,000 MBps read/write. Cigent opted to overprovision the K2 a little more from the factory than most competing solutions for reliability and performance consistency, but the company only backs the hardware with a very short one-year warranty. This is even more difficult tot ake given the extremely high price per GB. Our 1TB sample sells at $600, roughly double the cost of Samsung’s much faster, Thunderbolt 3-powered X5. To be fair though, the Samsung X5 is nowhere near as secure. 

Software and Accessories

The main selling point of this SSD is its encryption support and software management. Currently, Cigent focuses on the Windows ecosystem, securing data with what the company calls its Dynamic Data Defense Engine (D3E), but the company is also working on macOS and Linux support.

Essentially, if the software detects any foul play or the PC is power cycled, it will kick K2 and the data offline until you log back into it. It can also capture data access logs for incident response. And the drive features TrueErase, which verifies all data previously stored has been erased after a wipe attempt, if you purchase and unlock D3E premium, too.

To take advantage of the encryption, the K2’s software requires you to configure a PIN as well as a password. Also, it forces you to create a backup key, which can be vital in case you forget your password. Using the default PIN authentication method is a bit cumbersome as it won’t accept keyboard input, only via mouse clicks. Alternative authentication methods like fingerprint and facial recognition are much less of an inconvenience.

Additionally, if for whatever reason you need to open the K2, it comes with a T8 Torx screwdriver and an extra screw, just in case you strip or lose one.

A Closer Look

The hardware of the K2 drive was put together by Sabrent, which is evident in the case design and markings, as well as the company’s branding on the included cable. The cable is very long, too, measuring roughly 28 inches. It also comes with a USB Type-A to Type-C adapter.

The design is rather bland, with a low-quality printed brand label stuck on top, but is solid aluminum and has a sand-blasted finish that matches the aesthetic of most Apple computers. There is a power/activity light next to the USB Type-C port and the base features two rubber feet to keep the drive from slipping and sliding on most surfaces.

Internally, the K2 leverages an M.2 2280 double-sided form factor SSD based on Phison’s PS5012-E12DC NVMe SSD controller, and a JMicron JMS583 USB 3.2 Gen 2 to NVMe SSD bridge chip for communication with the host. The E12DC is closely related to the normal E12 that has made its way into many consumer SSDs, with a quad-core, 8-channel design operating at clock speeds of 666MHz, but differs in that it was developed for enterprise and data center applications.

Additionally, our sample interfaces with two 4Gb DRAM ICs (1GB total) at 1,600 MHz and comes packed with Kioxia’s BiCS4 96L TLC flash. These flash dies utilize a two-plane architecture and interface with the controller at speeds of 666 MTps. With a very consistent latency profile and robust AES 256-bit encryption support, the controller pairs well for this portable SSD.

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Comparison Products

We compare Cigent’s K2 Secure SSD against some of the best and most secure portable SSDs available. The list includes the SanDisk Extreme Pro v2, the WD_Black P50, LaCie’s Rugged SSD, G-Technology’s ArmorLock, and Samsung’s X5. We also included the Samsung T7 and a WD My Passport SSD for good measure.

Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

With a total load time of 18.46 seconds, the K2 Secure SSD finds itself smack-dab in the middle of the pack on this test. It delivers competitive game load performance that isn’t too far behind that of Samsung’s much higher bandwidth X5, and nearly on par with USB 20 Gbps competitors.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

In terms of writing your files, the K2 edges ahead of its USB 10 Gbps competition, offering up some very fast performance results. SanDisk’s Extreme Pro v2 and WD_Black P50 both outpace it, but only because of their higher bandwidth interface and awesome sustained write speed.c

Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test: Data Drive Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. To test drives that store files rather than applications, we utilize the Data Drive Benchmark.

Cigent’s K2 delivers impressive PCMark 10 scores, ranking first place in the test pool. It not only outperformed its USB 10Gbps competition, but also the USB 20Gbps and Thunderbolt 3 competitors by a significant margin.

Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

Cigent’s K2 Secure SSD offers solid sequential performance across all block sizes, only limited by what its interface allows. It outperforms most of the SSDs in its class, not only delivering fast sequential speeds, but also rapid random access times.

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery, and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and interrelated metrics for external devices. Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash.

We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds as well as the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance.

While very small, there seems to be an SLC cache on the K2. The Cogent K2 wrote at a rate of 1,089 MBps for the first 50GB, before degrading to an average write speed of 1,049 MBps for the remainder of the test. Overall, these are solid results, offering high performance that shouldn’t slow down even after being bombarded with writes. After filling the K2 Secure SSD to roughly 50%, the SSD’s surface temperature measured no more than 44 degrees Celsius and no thermal throttling slowed it down.

Conclusion

Cigent’s K2 Secure SSD is a top-performing portable SSD that is as fast as it is secure. Powered by the enterprise-grade Phison E12DC controller, it outpaced the majority of the competition in today’s testing. It is a powerhouse that not only delivers responsive file access but also very consistent write performance when hammered. Without the alliance with Phison, it would be hard for Cigent to break into the secure SSD space as it has with this new drive.  

Cigent is primarily a software company though, and it shows. The K2 is expensive, with premium unlocks that ask for more money, exploiting a niche use to leverage its hefty MSRPs while only backing the hardware with a very short warranty. While we normally see portable SSDs backed by three-year or five-year warranties, the K2 comes backed by a measly one year of coverage. This is not indicative of a prosumer product. Not to mention, it took multiple back and forth emails to the company to attain something as simple as official performance ratings...something that should be at the forefront of a hardware vendor’s marketing.

But, while these little nuances perplexed us, the fact that this SSD comes with such robust security, capable of defense against ransomware and other data compromising threats at any given moment, is quite impressive. Cigent’s K2 Secure SSD is most definitely one of the most secure portable SSDs we’ve had our hands-on, though not always the most convenient. While it costs quite a bit up front, its high cost may be worth it for many large companies, compared to losing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars due to poor security practices.

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LaCie’s external drives have been popular for over a decade for their ability to keep up with professional workflows and endure a life of constant battery. But these days, one drive rules them all: LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro. With a Thunderbolt 3 interface, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro can deliver up to 2.8 GBps in performance for those who need speed as much as durability.

With a generous 5-year warranty that includes Rescue Data Recovery Service, it’s about as “professional-grade” as you can get. That said, with a very high cost per gigabyte, it’s a tough sell for many. This is a drive for those whose data—and the speed at which you can access it—is more important than saving a money.

When we tested LaCie’s Rugged SSD (the non-pro model), the performance was stellar. Without a doubt, it makes for a great match for professional use. It’s tough, responsive at all times, and secure. Also, the company’s Rugged BOSS SSD is quite convenient for those who travel often and are interested in backing up content without a PC or Mac. But what if you need something a bit faster for your 6K, 8K, or even slow-motion footage? That’s where LaCie’s fastest external SSD, the Rugged SSD Pro, lands in the company’s SSD landscape.

The Rugged SSD Pro has an identical design as the non-Pro model except for the color; it’s black instead of orange. But what really differentiates the two is the fact that the Rugged SSD Pro is nearly three times faster, thanks to a higher-bandwidth Thunderbolt 3 connection, instead of a 10 Gbps USB link. The Rugged SSD Pro is designed to transfer data as fast as possible, so you save time when dealing with massive files or libraries.

Specifications

LaCie rates the Rugged SSD Pro to deliver sequential read performance of up to 2,800 MBps, but the SSD lacks a defining write speed specification. In testing, we found our 1TB sample capable of up to about 2.3-2.4 GBps when hammered with sequential writes, though. The 2TB model should be able to sustain the same. Thunderbolt 3 speeds come at a premium though, and with pricing listing at about $400 for the 1TB model and $700 for the 2TB, the Rugged SSD Pro is twice the cost of most 10 Gbps portable SSDs.

LaCie backs the Rugged SSD Pro with a 5-year warranty and rates it to endure some abuse though. But, that’s not all. The Rugged Pro also comes with Rescue Data Recovery Service tagged onto its 5-year warranty. If your drive gets damaged or just fails, you get a free data recovery attempt. That’s a service that can typically cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars depending on the case.

The Rugged SSD Pro featurea support for S.M.A.R.T. data passthrough, as well as Trim. The only thing lacking in LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro is AES 256-bit encryption password protection. That’s a secure feature that the cheaper Rugged SSD comes with. LaCie Rugged SSD Pro comes preformatted exFAT for compatibility with both Windows and Mac computers, but you can format it to your specific need. We have formatted our sample as NTFS for Trim support and consistency with our other tested drives.

Software and Accessories

Instead of the super short 5.5” cable the USB 10 GBps Rugged SSD comes with, LaCie packed a nearly-as-short 8-inch Thunderbolt 3 (40Gb/s) cable with the Rugged SSD Pro. The company also provides a download of the latest LaCie Toolkit to aid in keeping your files backed up or synced with the device. 

A Closer Look

With small dimensions measuring 0.7 x 2.6 x 3.9 inches and weighing in at just under 100 grams, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro is compact and travel-ready. With a metal casing covered in a grippy black silicon coating, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro is very solid. The ruggedized SSD can handle 3m drops, can get run over by a car, and is IP67 water and dustproof rated. It can remain submerged in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes in case you drop it in a puddle, a stream, or maybe even your toilet. Expensive electronics have a tendency to wind up in the worst places.

The waterproof USB Type-C port is located on the long side of the device rather than the short side like on most externals, and there is a white activity light next to the port. Thanks to a pair of Pericom Semiconductor PI3PCIE3412 PCIe switches, the Intel JHL7440 Thunderbolt 3 controller, and the JMicron JMS583 USB 3.2 Gen 2 controller, you can use the device with most Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C host devices, albeit at a slower speed when over USB. LaCie opted to utilize some of Cypress Semiconductor’s controllers for the task to manage the power to the device, too.

At the heart of the Rugged SSD Pro is Seagate’s FireCuda 510 M.2 NVMe SSD. This is the same SSD that comes in the Rugged SSD, but now it is a bit less restricted thanks to the faster Thunderbolt 3 interface. The SSD itself comes in an M.2 2280 double-sided form factor. Powering it is Phison’s PS5012-E12, a high-performance 8-channel NVMe SSD controller. It leverages dual Cortex CPU cores as well as dual co-processors (CoXProcessor 2.0) to balance NAND management and host requests at speeds of about 666MHz.

Our 1TB sample features thirty-two 256Gb Kioxia BiCS3 64L TLC NAND flash dies while the 2TB model features 512Gb-density dies. These interface with the controller at speeds of 533MT/s and operate at 1.8V. Additionally, this controller utilizes a DRAM-based architecture, so it takes advantage of some SK Hynix DDR4 operating at 1,600MHz. At 1TB, our sample comes with 1GB of DRAM cache while the 2TB model comes with 2GB. 

Comparison Products

To challenge the Rugged SSD Pro in today’s review, we threw in a few of the fastest portable SSDs we’ve tested as well as some cheaper alternatives. We include the Samsung X5 and G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro as the Thunderbolt 3 powered competitors. With their high-performance and high cost, they compete directly with the LaCie.

SanDisk’s Extreme Pro and LaCie’s Rugged SSD are two other high-end alternatives, but are shackled down by a USB 10 Gbps connection. The Adata SE800 is a more affordable USB 10 Gbps SSD, but underperforms the two in most circumstances. We also included SanDisk’s Extreme, a SATA-based portable SSD and LaCie’s Mobile Drive, a portable HDD, for added perspective.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

Looking at the rankings, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro does well to outperform its 10 Gbps competition and proves it can absorb our test files quickly, but it doesn’t perform as well when writing the large media file folders as it does with small files. All the Thunderbolt 3-powered SSDs offer much faster read performance. G-Technology’s G-Drive mobile Pro and Samsung’s X5 both offer faster media file writing performance than the LaCie, but only the X5 is more responsive during the 25GB document files transfer. G-Technology falls behind here because of the internal WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD powering it has slightly higher-than-average small file random latency.

Trace Testing - PCMark 10 Storage Test: Data Drive Benchmark

PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and common tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. To test drives that store files rather than applications, we utilize the Data Drive Benchmark.

When it comes to PCMark 10’s latest storage tests, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro takes the crown as the most-responsive SSD in the bunch by a significant margin. It is over twice as fast as the Samsung X5 and G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro SSDs in this workload. The 10 Gbps competition proves capable, and LaCie’s Rugged SSD is one of the fastest we have tested yet, but with the slower interface holding these drives back, they can’t match the capability of faster Thunderbolt 3 devices. Relative to the HDD, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro offers a dramatic upgrade in performance.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

In ATTO, we tested LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro at a QD of 1, representing most day-to-day file access at various block sizes. Its sequential performance is very good as a Thunderbolt 3 portable SSD, with performance peaking at 2,450/2,130 MBps read/write. The LaCie’s performance is nearly on par with the Samsung X5 across the board, but is significantly faster than G-Technology’s G-Drive mobile Pro at smaller file sizes. The G-Technology, however, displays faster write performance at larger file sizes, which aided it in our media file transfer testing. 

Synthetics - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices.

Our iometer testing reveals the peak performance of the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro. Sequential performance peaks at 2.8/2.4GBps read/write, placing it in third place overall. The other Thunderbolt 3 devices, again, show slightly better write performance. With random read and write latency measured at 0.092 / 0.032 ms at QD1 and peak random performance hitting upwards of 480,000 / 340,000 IOPS read and write, LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro proves to be quite responsive.

Sustained Write Performance, Cache Recovery and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. We threw in this one last test to measure the performance of the drive over a 15-minute window, writing to the full span of the drive. This test reveals if the drive has a pseudo-SLC cache, which is a small portion of faster-programmed flash that absorbs incoming write workloads. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro features an SSD that has an SLC write cache. After writing about 25GB of data to the SSD, write speeds degraded from an average of about 2.1 GBps down to about half that, 1.1 GBps. While this is something we don’t like to see from professional devices, especially ones this expensive, the base write speed is still very respectable once the cache fills. And the drive recovers very quickly too. Just wait 30 seconds to a minute and it can write at full speed once again. Plus, unlike the Samsung X5, the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro doesn’t get too hot and throttle under heavy use. LaCie’s portable SSD remained well within its rated temperature operating limits.

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Are you traveling the world and need a storage device that can keep up (or do you plan to as soon as current restrictions ease?) LaCie’s Rugged SSD Pro is a well-rounded choice for those willing to pay for it. It’s a top-of-the-line Thunderbolt 3, NVMe-powered portable SSD that’s built for professional use. With a solid build that’s IP67 rated and performance of up to 2.8 GBps, it’s a great fit for content creators.

That said, is it the best pick for your workflow? If you are a photographer, the Rugged SSD Pro, as well as other Thunderbolt 3 powered SSDs, are probably more than overkill. USB 10 Gbps portable SSDs like the non-pro Rugged SSD or even the Adata SE800 would most likely suit your needs better while hitting your wallet a whole lot less than the Pro model. At $400 for 1TB of storage, most people aren’t going to be able to afford a Thunderbolt 3 device. The Rugged SSD is about $100 cheaper and the Adata SE800 weighs in at about $150, though it offers significantly less performance to be fair.

The Rugged SSD and Pro SSDs are nearly the same save for the higher bandwidth on the Pro model. Both feature Seagate’s FireCuda 510 at their heart and identically tough casings that vary only in color. But the Rugged SSD has one feature that the Pro model should envy: full drive encryption for added security. That’s not necessarily LaCie’s fault as the Rugged SSD Pro’s dual-interface controller, supporting both Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, makies encryption support for more challenging. Thus, the company left it out on this device. Hopefully, this feature will make it into the next Thunderbolt 3 product, though. Samsung’s X5 comes with this feature, as do many cheap external HDDs, too. Unlike those cheap externals, Samsung’s X5 is much tougher competition for the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro with the performance it is packing.

The LaCie Rugged SSD Pro isn’t the fastest Thunderbolt 3 SSD of the bunch but with it, you can process and edit even 8K video without slowing down, as long as your rig can handle it, that is. Samsung’s X5 is just as capable, though it tends to overheat when pushed too hard due to its internal storage consuming so much power when in use. In testing, it usually outperformed the LaCie with its larger write cache size and faster after cache write speed, but the compact-sized LaCie kept cool while the X5 throttled considerably after a few hundred GB of writes.

If you want no compromise on writing, G-Technology’s G-Drive mobile Pro is going to be the best for sustained write workloads like offloading a few hundred GB of footage at once. But then again, it isn’t as stable as the LaCie on all the host systems we tried it with. Sometimes the G-Drive mobile Pro will eject itself from devices that utilize the older Intel JHL 6540 Thunderbolt 3 controller, but not with newer JHL7440. The G-Drive also lacks encryption like the LaCie.

Whether you are on the hunt for your next Thunderbolt 3 storage upgrade, or you urgently need a travel-ready storage device that can handle all the elements and abuse you throw at it, we would highly recommend the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro. That is, mainly if money is no object or you need the extra performance it provides for your workflow. Otherwise, you may want to consider some of the cheaper USB 10Gbps options that still offer a lot of performance, but cost significantly less.

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Features and Specifications

If you are in the market for a backup drive, Seagate’s Backup Plus series of external HDDs may already be on your shortlist. But with so many options, it can be hard to navigate which one is best for you. Seagate's Backup Plus series alone is split into 3 product groups, sorted by capacity and feature options, which can be a bit confusing if you’re a storage newbie. And even if you know what features you need, you could miss out on something a feature worth considering and not know it too. So, let's break things down a bit for you.

The Backup Plus Slim, which is under a half-inch thick, comes in capacities of 1TB and 2TB and is available in four colors.The higher-capacity 4TB and 5TB models are about twice as thick and come in under the Portable naming scheme and feature just 3 color options. These are your average run-of-the-mill 2.5-inch 5400RPM external HDDs. Their performance is rather normal for an external 2.5-inch HDD and with USB 3.0 connectivity, they cover most people’s needs.

But, alongside the Slim models, Seagate has released the Ultra Touch. One of the best external hard drives you can get, the Ultra Touch has two distinct features -- three if you want to include the textured finish, but we don’t warrant that as much of a buying factor to consider, as much as Seagate may want us to.

Specifications

What we consider more important is the fact that that the Touch drives come with USB-C compatibility. But rather than feature a USB-C port on the device itself or a full-blown USB-C cable like LaCie products have, Seagate simply includes a small USB-A to USB-C adapter in the box to check off that compatibility checkbox. This is a rather boring feature, but important to consider, as laptop manufacturers are moving more and more to the new smaller connector.

The most important differentiator between the Ultra Touch and its competitors is a bit more intriguing. It features AES 256-bit encryption to keep your precious data secure. You wouldn’t want to leave your backup drive somewhere by mistake and give some stranger access to all your personal files, photos, videos, etc., would you? The Ultra Touch aims to prevent that with this handy feature. Some competing drives offer this as well, so keep a lookout for it if you're shopping for a portable storage drive.

Seagate’s Backup Plus Ultra Touch comes in capacities of 1TB and 2TB at this time and is available in both black and white. Performance stats aren’t listed in their marketing documents. But in our testing, they can at least hit 140MBps. And warranty coverage comes in at 2-years.

Software and Accessories

Included with the drive is one 18-inch USB micro-B to USB Type-A cable for broad compatibility and the USB-C adapter. This means it should also work with most Thunderbolt 3 ports, which can switch into a USB compatible mode.

From the factory, the Ultra Touch comes pre-formatted as exFAT so that it is both PC and Mac compatible. Pre-loaded on the drive are a warranty document and a quick start application, which helps you get started on the company's value-add software.

Toolkit is the backup and utility software. It will help you enable the encryption feature as well as automate file backups. As value adds, Seagate offers a year subscription Mylio, which lets you to protect, edit, share, and sync your photos across multiple devices, and a two-month complimentary membership to Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography Plan.

Closer Look

As we mentioned earlier, the Ultra Touch has a somewhat different look to it than other externals: It features a textured finish that reminded us of luxurious upholstery. On our white review sample has a top section with a grey textured finish. Physically, the drive measures 11.7 x 78 x 114.8 mm and weighs 151 grams (a third of a pound).

Additionally, the USB 3.0 connectivity on the drive end is provided by a SuperSpeed Micro-B port rather than an integrated USB-C port. This is a bit of a bummer, but unfortunately common in the category. If you need to connect to a USB-C port, you'll need an adapter cable like the one that comes bundled. 

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Comparison Products

In our testing, we're pitting the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch against a variety of external SSDs and HDDs that use Thunderbolt 3 and various USB interfaces. Closest to the Seagate is the LaCie Mobile Drive (LaCie is a brand owned by Seagate), which is a pricey metal-clad 5400RPM external HDD and also included are results against the LaCie 4TB Rugged RAID Pro, which utilizes two 2.5” HDDs in RAID 0. Next, we’ve taken out the 1TB SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD and 480GB Kingston HyperX Savage EXO, both much pricier SATA-based solid-state drives. As well, we included a 1TB G-Technology G-Drive Mobile Pro for some Thunderbolt 3-based competition to stir things up a bit. There's no way the trio of hard drives is going to compete with the collection of SSDs, but it's always good to have comparison numbers to show why people opt for solid-state storage, aside from the increased ruggedness that comes from a lack of any moving parts.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of iPhone jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos from a Canon 6D), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

Alongside the LaCie Mobile Drive, the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch lands at the bottom when transferring files. During the Photo and Documents transfers, the Seagate drive hit ~100MBps and peaked at 122MBps during the Movie transfer. Read performance also ranks it last or second-to-last. With an average read speed of 120MB/s, its rather sluggish compared to our flash-based competitors.

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

Seagate’s Backup Plus Ultra Touch achieved an overall score of 2178 points and averaged a bandwidth rate of 8MBps here. This score ranks it second-to-last on our charts and goes to show just how much of a practical and sizable difference there is in application performance between a spinning disk and something of the solid-state flavor.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

In ATTO, the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch lands in last place, with transfer speeds of up to 144MBps read and 148MBps write.

Synthetics - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices.

On average, Seagate’s Backup Plus Ultra Touch ranks last overall. During sequential transfers, performance peaked out at 132MBps read/write. Seagate’s Backup Plus Ultra Touch boasts random read latency that comes in at ~8.8ms read and 3.5ms write. This results in an IOPS throughput of 113 IOPS read and 286 IOPS write, which is just a fraction of what something like the SanDisk Extreme or other SSDs are capable of. And, scaling out to a QD of 4 or even 128 doesn’t improve performance much, but rather just exaggerates latency.

Write Saturation and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. We tossed in this one last test to measure the performance of the drive over a 15-minute window. When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. For SSDs, this test also reveals if the drive has a pseudo-SLC cache, which is a small portion of faster-programmed flash that absorbs incoming write workloads. Keep in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Under a straight 14 minutes of write time, Seagate’s Backup Plus Ultra Touch managed to write just over 109GB of data. Surprisingly, this outshines the LaCie Mobile drive significantly, by nearly 30GB. Still, it pales in comparison to its flash-based solid-state competitors.

Over the course of writing the data, we logged the highest temperature of 37C, which is rather low.

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Conclusion

Seagate’s Backup Plus Ultra Touch is a new external HDD from the brand that merges multiple concepts into one to try to sell old tech. Not that hard drives are bad per se. SSDs are just in a whole different world when it comes to performance.

The Backup Plus Ultra Touch's performance is average for a 2.5-inch external HDD, and there generally isn't a whole lot of variation between competing hard drives. The Seagate drive delivers sequential speeds upwards of 140MBps read/write, and Response times are nowhere near the realm of flash-based competitors.

But all that is to be expected, and is why it works great as a backup device. Considering a typical backup routine only carries out and updates a few times a month, performance isn’t much of an issue for the average consumer, especially considering the price. At $69.99, you’re paying $35 a terabyte for the 2TB model we tested today. That's about $10 more than some lower-end WD and Seagate drives,  but the Ultra Touch has features that add a lot of value.

Sure, there’s a new textured finish that looks pretty good. It also helps you grip the external when searching for it in your bag. But unfortunately, there are no rubber on the bottom of the enclosure to prevent slipping on the surface you place it on. And, the included USB-C adapter is not the classiest solution, although it is effective.

The Backup Plus Ultra Touch comes with some software trials to help you manage your photo library. The yearlong membership of Mylio included may be useful to some (a $50 value), but as an avid Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom user, the two months of included Creative Cloud Photography Plan ($20 value) appeals to me, and probably a lot of amateur photographers, too. Adding these two software values together chops off quite a bit of the price if you are going to utilize both.

What we really like about this drive, though, is just how easy the encryption works. Install the Toolkit software, click enable, add your password and you’re off. Once enabled, no one can see your data except for you -- unless you give someone else your encryption key. If you are into data security, the Backup Plus Ultra Touch is a great secure storage/backup option that is well worth those extra few dollars it commands over the competition.

Photo Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Capable of SATA-like speeds and available in capacities of up to 2TB, Silicon Power’s Bolt B75 Pro Portable SSD is both speedy and spacious. It even features encryption software for enhanced data security when you’re on the go. It’s also priced quite competitively, although it isn’t without its quirks.

Silicon Power’s Bolt B75 Pro is marketed as quite a durable device. The company says it’s military-grade shockproof, with a design that was inspired by a WWI-era German Junkers F.13 transport plane. And with military design in mind, it is quite secure with 256-bit encryption software for added security.

Specifications

The Bolt B75 Pro is available in capacities of 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. It utilizes a USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-C interface to deliver speeds of up to 520/420 MBps read/write. 

The drive features a standard three-year warranty, but lacks an official endurance rating at the time of writing. It is both Mac and PC compatible, as the Bolt B75 pro comes formatted as exFAT out of the box. Note, though, that our testing was completed with the drive formatted as NTFS.

Software and Accessories

The Bolt B75 Pro comes with two one-foot long USB cables, one type-C to type-C and the other type-C to type-A. Both power the device off the USB bus.

Silicon Power’s SP Widget software is compatible with this drive and available for download. With it, you can configure backups, enable the AES 256-bit encryption, and more.

Closer Look

The Bolt B75 Pro measures 124.4 x 82.0 x 12.2 mm and weighs in at 105 grams. The sleek aluminum casing features a multi-side power indicator light.

The drive is easily disassembled via four Philips head screws. But while the housing is sleek it’s a bit less durable than we expected. The exterior features a lightweight aluminum-alloy finish, which we were able to bend rather easy. This is unlike much tougher LaCie externals drives we’ve tested in the past. 

Opened up, we find inside houses a SATA-to-USB PCB featuring an ASMedia ASM234cm bridge chip and a SATA SSD that is secured using double-sided adhesive foam. Once we dig a bit deeper, we see that the Bolt B75 Pro is powered by a Silicon Motion SM2258XT SATA controller and Intel 64L TLC NAND flash. Being a Silicon Motion XT controller, that means this SSD does not feature any DRAM, which helps to help keep down cost, but can also negatively impact performance.  

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Comparison Products

Today, we throw Silicon Power’s Bolt B75 Pro up against a few other external SSDs and an external HDD that we have recently tested. As the slowest competitor, we include the LaCie Mobile Drive 2TB HDD. Next, we include the Kingston HyperX Savage EXO and SanDisk Extreme, both USB C external SSDs that operate at SATA speeds. Additionally, we included two faster options, the Lexar SL100 Pro, a USB 10Gbps product, and Samsung’s Thunderbolt 3 powered X5 external SSD. 

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of iPhone jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos from a Canon 6D), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device. 

Unlike Kingston’s HyperX Savage EXO, the Bolt B75 Pro delivers some respectable results for a flash-based external. Write performance is just behind the SanDisk Extreme by a few seconds and leaps and bounds better than what the LaCie Mobile Drive can withstand. The Bolt was able to write at a rate of 449-487 MBps. During file reads, it comes in third overall, edging out over the other SATA based externals. 

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

In PCMark 8, Silicon Power’s Bolt B75 Pro wasn’t able to surpass the HyperX Savage EXO. But still, it proved itself to be quite fast for application use. With a total score of 4,913 points and an average bandwidth of 195 MBps, it ranks fifth overall and is significantly better than what any HDD could deliver.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

The Bolt B75 Pro hit its rated speeds and then some here. In reads, it hit a max of 567 MBps and while writing, it hit 507 MBps. This is similar to the SanDisk Extreme and HyperX Savage EXO.

Synthetics - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices.

Results from sequential performance testing in iometer match that of ATTO. Speeds of 560/510 MBps read/write were achieved. With a fourth-place ranking, random performance is pretty decent too. At a queue depth of one, Silicon Power’s Bolt B75 Pro is capable of up to 4,300 IOPS read performance and has the second-highest write performance, 16,500 IOPS. Also, peak random figures come in at 22,000 / 39,000 IOPS read/write.

Write Saturation and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. We threw in this one last test to measure the performance of the drive over a 15-minute window, writing to the full span of the drive. When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. This test also reveals if the drive has a pseudo-SLC cache, which is a small portion of faster-programmed flash that absorbs incoming write workloads. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

For the first twelve minutes and forty-five seconds of writing, the Bolt B75 Pro wrote at a rate of 485 MBps for a total of 375GB. Beyond that, however, write speed decreased significantly. Once the dynamic SLC cache is full, write speed averaged 70 MBps, with lows as low as 5-6 MBps. 

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 Silicon Power’s Bolt B75 Pro aims to offer up speedy flash in plentiful capacities in the form of a sleek and durable external storage. And it is quite cheap for an external SSD. But, like some other recent “Pro” type storage products we have reviewed, it doesn’t quite live up to that name.

One disappointing aspect was its encryption method. Based on Silicon Power’s Widget software, it works on a per-file or per-folder basis, uses up system resources, and takes a long time to encrypt. This is not as streamlined as what Samsung or Seagate have configured for their externals, which encrypt on a drive level. Using the latter method,  entering just one password unlocks the whole device and everything works instantly.  

Aesthetically, sure,the Bolt B75 Pro is made of an aluminum alloy and is advertised as military-grade. However, the Bolt B75 Pro isn’t as rugged as the company would lead you to believe. It’s better than plastic, but the casing can bend and twist rather easily. It’s also advertised as being scratchproof, but a dull pair of scissors seems to nick and scratch the casing without much effort. The drive looks good but isn’t so tough. Nor does it feature any sort of weather, water, dust, or crush resistance ratings like some more portable solutions like SanDisk’s Extreme and Extreme Pro. 

When using the Bolt B75 Pro, its performance is mixed. While we recorded average flash-based read and write speeds when transferring files to and from the external SSD, extended write testing showed things can go downhill fast. As we demonstrated, the DRAMless SSD powering the Bolt B75 Pro can degrade to speeds slower than a hard drive, just 70MBps on average after the dynamic pSLC cache exhausts due to its DRAMless architecture. 

However, when putting the drive under some consumer workload traces in PCMark 8, the storage test revealed some fairly competitive application and game load performance. So, if you don’t plan on writing hundreds of gigabytes of data often, then the write slowdowns will happen extremely rarely if at all. But, for those actual pros or prosumers who need to write large batches of files fast, look to alternatives or even toward building an external yourself. 

Current pricing places the Bold B75 Pro just ahead of what most SATA SSDs cost by a few dollars. This doesn’t make it the best deal in external storage, though it is quite competitive for an external SSD. Depending on the capacity, opting for a better-quality DRAM-based SATA SSD and an external enclosure may be a more valuable route if you are looking for more consistent performance. Or, spend a bit more and get a higher performance external SSD like the Samsung X5.

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A hardware leaker known on Twitter as momomo_us, who was spot on with specifications for Intel's Cascade Lake-X chips, has revealed alleged specifications for Intel's Xeon W 2200-series -- codename Glacier Falls W -- workstation processor lineup.

This generation of Intel Xeon W processors is segmented into two groups. The Cascade Lake W (CSL-W) processors, which came out in June, pack up to 28 cores and use the LGA 3647 CPU socket. The Glacier Falls W chips, which Intel has yet to officially announce, reportedly max out at 18 cores and will continue to slot into the LGA 2066 socket.

Glacier Falls W vs. Skylake W Specs

*Specifications are not confirmed.

Starting with the obvious, the new Glacier Falls W processors chips will seemingly arrive with generally higher base clock speeds than their predecessors, the Skylake W line. According to the leaker, the base clocks for the upcoming Xeon W-2295 and Xeon W-2255 CPUs are up to 700 MHz and 400 MHz higher than the Xeon W-2195 and Xeon W-2155, respectively. On the other hand, the Glacier Falls W-based Xeon W-2223 will allegedly have the same 3.6 GHz base clock as its predecessor. The Xeon W-2265 is a newcomer as Intel didn't offer a 12-core Xeon W chip in the past.

VideoCardz has leaked the pricing for the new Intel Xeon W parts. In general, the prices for Glacier Falls W are significantly lower than the previous generation. Some models, such as the Xeon W-2225 and W-2123 seemingly preserve the same price tag as their older counterparts. 

For the time being, only the Xeon W-2295 has appeared in the Geekbench database. The Xeon W-2295 seemingly delivers 5.3% and 9.1% higher single-and mulit-core performance than the Xeon W-2195. However, it's important to note that the Xeon W-2195 system was running faster memory, so the difference in actual CPU performance could be slightly lower than reported.

We've yet to hear a time frame as to when Intel will replace its aging Skylake W CPUs with Glacier Falls W chips. Today's leak could indicate that the new workstation processors aren't too far away.

Phanteks has announced the new Glacier Aorus Xtreme kit designed to cool the VRM and CPU for the impressive Gigabyte C621 Aorus Xtreme motherboard and the LGA 3647 Narrow Socket P processors. In addition to the kit for the board, Phanteks also announced new blocks in the Glacier C360I and C360A for Intel and AMD processors. Both the kit and new blocks are made from CNC-cut 100% pure copper with a full cover acrylic design that includes integrated digital RGB lighting in each.

Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Kit

The Glacier Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme kit (product code PH-GBAXTKT) is designed to cool the ridiculously expensive, and awesome, Gigabyte C621 Aorus Extreme motherboard. If that massive heatsink covering the 32-phase motherboard isn't sufficient, this kit will provide the base for cooler and quieter operations on both the VRM and socket 3647 CPU. The thick copper base of the blocks brings a higher level of heat transfer and capacity according to the company. The base includes microchannels and low flow resistance to keep things cool and the water easily flowing. 

The CPU block that comes in the kit is the Glacier C3647i Narrow Socket CPU block. Like the VRM cooler, it is also made of 100% CNC machined copper with a nickel plating, an acrylic top and integrated RGB lighting. The C3647i is designed specifically to cover the Intel Cascade Lake-SP Xeon Workstation family which includes the Xeon W-3275 among many other SKUs. 

The nickel plated blocks include an acrylic top along with integrated RGB lighting that is compatible with Phanteks D-RGB equipped cases and the Gigabyte motherboard. Sealing the base and the top is a Viton O-Ring which the company says is used in the automotive and aerospace industries and brings improved durability. This includes resistance to wear and tear of installation and over-tightening as well as extreme temperatures and aggressive fluids. Phanteks says the O-ring will keep its sealing performance for a long period of time (the warranty is two years). 

Glacier C360I / C360A CPU Blocks

In addition to the Gigabyte kit above, Phanteks has also released two new CPU blocks. The C360I is said to be compatible with Intel socket 2011-v3 and 115x sockets while the C360A will fit socket AM4 based motherboards. Like the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Kit, these blocks are also made from 100% copper and CNC machined to their specifications. Outside of the integrated RGB LEDs, the blocks have a choice of a grey or black accent piece next to the in/out ports (both colors included). 

The Glacier Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Kit will cost $369.99 (a pittance compared to the board it's made for). The Glacier C360I and C360A blocks will cost $79.99. Both the new kit and blocks will be available at the end of August according to Phanteks.

NVMe over USB, but at what cost?

Lexar, which was bought by Chinese SSD maker Longsys back in 2017 after previous owner Micron announced it was getting out of the retail removable storage business, is offering up a new SL100 Pro portable SSD and with impressive performance ratings. With speeds of up to 950/900 MBps read/write, this USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 device is speedier than the typical run-of-the mill SATA based external SSD. Its small size and shape make it very pocketable for those who are constantly on the go, and it features beautiful aesthetics. But pricing needs to be brought back down to earthly levels before it gets our recommendation.

Lexar has been in the flash memory business for over 20 years, though recent times have been rocky, the brand seems to be back on track.Two years later its acquisition, the company has launched the world’s first 1TB SD card and a new series of NVMe and SATA based SSDs. Alongside these launches also comes an external drive aimed at the creative professional, the SL100 Pro, which we are taking a close look at today in the 1TB capacity.

The SL100 Pro is the faster variant of their SL100 external SSD. It uses the latest USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 interface to deliver high-performance for the working professional, double what the SL100 or any SATA SSD can do. It features a darker look than the SL100’s grey finish and features a higher capacity option than the non-pro model, which tops out at 500GB.

Specifications

Lexar originally launched the SL100 Pro in three capacities: 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. But, since have dropped the 250GB model, although some can still be found from some online retailers. Th drive features a three-year warranty and is compatible with both Mac and PC. Out of the box, it comes pre-formatted as exFAT, although our testing was completed while formatted as NTFS.

With current prices being about double what most other external SSDs go for, pricing is a big issue for the SL100 Pro product line. Speeds of up to 950/900 MB/s read and write are faster than SATA based competitors, but not fast enough to warrant double the cost. A simple USB 3.1 Gen 2 NVMe enclosure like a the Pluggable USBC-NVMe or MyDigitalSSD M2X plus a standard NVMe SSD would come in cheaper and offer just about the same level of performance, as we noted in our recent feature: How to Build Your Own External SSD.

Software and Accessories

Included in the package are the portable SSD itself and two short USB cables. One is USB-C to USB-C while the other is USB-C to USB-A cable. The latter is much appreciated for broad compatibility, since many PCs don't yet have USB-C ports, or might just have one, while USB-A is much more common.

Lexar’s SL100 Pro SSD also works with ENC’s DataVault Lite software for added security. When enabled, it utilizes 256-bit AES encryption to encrypt data on the device to keep it safe from prying eyes. As another bonus, this helps to ensure your deleted data stays deleted as well. Files that are deleted from the vault are also securely erased and can’t be recovered. There is just one issue here, however. At the time of writing, due to US government requirements, the download for the software was temporarily unavailable until further notice, and it doesn’t come pre-loaded on the device. So if security and encryption are high on your priorities list, you should probably look elsewhere--at least until the software becomes available again.

Closer Look

The drive measures 55 x 73.4 x 10.8 mm and weighs in at just over 69 grams. Lexar’s SL100 Pro features a blacked-out brushed aluminum exterior that is as stylish as it is durable. It feels solid in the hand and has a bit of heft to it. As an SSD, it should be able to withstand significant drops and shock and still keep going, unlike the spinning platters and delicate read/write heads of hard drives.

As we said before, this isn’t your typical run-of-the-mill SATA-based external SSD. It’s not quite as fast as some of the Thunderbolt 3 devices available, but with a custom-designed PCB and the fastest USB interface currently available, it's quite fast. And powering it is an interesting combination of components.

Inside of this classy exterior is a JMicron JMS583 USB to NVMe bridge chip that connects to a Marvell 88NV1160 NVMe SSD controller that is, in turn, managing a bunch of 64L Micron TLC NAND flash. This controller is a lower-end model but obviously has enough grunt to saturate the interface, even without DRAM.

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Performance Results

Comparison Products

In today’s review, we'll be pitting the SL100 Pro against a few other external SSDs and HDDs that we have recently tested. Powered by HDDs, we’ve included the 2TB LaCie Mobile Drive and 4TB Rugged RAID Pro. Stepping things up, we added in the 1TB SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD and 480GB Kingston HyperX Savage EXO, which both deliver SATA SSD performance over USB. As well, we’ve included some Thunderbolt-based competition to heat things up a bit: a 1TB G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro and 1TB Samsung X5, both high-end (and expensive) Thunderbolt 3 devices.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of iPhone jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos from a Canon 6D), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

Lexar’s SL100 Pro rips through our test files with ease. It ranks third overall, behind our two Thunderbolt 3 comparison devices. In our real-world file write transfer tests, the photos folder wrote the fastest at 971 MB/s and read the fastest of 886 MB/s with the 3.7GB read file. Looking at things time-wise, the Lexar drive offers a significant advantage over the HDDs and a decent improvement in performance over the HyperX Savage EXO and SanDisk Extreme in every task.

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

In PCMark 8, the SL100 Pro pulls in a score of 4,945 points and achieved an average bandwidth of 223MB/s. While significantly faster in sequential tasks like large file reading and writing over SATA based USB devices, random performance seems to be rather similar in applications. And, as you can see, it is significantly faster than any HDD.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

Lexar’s SL100 Pro hits top speeds of 1,076/923 MBps read and write in ATTO. This beats the manufacturer's ratings, which is always nice to see.

Synthetics - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices.

At a queue depth of one, the Lexar SL100 Pro’s 4KB random read latency is double that of its competitors, which results in about half of the IOPS delivery. Overall, its random performance lags behind the other NVMe and SATA SSD based competitors on average from queue depths 1-4. This is probably why we saw a slightly lower score than that of the SanDisk’s. And, just as we saw in ATTO, it ranks in third place in sequential performance, hitting peak speeds of 918/898 MBps, respectively.

Write Saturation and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. We threw in this one last test to measure the performance of the drive over a 15-minute window, writing to the full span of the drive. When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. This test also reveals if the drive has a pseudo-SLC cache, which is a small portion of faster-programmed flash that absorbs incoming write workloads. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Write performance for the Lexar drive was looking pretty solid, until we performed this test. Here we find that the SL100 Pro features a large and dynamic pseudo-SLC write cache. From empty, the cache seems to function pretty well. Up to the five-minute mark, it absorbed double the amount of data as the SanDisk Extreme. After that, however, it started slowing down until it ultimately wrote at a rate of just 180 MB/s due to its DRAMless design.

We were unable to log the S.M.A.R.T. data while writing data, but we still caught a few updates throughout testing. At most, our temperature readings were reporting ~55 degrees C and the unit was just warm to the touch.

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Conclusion

Lexar’s SL100 Pro is more semi-pro than professional. For those who are just looking for a sleek and speedy portable SSD, it will most likely suit your needs. It delivers performance numbers in the 1,000MBps range, but there is a catch. While its pSLC cache can be quite fast, once saturated, its direct-to-TLC write speeds are very poor, averaging 180MBpss. As a professional-labeled product, I would expect write speed to be much better overall considering the cost of the unit. SanDisk’s Extreme maintains full write performance at all times with an average speed that is triple that of the SL100 Pro’s.

Now, depending on your use case, this may not affect you in most day to day use. We wrote over 300GB to the Lexar drive before write speeds slowed down. So, if you aren’t writing hundreds of GB at once often (and from a similarly speedy drive), the SL100 Pro should keep up. You can definitely record and work on 4K media with these speeds. During our file transfer tests, we saw great performance as well when toying with 25-50GB file folders and large, multi-GB files. Temperatures were fine too.

After using the device for a good bit of time, we also came up with a few other minor complaints: Lexar could improve the device by giving it more grip to rest securely on whatever surface you place it on. Also, I'd like t see slightly longer USB cables included. I often found that these two issues make positioning the device around our laptop or on your desktop either a bit bothersome or nearly impossible. As well, considering the free encryption support is currently void in the US, one of its main value points is irrelevant.

But the biggest issue we have with the device at this time is the cost. At nearly double the price of SATA-based competitors, is the Lexar SL100 Pro really worth it for double the transfer performance? Considering the rather slow direct-to-TLC write speeds, we don’t think so. The performance doesn’t justify such a high price point. You are better off purchasing a JMicron JMS583 based NVMe SSD enclosure like the Pluggable or MyDigitalSSD M2X and an NVMe SSD to make your own external SSD at current prices.

The Lexar SL100 Pro has a lot going for it, but maybe a bit too much going against it too. Until Lexar brings prices down to more competitive levels, this drive isn't worth it unless you have money to burn. Otherwise, if you’re paying that kind of cash, go ahead and build your own or opt for something in the faster Thunderbolt 3 flavor if you have the requisite ports on your computing devices.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Lavish and Spacious

LaCie's simply named Mobile Drive is a sleek-looking portable HDD, for those looking for some style in their external storage lives. But that’s really all it has going for it compared to most other comparable external drives. In testing, it hit speeds of up to 140MBps, which isn’t too bad for a 2.5-inch HDD-based external, but is in the stone age compared to SSD-based alternatives. And, although it does come in at lower cost than flash, be prepared to pay the LaCie tax for its aesthetics. LaCie demands a significant premium, at $25-50 per capacity, over similarly performing external HDD options on the market.

LaCie’s latest generation of external HDDs focuses on lavish design. And we can't blame the company, given that single-drive portable disk-based storage tends to be pretty similar (and stagnant) when it comes to performance, making it tough to differentiate. This portable external HDD feels as solid as it looks. The diamond-cut aluminum finish makes this drive one of the classiest-looking devices we have used this year. But, looks aren’t all it has going on.

LaCie’s Mobile drive comes in spacious capacities to store all your data. LaCie states that their largest capacity can store up to 165 hours of 4K video or up to 500,000 photos. It utilizes the new USB-C interface, but, because it’s still an HDD inside, can’t begin to saturate the interface.

Specifications

LaCie lists the availability of the Mobile Drive in four capacities: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB. All don’t have an official rating on LaCie’s website, but in testing, they can hit speeds of up to  about 140 MB/s. Unlike their SSD counterparts, the Mobile Drive features a shorter 2-year warranty.

Software and Accessories

Included with the drive are two USB cables, one a USB Type-C to Type-C cable and the other a USB Type-C to USB Type-A cable for broad compatibility. This means the drive will work with Thunderbolt 3- and USB 3-compatible devices.

From the factory, LaCie’s Mobile Drive comes pre-formatted as exFAT so that it is both PC and Mac compatible. Pre-loaded on the drive are a warranty document and a quick-start application to help you set up your Adobe membership and download LaCie’s Toolkit, which can be used to back up your data.

Like the LaCie Rugged RAID Pro we reviewed a few months ago, LaCie's Mobile Drive also features a 1-month membership to Adobe's Creative Cloud All Apps plan ($53 if purchased separately). Unfortunately, there is no encryption feature or software included.

Closer Look

LaCie's Mobile Drive features an all-aluminum sandblasted finish and diamond-cut design in moon silver color. In addition to moon silver, there is also a space gray model to fully match your Mac, but it is only sold by Apple at this time.

Our 2TB review sample measures in at 10 x 87.8 x 121.6 mm and weighs about 74g. The 4TB and 5TB models are double the thickness and slightly larger overall. These also weigh about double what the 1TB and 2TB models weigh, due to additional storage platters on the internal drives.

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Performance Results

Comparison Products

To gauge the performance of the LaCie Mobile Drive, we’ve opted to pit it against a few other external SSDs and HDDs that use Thunderbolt 3 and various USB interfaces. Included are results for the 4TB Rugged RAID Pro, which utilizes two 2.5” HDDs in RAID 0. Next, we’ve taken out the 1TB SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD and 480GB Kingston HyperX Savage EXO, both SATA, SSD-based competitors. As well,, we included some Thunderbolt 3-based competition to stir things up a bit, just to show how fast these SSDs really are over HDD competition. These included a 1TB G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro and 1TB Samsung X5.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of iPhone jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos from a Canon 6D), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

When it comes to moving real files, LaCie’s Mobile Drive did pretty well considering its slow 2.5-inch HDD within. It came in the last place across the board in both writing in reading. It wrote our photos folder at 105 MBps, the movies folder at 132 MBps, and our docs folder at 91 MBps. Reading back large files resulted in an average speed of about 120 MBps.

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

In PCMark 8, LaCie’s Mobile drive scored 1,585 points in total and averaged just 5 MBps, plopping it into last place. If you are for a drive in your professional workflow for anything other than backup, we suggest looking elsewhere to flash-based SSD alternatives.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

Just as in PCMark 8, the LaCie Mobile Drive ranks last on our ATTO charts. Sequential speeds hit nearly 140 MBps in both read and write.

Synthetics - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors often use to measure the performance of their devices

LaCie’s Mobile Drive falls into the last place on our charts once gain. It maxes out at  roughly 140 MBps read/write. Random read latency comes in at 8ms at best, while write latency is much lower at just 3ms. While these numbers are decent for a hard drive, they pale in comparison to something like the HyperX Savage EXO and SanDisk Extreme SSDs.

Write Saturation and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. We threw in this one last test to measure the performance of the drive over a 15-minute window. When possible, we also log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

Sequentially writing to the drive results in the slowest rate out of the test group, taking 15 minutes to write just 84GB. Over the course of writing the data, we logged the highest temperature of 38C, which isn’t too hot at all.

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Conclusion

LaCie’s Mobile Drive is more aesthetically pleasing than your average portable HDD. Its diamond-cut edging and sandblasted aluminum finish rank it up there as one of the best-looking and -feeling external HDDs we have come across to date. It's definitely a top pick if you want to match your external drive to your Mac or other aluminum-finished devices.

But flash-based storage is still light years ahead in terms of speed, and prices of SSDs have been steadily and dramatically falling over the last few years. So if you care about performance, you should probably opt for an external SSD. Performance of the Mobile Drive is average for an HDD of this caliber. In testing, we hit speeds of up to 140 MBps read and write and averaged transferring data around at about 120MBps. If you plan on doing anything other than backing up, your experience may be a bit laggy. Flash-based portable drives are much better for any more-demanding tasks, as demonstrated by our PCMark 8 results.

We appreciate that LaCie included USB-C to USB-A and USB-C to USB-C cables for broad market compatibility. Not everyone has the latest and greatest devices with USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 support. And, LaCie’s Toolkit is a great software tool for end-users to utilize for their backup routine. It's quite simple to use and gets the job done without much effort. It takes the guesswork out of backing up.

One thing that we think LaCie could improve is adding a rubber texture to the bottom of the drive to prevent slipping on desks and other surfaces. Other than that, the drive is a pretty solid build. The only other qualm we have is the premium price being so much higher than competing portable hard drives, to the point that you can get double the storage capacity, plus similar performance and warranty for roughly the same price or just a little more. If you are in search of a new portable HDD, LaCie’s Mobile Drive wouldn’t be our first recommendation, especially if you care about value. But if looks matter to you, externals don’t get much prettier than LaCie’s Mobile Drive.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Professional RAID Made Easy

With spacious capacities and a 10Gb/s USB 3.1 Type-C interface, LaCie’s got a new professional desktop RAID device that is ideal for the creative pro looking to up their storage game. LaCie’s 2big RAID, armed with two enterprise-class 7200RPM Seagate IronWolf Pro HDDs, is capable of delivering speeds of up to 440MB/s read/write.

But, while it is ~$150 cheaper than the 2big Dock and some of its competition, the 16TB 2big RAID is still quite pricey with a street price of about $700 bucks. With a price like that, it does have some perks, although it is missing some, too.

Recently, we took a look at a mobile RAID solution from LaCie, the Rugged RAID Pro. In essence, the device takes two HDDs and enables the end user to configure either RAID 0, 1, or simply set the two HDDs accessible in JBOD mode. It delivered decent performance and flexibility, but for those seeking larger capacity and higher performance, this little device won’t cut it.

For those of you in need of more space for your ever-growing media collection or those who want a faster scratch space for your workflow and are not yet ready to plunge into the expensive flash abyss, LaCie’s 2big RAID might be just for you.

Specifications

The 2big RAID comes in capacities of 4TB, 8TB, and 16TB. Prices start at $399.00 for the 4TB model, making it the least bang for your buck. The 8TB model is just $100 more for twice the capacity, but it doesn’t touch the value of the 16TB model if you need big capacity. While coming in at a hefty $700, it comes with the best price-per-GB of the family.

Pros demand and expect higher reliability out of their tools, and LaCie aims to give them exactly what they want. The 2big is similar to the Rugged RAID Pro, in that LaCie packs two HDDs into it and lets you configure them in RAID 0, 1, or JBOD mode. But the unit doesn't have ordinary HDDs inside.

Instead, the unit come with two of Seagate’s enterprise-class 7200RPM IronWolf Pro NAS HDDs, optimized for RAID and tuned to run 24/7. LaCie’s 2big RAID comes pre-configured in RAID 0 and is pre-formatted with the exFAT file system for the fastest speed and broadest compatibility. The company rates the unit for speeds of up to 440MB/s of sequential read/write throughput.

LaCie has even turned to world-renowned computer fan designer and manufacturer, Noctua, to help keep these drives cool through any workload. A 60mm Noctua A6x25 FLX fan that is whisper quiet from just two feet away resides at the rear of the all-black aluminum enclosure.

The 2big is compatible with both macOS 10.12+ and Windows 10+ computers with Thunderbolt 3, USB-C, USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports. It even features hot-swapping capability so that you can easily remove and replace drives even while the unit is in operation.

Software and Accessories

LaCie’s 2big RAID comes with a 39.5” USB-C to USB-C cable, 39.5” USB-C to USB-A cable, a 36W (12V-3A) power supply with various adapters, and a quick install guide.

LaCie’s Toolkit and RAID Manager software makes configuring the unit a snap. Changing RAID modes requires you to press the power button on the rear of the device for confirmation. This helps to prevent accidental data loss from changing modes accidentally. LaCie RAID Manager can also send you email notifications about drive and system health. Furthermore, you can use Toolkit to manage backup plans (Windows only), create mirror folders, and automate memory card imports directly to the device.

Additionally, LaCie includes a month of membership to Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan, which enables you to use all of Adobe's Creative Cloud applications for free, a $79.49 value. And, to top things off, it comes backed by  five years of Rescue Data Recovery Services in case disaster strikes. That's a big plus.

Closer Look

The 2big chassis is a blacked-out an all-aluminum unibody design that measures in at 8.5 x 4.7 x 3.7" and weighs in at 6.2lbs. There is an indicator light on each of the metal disk trays, and the faceplates are plastic. The top one also features the classic blue dome light as a status indicator; however, the light is a bit intense.

Four rubber feet do an excellent job at keeping the unit stable and the desk vibration free. The unit also has vents on the chassis back and underside to aid with airflow. There's also a power button, power input, a Kensington lock port, USB 3.1 Gen 2 type C port, and a firmware update button on the rear of the unit.

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Performance Results

Comparison Products

We configured and tested the 2big RAID in all operating modes and threw it against a few devices we have reviewed in the past. We included a few external SSDs for comparison. Our first two competitors are the 1TB G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro SSD and 1TB Samsung X5, both are Thunderbolt 3 based SSDs. We threw in SanDisk’s 1TB Extreme Portable SSD, 480GB Kingston’s HyperX Savage EXO, and LaCie’s 1TB Rugged RAID Pro. These all come with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface.

ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

When configured in a RAID 0 array, the 2big RAID hit its rated speeds of 440MB/s of sequential read/write throughput. As expected, it lags behind its flash-based competition but delivers a whole lot more usable space. When configured as RAID 1 or JBOD, performance halves and matches that of the LaCie Rugged RAID Pro, hitting ~230MB/s read/write. Performance is slightly better when in JBOD mode.

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark (CDM) is a simple and easy to use storage benchmarking tool.

Like we saw in our review of the Rugged RAID Pro, CDM’s default sequential setting at a queue depth of 32 presented a slight “problem.” At QD32, the performance was over the rated 440MB/s read, but write speeds fell to 283MB/s. This improved to 384MB/s once we scaled back the queue depth to a more realistic value of 1. Again, both RAID 1 and JBOD results prove similar to one another at half the speed of RAID 0. This carries over to 4K random performance where we can see that compared to flash-based SSDs, this metric isn’t an HDD’s strong suit. 4K read/write performance comes in at up to 1/9 MB/s.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of iPhone jpg and 15GB of RAW photos from a Canon 6D), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

The 2big RAID delivered respectable performance that crushes the Rugged RAID Pro. Transferring photos and our documents folder resulted in speeds of 236-245MB/s, while transferring 50GB of movies resulted in a transfer rate of 433MB/s, just beating the SanDisk Extreme 1TB. Read performance comes in at ~290MB/s for both our 3.7GB and 15GB file read tests. We can see that in RAID 0 the transfers are not quite as fast as some of the fastest SSDs, but performance is much better than that of an ordinary mobile external device.

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

Total scores range from 2,966 to 3,135 points and average bandwidth comes in at 14-16MB/s. These are high scores for a hard drive, but these “high” scores have nothing on flash. In PCMark 8, the rapid access times and fast small file transfer performance of flash enables the external SSDs to easily outperform the LaCie 2big RAID.

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Conclusion

LaCie’s 2big RAID is an excellent external storage device that is mostly a great buy for those looking to up their storage space. Being the size of a big brick, it’s not portable, but the sleek design will nicely accent the rest of your high-end tech on your desk. That is if you can stand the obnoxiously bright blue LED dome light on the front of the unit. In order to dim the light, I had to place a piece of tape over the clear plastic that shinny bright light shines through to the front blue dome. Only then was that “issue” remedied.

The inclusion of Seagate’s IronWolf Pro’s helps to add to the unit’s reliability and durability. Designed for 24/7 use with firmware optimized for RAID, it’s a perfect match for the working professional. The five years of data recovery services over the course of its warranty gives you a sense of confidence in the product, too. And, with speeds hitting upwards of 240MB/s each or 460MB/s in RAID 0, the drives are fast. But that speed does come at a slight cost.

While on, the fan is whisper quiet from two feet away and kept the HDDs operating around 40-48C during testing. While the fan is quiet, the HDDs can be quite the opposite. While performing a system backup, the device hummed and made all kinds of clinks and clanks when it hit small files that disturbed the peace of my rather quiet home. Nothing beats flash when it comes to silent pleasure. But let’s not forget that flash just isn’t at price parity with mechanical storage quite yet.

We like the fact that you can configure the device in RAID and JBOD mode. Not everyone needs the speed that RAID 0 has to offer, or they don’t want to leave their data at risk. For these people RAID 1 is a great way to add in some redundancy in case one of the drives fail, although it is not an excuse to go without a backup. And then there are people like me, who want the full capacity but prefer separate volumes for manually managed storage. Setting things up with LaCie’s RAID manager was quick and easy. The device’s flexibility is a perfect match for most in this regard.

While it lacks the Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, the SD card readers, and USB port of the 2big Dock, the 2big RAID’s simplicity makes it a lot cheaper. Over $150 cheaper in fact. As well, it is cheaper than G-Technology’s 16TB G-RAID and other professional storage solutions. The only thing close to it is the WD My Book Duo at ~$570, but that can’t touch the performance of this unit with its 5400-RPM RED drives. If you can do with a bit less performance and are tight on cash, it may be a worthwhile alternative. In terms of value, the 2big RAID has a lot going for it.

Image Credits: Tom's Hardware

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Dual-screens are starting to become more common on laptops: see the Asus ZenBook Pro Duo launched here at Computex this week, for instance, and Intel is already planning out more prototypes. At a press event at show in Taipei, the company showed off Honeycomb Glacier, a laptop equipped for gaming with two screens stacked one on top of the other.

It uses a unique dual-hinge design that stays propped up at your angle of choice. The bottom hinge uses a clutch mechanism, and you have to press a button to fold it back down. The top hinge is a standard tension hinge that you’d see in any laptop. It feels a bit rickety, but I’d expect better ergonomics in a product meant for mass production.

As for specs, the parts are all off-the-shelf, including an eight core / 16 thread, 9th Gen H-series Intel processor (they said it doesn’t have a four-number SKU) and an overclocked Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. There’s a fair bit of room below the hinge, with a cooling apparatus to draw air against a custom motherboard to cool 175 watts of components, all with just one large fan. And despite just one fan, it measures 42 decibels. 

There’s a Tobii eye-tracker in the hinge, and though the software definitely still needs time in the oven, I can see it making it easier to manage the two displays. I was able to use it to move my gaze between multiple windows and type without clicking to switch between apps.

The 15.6-inch, FHD resolution top display is where one would put a game or their main application, while the bottom is a great spot for social media, chat applications or managing streaming. That bottom screen is actually an automotive display (like I said, they build it from off-the-shelf parts) that measures 12.3-inches diagonally.

Two-screen devices have typically made me skeptical, but for gaming and productivity, I could see something like this making sense, and I’m curious to see if any OEMs will make something similar.

A nameless Cascade Lake-X 10-core, 20-thread processor has mysteriously popped up in SiSoftware's Official Live Ranker database. Judging by the configuration, this processor could be the potential candidate that will replace Intel's Core i9-9900X processor.

The Skylake-X Refresh (SKL-XR) processors are Intel's current high-performance offerings that are competing against AMD's second-generation Ryzen Threadripper processors in the HEDT (high-end desktop) market. The latest Intel client roadmap shows that the Blue Team is planning to launch its next wave of HEDT products, codenamed Cascade Lake-X (CSL-X), that will succeed the Skylake-X Refresh chips in the third quarter of this year. 

Although Cascade Lake-X will be built on the Cascade Lake processor microarchitecture, Intel will continue to produce these chips under the 14nm process node. As hinted in the leaked roadmap, the Cascade Lake-X parts will continue to slot into LGA 2066 motherboards. Nevertheless, things get a bit complicated regarding the chipset.

The speculation around the hardware community is that Intel will usher in the new Glacier Falls chipset to replace the existing Basin Falls (X299) chipset. However, the new roadmap still has the Cascade Lake-X parts under the X299 chipset, which could be a placeholder. It's possible that Intel hasn't chosen a naming convention for the Glacier Falls chipset. If you recall, AMD pulled a fast one on Intel and registered X399, so that's out of the question. It'll be interesting to see what Intel can come up with for Glacier Falls. 

The unidentified processor is equipped with 10 cores, 20 threads, and 19.25MB of L3 cache, which lines up with the Core i9-9900X's specifications. This leads us to think that this Cascade Lake-X chip is the successor to the Core i9-9900X. It apparently features a 4GHz base clock and 4.6GHz boost clock. Basically, we're looking at 14.29 percent and 2.22 percent improvements in base and boost clocks, respectively. But given the nature of the leak, the Cascade Lake-X chip could be an engineering sample, meaning the final operating clocks are likely to vary.

Tweakers.net reported last week on a leaked Intel roadmap purportedly from a Dell presentation, leading to somewhat panicked headlines that Intel would not have 10nm desktop processors until 2022.

There was one problem with that analysis, though: as we reported, the leaked roadmap covered Intel's commercial platforms, and not the client side of its business. Intel's commercial roadmap tends to trail the broader client desktop PC market (think enthusiast rigs) by roughly nine months.

Now the enterprising journalists at Tweakers.net have received Intel's client roadmap, but as with all leaks, we have to approach the information with caution. Intel's roadmaps are also known to change frequently.

This new roadmap, which extends out to 2020, doesn't have 10nm products listed, but we can clearly see the difference in the timelines that denotes a faster ramp for the Comet Lake processors for the broader market, implying that we shouldn't look too closely at the commercial roadmap (below) as an indicator that 10nm products won't arrive until 2022.

In either case, according to the new roadmap, we won't see 10nm arrive for the desktop until at least 2021. In the meantime, Comet Lake-S will land on the desktop in the fourth quarter of this year, bringing the mainstream desktop up to 10 cores fabbed on Intel's 14nm process. Cascade Lake X will arrive in the third quarter of 2019, again fabbed on the 14nm process, with up to 18 cores for the X299 chipset. This is effectively a refresh of the Skylake-X refresh for the high-end desktop.

On the server side, the roadmap has a Cascade Lake refresh listed for the first quarter of 2020, but that doesn't align with Intel's stated roadmap that has Cooper Lake on 14nm arriving in 2019 and Ice Lake following in 2020. That could mean that either Intel's plans have changed, or the roadmap is dated. 

Regardless of the roadmap, one thing is clear: AMD's 7nm processors are going to beat Intel's 10nm chips to market by a significant amount of time, setting the stage for what could be a massive upset on the desktop. We're sure to learn more about the arrival of those chips at Computex next month.

LaCie, Seagate Technology’s premium brand, has announced two new external storage products for desktop use and a rugged portable in the LaCie 2big RAID and LaCie Rugged RAID Shuttle. Both products offer an internal RAID 0/1 setup for increased speed or redundancy and USB-C USB 3.1 (Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.0 compatible) interface for faster transfer speeds. The 2big RAID is intended to be a more static fixture while the Rugged RAID Shuttle, as the name implies, is designed for the rigors of travel and its inherent abuse.

The Lacie Rugged RAID Shuttle offers the same features as the Rugged RAID Pro such as speeds up to 250 MB/s using Hardware-based RAID (0/1 supported as well as JBOD), IP54 dust and water resistance, as well as being 1.2 meter drop and shock resistant. The main differences between the Pro and Shuttle is the latter uses Seagate Secure Hardware Encryption on the drive, double the capacity (up to 8 TB, two 2.5-inch drives) and is slightly larger in size. The Shuttle does not have the include an SD card reader.

The Seagate Secure Hardware Encryption uses AES 256-bit encryption methods and is said to be transparent to the user – in other words, no performance overhead. It can be password enabled or used as normal. The chassis is a secure design Seagate says is hard to crack and open. The unit has an orange rubber surround on it to assist with that drop and shock resistance as well as being able to withstand a crushing force of a two-ton car rolling over it.

The unit is connected to the system through a USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C interface and is also compatible with USB 3.0 Type-A with an included adapter cable. The device is powered through the USB port and in most cases, even when using two 4 TB drives, power is fine. However, if the device is used with an older generation PC or small compact devices, you will need to use the optional external brick (included).

The Rugged RAID Shuttle offers a three-year warranty and Rescue Services as well as a 1-Month Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps.

The Lacie 2big RAID, on the other hand, is designed to be an external desktop solution without the rugged capabilities of the Rugged RAID Shuttle. This device supports speeds of up to 440 MB/s (RAID 0), supports RAID 0 and 1 as well as JBOD - all of which is configured through LaCie Toolkit software. For increased reliability, IronWolf Pro Enterprise-class HDDs are used. 

The 2big RAID is suggested to be used for video editing, back up, and archiving and will support capacities up to 16 TB using full-size 3.5-inch drives. Compared to the 2big Thunderbolt 2, it adds USB 3.1 Gen 2 connectivity, compatibility with Thunderbolt 3 hosts without using an adapter, and preformatted exFAT drives.

The chassis is an aluminum unibody enclosure capable of fitting two 3.5-inch HDDs and is powered by an external power supply. The 5-year warranty also includes five years of Rescue Data Recovery Services.

The 8TB LaCie Rugged RAID Shuttle will be available in May 2019 with an MSRP of $529.99. The LaCie 2big RAID is available starting April 2019 with an MSRP of $419, $529, and $739 for the 4 TB, 8 TB, and 16 TB models respectively.

Portable RAID Goodness

LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro is a fast external HDD designed for the mobile pro. The two internal 2.5” HDDs can reach speeds of 250MB/s of read/write performance in RAID 0, but the drive is also designed to take a beating and handle the weather almost anywhere you go. While it is on the pricey side, this LaCie product buys you peace of mind because the Rugged RAID Pro also includes a free data recovery service during its three-year warranty. In all, it’s a pretty unique drive with rugged protection for demanding environments.

Life as a video producer or photographer can quickly turn into the life of a data storage nut. At least that’s how I started. What once started as a simple hobby of trying to capture the moments and memories around me quickly turned into mental torture when it came to managing my data and backing up my thousands of RAW images and rather large video files. For a while, I didn’t even have a backup at all, eventually losing over 700GB of video forever due to a drive failure. If I had stored it on the LaCie Rugged RAID Pro, that story could have ended on a more positive note.

At $289.98, LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro is quite expensive, but it is a nice external storage device for the creative professional. It’s built to take a drop up to 4ft/1.2m while in non-operating mode and can handle the elements fairly well given its IP54 rating. But what really stands out is that this bright orange and silver external USB-C HDD features two internal HDDs and an onboard RAID controller for added speed as well as an integrated SD card slot.

Specifications

The device ships configured in RAID 0 and is preformatted with the exFAT filesystem with 3,726GB of user addressable space, so it is compatible with both MacOS and Windows out of the box. While it isn’t as fast as SSD storage, the RAID 0 implementation stripes the data to each drive and delivers upwards of 250MB/s of sequential read/write throughput, which is good enough for 4K video editing.

If speed isn’t as much a concern as data security, you can also configure the device to operate in RAID 1 mode instead. Basically, this setting duplicates the stored data onto both internal HDDs. This results in slower performance and just 2TB of capacity (1,863GB usable), but redundancy can be more important than speed. However, you shouldn’t use RAID 1 in place of a proper backup routine, for which you should use an entirely separate device.

Finally, you can also use both drives independently of one another by configuring the device as a JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks), and thus both internal HDDs will appear as separate volumes to the host system.

Accessories

In the box, you get LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro, a USB-C to USB-C cable, USB-C to USB-A cable, two removable port covers, a power supply with adapters, and quick install guide.

Changing RAID modes is rather simple on the Rugged RAID Pro. After you’ve installed the LaCie Toolkit (included on the drive from the factory) and installed the RAID Manager (a download) and launched it, just change the device into the RAID mode you would like. You will have to confirm the change by using a paperclip (or similar) to press a small button on the device. That helps to prevent data loss from accidental mode changes.

You can use the Toolkit to format the device, too, letting it optimize the disk format for the specific operating system you are using (it defaults to NTFS for Windows or HFS+ for MacOS). Additionally, Toolkit can be used to manage backup plans (Windows only), create mirror folders, and automate memory card imports directly to the device.

LaCie also includes a month of membership to the Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan, which enables you to use all of Adobe's Creative Cloud applications for free, a $79.49 value.

And as a final value add, the most valuable one of all I might add, is a free subscription to Seagate’s Rescue Data Recovery Services throughout the drives' three-year warranty. If a product could potentially save a customer thousands of dollars on data recovery, what could be better? Nothing says confidence in a product like that, especially to a creative pro where their data is their income.

Closer Look

The LaCie Rugged RAID Pro measures 140 x 91 x 30 mm and weighs at 0.446kg (0.981lbs.). For added drop protection and resistance to the elements, it features LaCie’s signature rugged drive orange rubber sleeve around it, which is removable. Within the sleeve is an aluminum housing with plastic end caps.

All ports and status lights are located on the same face under the removable rubber cover. There is also a built-in UHS-II SD card slot, which is a nice bonus and allows you to back up SD cards directly to the device. It works as a normal card reader as well.

The drive has two indicator lights. A large one indicates the drive is working, and a small one that, if blinking, indicates if the device needs power from the external power brick. From testing, it seems all my USB 3.1 Gen1 ports couldn’t supply enough juice to the device, but the USB 3.1 Gen 2 (specifically the Type C port, but not the Type A port) and Thunderbolt 3 ports were able to power it up without having to use the external power brick.

You can disassemble the drive with a screwdriver, but it will obviously invalidate the warranty if you break any warranty seals. After disassembly, we can see that the Rugged RAID Pro is comprised of five main pieces within the aluminum case: an internal chassis, a USB/RAID controller board, a small daughter board with three SATA data/power connectors, and two 2TB Seagate Mobile HDDs. The device uses normal SATA connectors, so there is a possibility that you could swap out the HDDs for something in the SSD flavor later on.

The device uses two ASMedia bridge chips for IO management. The ASM1156R is used for the RAID/JBOD configuration while the ASM1074 bridges the SATA drives into the USB 3.1 Gen 1 connection.

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Performance Results

Comparison Products

We configured and tested the Rugged RAID Pro in all operating modes and threw it against a few devices we have reviewed in the past. We also included a few external SSDs for comparison. Powered by Thunderbolt 3, our first three competitors are the 1TB G-Technology G-Drive mobile Pro SSD, 1TB Patriot Evlvr, and 1TB Samsung X5. We also included devices with the USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, like SanDisk’s 1TB Extreme Portable SSD and two DIY external drives that use a WD Blue SSD and HDD.

ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. It also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

Configured in RAID 0, LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro hit 250MB/s of sequential read/write throughput with ease. Configured in RAID 1, the drive hit 125MB/s. A single drive pushed out 140MB/s in JBOD mode.

CrystalDiskMark

CrystalDiskMark (CDM) is a simple and easy to use storage benchmarking tool.

By default, CDM tests sequential performance at a queue depth (QD) of 32. This presented a “problem” for the Rugged RAID Pro. It hit roughly 200MB/s in RAID 0, which is much lower than the rated 250MB/s. Once we switched over to a QD of 1, however, we saw performance reach near the rated performance once again. The JBOD mode also showed more performance than RAID 1 once more, averaging 10-15MB/s of faster sequential throughput.

We are not surprised at how low the 4K random scores are compared to flash-based SSDs–this metric isn’t an HDD’s strong suit. Even in RAID 0, 4K random performance scales up to just over 1MB/s read and 3MB/s write, which will hurt it in our following tests against SSDs.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

DiskBench is a storage benchmarking tool that allows us to test the transfer or copy performance of a storage device with real data. We test external drives with three file transfers that consist of 25GB of photos (10GB of iPhone jpgs and 15GB of RAW photos from a Canon 6D), 50GB of movies, and 25GB of documents. First, we transfer each folder from a 1TB NVMe SSD to the external device; then we follow up by reading a 3.7GB 7-zip file and a 15GB movie back from the device.

Transferring data to the Rugged RAID Pro proved rather dull compared to our SSDs, although in RAID 0 it did outpace the Kingston HyperX Savage EXO SSD by a few MB/s. Read performance also came in at similar performance levels as the write tests: 115-120MB/s for the RAID 1 and JBOD config and upwards of 200MB/s in RAID 0.

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

With total scores ranging from 2,187 to 2,294 points and average throughput of 8MB/s, LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro outperforms our HDD comparison drive but falls far behind the flash drives. Whether in RAID 0, RAID 1 or JBOD, application performance is still rather limited by the underlying rotating media. Flash shows its advantage with sub-millisecond access times and much faster 4K random performance.

Full LBA Read/Write and Temperature

Write speed and temperature are two important and inter-related metrics for external devices. We threw in one last test to measure the performance of the drive in HDTune Pro, writing to the full span of the drive. We logged the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.

As a hard disk-based drive, the LaCie drive doesn’t have any SLC NAND cache to worry about, but performance does degrade as the drive fills. You can achieve upwards of 250MB/s of sequential read/write performance on the outer tracks, but after filling the drive, performance can be as low as 107MB/s in RAID 0. In RAID 1 and JBOD, performance lands around 140MB/s read/write at best, and dips to 60MB/s at worst.

Additionally, the test environment was a cool 25C. The Rugged RAID Pro’s temperature didn’t exceed 48C while testing. This was hot to the touch but within operating spec.

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Conclusion

Are you a photographer or videographer who is constantly on the go, traveling to get your next great shot? Do you need a somewhat fast, high capacity portable storage device for your work, or are you the type that prioritizes data safety over speed? Either way, LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro could be just what you are looking for.

Built to resist the elements and the occasional accident or two, the Rugged RAID Pro is an external HDD that combines LaCie’s Rugged durability with RAID functionality. Configured in RAID 0, the Rugged RAID Pro allows video editors to edit 4K video and transfer those large video files faster than any typical external HDD. In this configuration, it achieved its rated 250MB/s read/write specs and even outpaced the Kingston HyperX Savage EXO SSD during some of our file transfer testing.

Migrating to RAID 1 enables redundancy for those who want to lean more on the safe side. This, however, comes at the cost of performance and usable capacity. Read/write speeds will be limited to ~125MB/s (at best) and you will only have half the usable space of RAID 0.

Using the drive in JBOD mode does provide a bit more performance than RAID 1, but only slightly. And then you lose out on data redundancy and are probably just better off grabbing two external 2TB (or even 4TB HDDs) instead for a fraction of the cost. But that defeats the purpose of this type of device in the first place, which is to have two drives in a single, compact and portable enclosure.

The Rugged RAID Pro is very versatile with so many configuration options and connectivity that will work with any USB-compatible system and those with the latest Thunderbolt 3 support. We just wish our non-USB-C ports could power it without the need for the external power brick, but that won’t be an issue for most users. Most newer laptops feature USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity with enough juice to power the drive, but they don’t all feature SD card slots. That makes the integrated UHS-II SD card slot especially useful and simplifies backing up content in the field.

While it is on the pricey side, LaCie’s Rugged RAID Pro isn’t too overpriced considering its market placement and the peace of mind of data redundancy. LaCie includes one month of all Adobe apps for free, a $79.49 value. More importantly, the drive comes with three years of free data recovery protection. That service can (at times) cost thousands of dollars.

If you are a creative professional in the market for an external HDD, be sure to check this drive out. There aren't many competitors: Most other HDD solutions are much larger, and flash-based SSDs don’t yet offer similarly-priced capacity, nor the same value-adds. The LaCie Rugged RAID Pro 4TB has a unique blend of features and accessories that make it easy to use and quite the versatile travel companion.

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Comparing GeForce GTX 1060 6GB And Radeon RX 480

Powerful graphics hardware gets all of the love from gamers and enthusiasts, so long as games run the way they’re supposed to. When they don’t, drivers take the blame. That’s why driver teams are the unsung heroes of the graphics card world. They swoop in and fix whatever needs fixing. Over the long run, that can lead to significantly improved performance in games that you may be playing for months or years to come.

We wanted to get a sense of how much updated drivers improve performance, so we zeroed in on a pair of popular mainstream cards: AMD’s Radeon RX 480 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB. We benchmarked each card in 11 different games, using three different driver builds that were released in a two-year time span. Nvidia's card improved the most, an average of 4.3 percent per game versus 2.3 percent for AMD. 

However, driver performance improvement varies greatly by title. In certain cases, new drivers do deliver big speed-ups. AMD registers double-digit percentage gains in Rise of the Tomb Raider, while Nvidia registers massive speed-ups in Hitman and Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. In other games, fresh drivers don’t make much of a difference at all. Then there are the games that actually slow down a bit in favor of a more fluid experience. It sounds counterintuitive, but our frame rate and frame time charts below will illustrate those changes.

Why’d we choose the cards we did for this experiment? As it happens, the Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 1060 6GB were both introduced about two years ago (just 20 days apart, in fact). They both targeted the same gamers playing at 1920x1080, and they’re about as mature as graphics cards get while still being actively manufactured and sold.

We aren’t stopping with this performance comparison, either. AMD recently commissioned a study that showed its drivers are more stable than Nvidia’s. We’re working on a methodology for replicating those results, and plan to publish our own findings as a follow-up. If you have any ideas or suggestions of your own, feel free to share in the comments section!

How We Tested AMD and Nvidia Drivers

The hardware used to compare driver versions is consistent with our last several graphics card reviews--like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 3GB. We start with an MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard hosting a Core i7-7700K CPU. The platform is complemented by G.Skill’s F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ memory kit. Crucial’s MX200 SSD remains, as does a Corsair H110i cooler and be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W power supply.

Upon this foundation we installed Windows 10 Pro version 1803, with all available patches applied. The operating system’s ability to download and update device drivers is explicitly disabled by opening up System Properties, tabbing over to Hardware, clicking the Device Installation Settings button, and choosing “No (your device might not work as expected).”

Next, we downloaded three driver versions for each of the cards we planned to test: the launch build, a driver from roughly one year ago, and the most recent update available from each vendor’s website. Nowadays, AMD and Nvidia do a good job of ensuring remnants from their drivers are completely removed when an uninstall routine is run. However, we followed each driver swap with a round of Wagnardsoft’s Display Driver Uninstaller to be sure.

Because the differences between driver builds can be tiny, we took care to maintain an ambient temperature close to 26°C and collect our benchmark results on warmed-up cards. Most of the games we tested were supported by the latest version of the open-source OCAT overlay tool. For those that weren’t, we gathered data with a custom front-end for PresentMon.

Here's the list of the games we'll be testing on the following pages, along with the relevant settings:

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Battlefield 3 (2011, DX11)

Introduced five years before either AMD’s Radeon RX 480 or Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, Battlefield 3 was an afterthought by the time we wrote our reviews of both cards in 2016. Back then, even Battlefield 4 was hardly relevant. As such, we don’t expect either AMD or Nvidia put much effort into optimizing for this game, and it’s even less likely that the company revisited it since.

AMD’s Radeon 16.6.2 driver handled Battlefield 3 well right out of the gate, serving up low frame time variance and high frame rates at 1920x1080 using the Ultra graphics preset.

Interestingly, the Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2 driver package, published a year later, tightened frame time variance overall, but introduced some spikes that hurt the last percentile of our measurements.

Fast-forward another year and Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 smoothed everything back out again, nudging average performance up just a bit. That’s a 1.8% improvement over two years in a game that everyone forgot about.

Microsoft’s DirectX 11 API afforded Nvidia plenty of opportunity to optimize its drivers for better performance, and it was no surprise when GeForce cards turned in higher frame rates than comparable Radeons in DX11-based games.

In Battlefield 3, the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB started faster than Radeon RX 480 and sped up an additional 2.7% over the next two years (even though we suspect Nvidia didn’t spend much time, if any, tuning for this title specifically).

Today, Nvidia’s card is about 12% faster than AMD’s in Battlefield 3 at 1920x1080 using Ultra settings. Of course, that only matters if you want to play the campaign: EA’s multiplayer servers are now offline. Still, a trip back to 2011 gives us a historical baseline to compare newer games against.

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Battlefield 4 (2013, DX11)

The newer Battlefield 4 was one of the games we used in our Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 1060 6GB reviews. Even though it was three years old by the time both cards launched, the DX11-based title still featured prominently in our test suite, making it a probable target for optimization.

The Radeon RX 480’s initial 73.7 FPS average rose to 76.4 FPS with Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2, before settling at 75.5 FPS in the latest Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 build. From introduction to two years later, that’s a 2.4% speed-up.

Frame time variance in Battlefield 4 is a little higher than its predecessor. But AMD’s Radeon RX 480 achieves similar 99^th percentile frame rates across the board, improving slightly in the latest driver builds.

Nvidia was already getting the Pascal architecture’s maximum performance in Battlefield 4 when GeForce GTX 1060 6GB launched. The card’s average frame rate increased by one-tenth of a percent over two years.

The GeForce’s frame times are much lower than the Radeon’s, which is, mathematically, where the higher frame rates come from. However, Nvidia’s variance is also lower, evident in the thinner line across our frame time over benchmark chart. This corresponds to an overall smoother experience.

Although Nvidia wasn’t able to improve the 1060 6GB’s performance in Battlefield 4 from launch, a 95.6 FPS average with its newest 398.36 driver represents a 26.6% advantage over the Radeon RX 480 at 1920x1080 using the Ultra preset.

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Metro: Last Light Redux (2014, DX11)

Technically, Metro: Last Light was introduced in 2013. But the Redux version we’re testing today came out a year later. Its built-in and highly configurable benchmarking tool makes Metro popular for generating repeatable data. Case in point: tests run two years apart on entirely different platforms fall within 1 FPS of each other thanks to a heavy dependence on graphics performance.

Based on our average frame rate results, the Radeon RX 480’s profile did change over time in Metro, improving 1% from 16.6.2 to 18.7.1.

Those 99^th percentile numbers are far more interesting, though. Breaking frame rate down by percentile also shows that the slowest five percent of frames are quite different from one driver build to another. AMD’s newest package isn’t even the best. As we saw in the Battlefield games, last year’s 17.7.2 version offered the best performance. But 17.7.2 and 18.7.1 are both dramatic improvements over 16.6.2.

Need proof? Check out the frame times across our test sequence. All of those red spikes correspond to frames that take tens of milliseconds longer to display than the thicker trendline down below. The resulting animation appears less smooth. Fortunately, AMD addressed the issue through its drivers. The 17.7.2 line, in black, suffers the least amount of variance, while 18.7.1 isn’t quite as tight.

Flip right over to Nvidia’s frame time chart and observe the difference. Three thick trend lines convey fluid animation. A handful of spikes from the 385.28 build stand out, but only because the other two versions demonstrate ideal behavior.

Back to GeForce GTX 1060’s average frame rate, there's a mere 0.7% improvement from 368.95 to 398.36, and no real drama to speak of in the slowest 1% of frames.

Despite minimal improvement over time, Nvidia’s card still ends up 14% faster than the Radeon in Metro: Last Light Redux at 1920x1080 using the Very High preset.

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Grand Theft Auto V (2015, DX11)

Originally released to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, Grand Theft Auto V didn’t make its way to PC until early 2015. We promptly added it to our graphics testing suite, giving us one more DirectX 11-based comparison point.

AMD clearly improved the performance of its Radeon RX 480 in Grand Theft Auto V after launch. The Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2 and Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 builds yield quantifiably higher average frame rates compared to 16.6.2. In the end, two years of driver work translate to a ~4% speed-up.

In comparison, Nvidia only coaxed 1.4% more performance from GeForce GTX 1060 6GB’s Pascal architecture between 2016 and 2018. That’s alright, though. Its aggressively-optimized driver helps the 1060 6GB outperform Radeon RX 480 8GB by more than 30% at the same resolution and quality settings in our benchmark sequence.

Beyond average frame rates, a comparison of frame time charts shows all three Nvidia software packages facilitating less frame time variance than what the Radeon demonstrates. Again, the implication is a qualitatively smoother experience.

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The Witcher 3 (2015, DX11)

When our team picks games to test, we naturally gravitate toward popular titles relevant to our readers. However, we also try to mix in dissimilar genres, diverse API support, games that promote repeatability, and a variety of underlying game engines.

The Witcher 3 utilizes CD Projekt Red’s REDengine 3. Although its renderer supports DirectX 11 and is loaded with Nvidia GameWorks effects, AMD and Nvidia hardware are more evenly matched in this game.

Small, steady gains give AMD’s Radeon RX 480 a 3% speed-up in today’s The Witcher 3 frame rates compared to June 2016.

The oldest and newest driver builds exhibit the greatest number of frame time spikes, though. This is evident in our frames per second by percentile chart, which shows the slowest 1% of frames falling off more slowly with Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2. A 99^th percentile frame rate of 52.3 is almost 3% better than 16.6.2’s 50.8 FPS result.

Next to no improvement over two years in The Witcher 3 suggests that Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB was already well-optimized for this game when it launched.

Although average frame rates suggest a lack of variation from driver to driver, the latest 398.36 build suffers a worse 99^th percentile frame rate than its predecessors. A peek at the FPS by percentile chart even shows how the slowest 5% of frames drop off faster.

In our launch coverage, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB led Radeon RX 480 8GB by about 5%. Today, the competing mid-range cards appear evenly matched, with AMD serving up a superior 99^th percentile frame rate using the latest drivers from both companies.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016, DX12)

The Windows-based version of Rise of the Tomb Raider launched two months after the build for Xbox. A patch with DirectX 12 support followed not long after, although the API’s benefit wasn’t immediately apparent. As a result, we first tested AMD’s Radeon RX 480 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 using DirectX 11. Now there’s even a version with Vulkan support, giving macOS and Linux gamers a taste of the action.

The Radeon RX 480 suffered notoriously bad performance in Rise of the Tomb Raider when it launched. This changed with the 16.7.3 build, which included the following line in its patch notes: “Rise of the Tomb Raider performance increase up to 10% versus Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.7.2 on Radeon RX 480 graphics.”

Comparing 16.6.2 to 18.7.1 shows us that Radeon RX 480 is more than 13% faster today than it was back in 2016.

Meanwhile, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB’s average frame rate increased by almost 4%, while its 99^th percentile frame rate dropped by ~9%. Notice also that Nvidia’s frame time results look a lot less smooth than AMD’s.

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Hitman (2016, DX12)

After our look at Rise of the Tomb Raider’s Foundation engine and Hitman’s Glacier engine, we’re up to six distinct renderers.

As with RotTR, we added Hitman to our benchmark suite as a DirectX 11-based test. But after two years of patches (and the addition of features like HDR), the game is plenty stable in DirectX 12 mode.

Hitman was part of AMD’s Gaming Evolved initiative. The company worked with IO Interactive to build in support for Eyefinity multi-display configurations, widescreen resolutions, super-sampling anti-aliasing, and asynchronous compute. Perhaps that’s why the Radeon RX 480 started strong in 2016 and gained very little over the years—one quarter of a percentage point, by our calculations.

All three of the driver builds we tested track very closely in an accounting of frames per second by percentile.

A look at frame time over the benchmark run shows why the slowest 1% of frames are so slow: frame time spikes throughout our 100-second sequence imply severe stuttering issues. However, experience and qualitative observation tell us that many of those peaks are attributable to scene changes in Hitman’s integrated benchmark.

The GeForce GTX 1060 6GB’s frame time results are similar to AMD’s, corroborating our hypothesis that those ugly spikes are inherent to the test sequence and not a two-year-old bug suffered by both GPU vendors.

Nvidia overcomes initially poor performance, speeding up more than 15% across two years of driver updates. That’s not enough to usurp the Radeon’s advantage, though. AMD maintains a 4% lead at 1920x1080 using Hitman’s highest detail settings under DirectX 12.

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Tom Clancy’s The Division (2016, DX12)

When the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and Radeon RX 480 launched mid-2016, Tom Clancy’s The Division was only a couple of months old. The game initially surfaced with support for DirectX 11 through its Snowdrop engine, and that’s what we tested it under at the time.

Later in the year, a patch enabled preliminary DirectX 12 support. AMD’s cards gained a bit of performance, while Nvidia’s didn’t fare as well.

Today, the Radeon RX 480 is about six percent faster than it was in The Division under DirectX 11. But strangely, the 18.7.1 driver is a couple of percent slower with DirectX 12 than build 16.6.2, which was available before this game even acquired a DX12 renderer.

Measured frame times during the benchmark run are messy-looking. But they’re not as bad as the results from Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

The GeForce inched past AMD’s Radeon RX 480 in our launch coverage two years ago under DirectX 11. And it’s even faster under DirectX 12 using Nvidia’s 398.36 driver.

However, while the 1060 6GB sped up by more than 6% from 368.95 to 398.36, and the Radeon RX 480 lost performance between AMD’s 16.6.2 and 18.7.1 drivers, the GeForce still lands behind the Radeon at 1920x1080 under DirectX 12.

The 1060 6GB’s struggles appear related to big frame time spikes that affect smoothness. Our FPS by percentile chart shows Nvidia’s performance dropping off much faster beyond the 90^th percentile compared to AMD’s.

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Battlefield 1 (2016, DX12)

Battlefield 1’s October 2016 introduction takes us to the point where we’re testing games that weren’t around when GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and Radeon RX 480 launched. The game reminds us of this by detecting Nvidia’s 368.95 driver and asking for an update to 384.94 or newer. Strangely, AMD’s similarly-old 16.6.2 build didn’t trigger the same error.

Regardless, this third Battlefield entry in today’s experiment is still based on the mature Frostbite game engine, so it’s no surprise to see both GPU vendors serving up smooth performance across two years of driver updates.

Although it’s disappointing to see the Radeon RX 480’s average frame rate decline year after year, there’s a positive story hiding deep within the data.

First, tab over to frame time chart. The two oldest driver versions—16.6.2 and 17.7.2—demonstrate big frame time spikes at similar points through our test sequence. AMD cards are especially notorious for stuttering when we start recording performance. This behavior largely ceases in 18.7.1. In fact, a lot of the frame time spikes shared between prior drivers disappear entirely with the latest one. The outcome is clear in our FPS by percentile breakdown: Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 yields a smoother experience in the slowest 1% of frames, despite registering a lower average frame rate.

Again, Battlefield 1 wouldn’t start with 368.95 installed, so we only have two data points to share. Performance definitely improves from 385.28 to 398.36, though. As with the Radeon, a lot of frame time spikes that plagued GeForce GTX 1060 6GB one year ago disappear using Nvidia’s newest driver. Consequently, the slowest 1% of frames in our test sequence are much smoother than they were previously.

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Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (2016, DX12)

Technically, Ashes of the Singularity was released early in 2016, allowing us to benchmark it in DirectX 12 mode for our Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 1060 6GB reviews. The Escalation update followed in November of 2016, and that’s the version we test today.

AMD’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture is better-utilized in DirectX 12-based games than it was under DirectX 11. As a result, GCN is widely considered superior to Pascal in the newest games.

But whereas our benchmark results using AMD's 16.6.2 driver are consistent from 2016 to 2018, the Radeon’s average frame rate under Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 is surprisingly lower.

As we saw in Battlefield 1, the 18.7.1 driver appears to sacrifice some peak performance in favor of less frame time variance. The result is a better 99^th percentile frame rate and minimal drop-off in the slowest 1% of frames.

GeForce GTX 1060 6GB began its life trailing the Radeon in Ashes of the Singularity. Subsequent game patches and driver updates improved the mainstream card’s position though, and now it’s faster than the RX 480. Even more impressive, Nvidia bettered the 1060 6GB’s 99^th percentile frame rate without compromising peak performance.

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (2017, DX11)

Given its March 2017 release date, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands was still a twinkle in Ubisoft’s eye--or at least was still in development--when GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and Radeon RX 480 were introduced.

The game ran fine under AMD’s 16.6.2 driver, published more than eight months prior to Ghost Recon’s launch. However, it’s clear that AMD made some improvements once its software team had the game in hand. Over two years, the Radeon RX 480’s average frame rate sped up 9.6%.

Moreover, the card’s 99^th percentile frame rate jumped almost 20%. Big spikes from the 16.6.2 driver in our frame time chart give way to the black and blue lines, which reflect tight frame time variance and an utter lack of micro-stutter.

The GeForce GTX 1060 6GB’s performance doesn’t really change in Ghost Recon, even though Nvidia’s 368.95 driver preceded the game by eight months. Maybe the company’s cooperation with Ubisoft to get GameWorks effects into this title allowed it to optimize ahead of launch.

Regardless of its static performance, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB maintains a small advantage over the Radeon RX 480, despite that card’s substantial speed-up.

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Conclusion

By now, AMD’s Radeon RX 480 and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB are both very mature. The pair of cards gives us a rare opportunity to compare products designed to compete against each other and introduced mere weeks apart.

Although we benchmarked three driver builds from each company, allowing us to capture performance snapshots at launch, after a year of improvements, and under today’s newest builds, we’re most interested in pitting each card’s original behavior against their profiles now. We don’t want to reach too far in our attempt to derive meaning from the data, but certain trends are fairly obvious.

In older DirectX 11-based games, Nvidia’s advantage over AMD is huge. Even today, the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB is 12% faster than the Radeon RX 480 in Battlefield 3, 26% faster in Battlefield 4, 14% faster in Metro: Last Light Redux, and 30% faster in Grand Theft Auto V. The margins of victory shrink in newer DirectX 11-based games, and go the other direction in a couple of DirectX 12 titles, favoring AMD’s architecture.

Of the 11 titles we tested, seven see the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and Radeon RX 480 separated by single-digit percentages in our average frame rate results. It’s no wonder that AMD saw fit to re-release an overclocked RX 480 as Radeon RX 580 just 10 months after the 480’s debut. As cryptocurrency prices stagnate, AMD fans can even find the newer RX 580 for about $20 less than GeForce GTX 1060 6GB.

As for speed-ups specifically attributable to drivers, they’re not as common (or as pronounced) as some enthusiasts might hope. AMD can boast of its gains in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Initially, the Radeon RX 480 didn’t do particularly well in this game. But driver version 16.7.3 included some big fixes that AMD called out in its patch notes. Today, Adrenalin Edition 18.7.1 arms the card with 13%-higher frame rates than the RX 480 at launch.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a win for AMD too, but mostly because the Radeon’s launch driver preceded Ghost Recon by eight months. Once AMD’s driver team started optimizing for the game, it boosted average frame rates by almost 10%. But in Tom Clancy’s The Division, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, and Battlefield 1, the Radeon RX 480’s performance is actually lower today than it was at launch by a few percentage points. But to be fair, AMD’s newest drivers do even out a lot of frame time spikes we measured from earlier builds in those titles.

Nvidia’s most pronounced optimizations happened in Hitman and Ashes of the Singularity. In the former, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB got a 15% boost last year that carries over to the newest 398.36 driver. In Ashes, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB enjoys 13%-higher performance today compared to two years ago. Otherwise, gains range from one-tenth of a percent to about six percent. In Tom Clancy’s The Division, the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB even loses one-tenth of a percent compared to Nvidia’s launch driver.

Bottom Line

As expected, new video drivers increase frame rates in most titles, but the differences are often subtle. AMD averages a 2.3% speed-up across our benchmark suite, while Nvidia averages 4.3%. In some games, you will see noticeable improvements, with frame rate boosts as high as 15%. But in others, the change is so modest that you might not notice it. It's unlikely that a driver update will make a game that was formerly sluggish or unplayable suddenly run well on the same hardware.

Which graphics card comes out ahead in this experiment? Whether you count the overall improvement from 2016 to 2018 or tally the total number of average frame rate wins, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 6GB bags the greatest number of victories. That's why AMD followed up its Radeon RX 480 with the RX 580 less than a year later.

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Features & Specifications

Thunderbolt 3 provides the fattest data pipe for direct-attached storage devices. The 40Gb/s connection is just as economical as it is fast, but adoption in commodity PCs has been slow. That will change in 2018 as prices drop. Today, we look at the Areca ARC-8050T3 series, which is the fastest Thunderbolt 3 storage device to date.

Areca's products are enterprise and professional-focused, but unlike others in this market, the company doesn't shy away from performance enthusiasts. For the last decade, the company has been known as the go-to source for high-speed storage technology that enthusiasts often use to set competitive benchmark records. Areca's customizable RAID controller programming and the potential for massive chunks of onboard memory are the secret brew. You can test an older LSI hardware RAID card against the same LSI ROC (RAID-On-Chip) found on the Areca equivalent, and the latter will give you more throughput and lower latency every time. To spell it out, the third-party company has outperformed the in-house brand repeatedly, but at a lower price point. That's what this company is about, and today we'll see it play out again.

We recently published a review of the LaCie 12big. In our review, we talked about the limited competition in the Thunderbolt storage space. The 12big and the smaller 6big target professional users, but they use chip technology borrowed from consumer storage. LaCie has invested a lot in Thunderbolt 3 products, but we could only find older LaCie Thunderbolt 2 storage systems for comparison. That's when we found the Areca ARC-8050T3 series that comes with a varying number of drive bays, including a 12-bay model that is a direct competitor to the LaCie 12big. Unlike its competitors, the Areca model uses enterprise-class RAID controller technology. 

Specifications

Areca released the ARC-8050T3 series with five models that offer varying size and capacity options. The 4-bay model is the only system to use a single-core ROC that supports 6Gb/s SATA and SAS. Areca backs the 800MHz processor with a 1GB DDR3-800 cache. This system is also the only one in the group without a display, but it's also the most economical.

Areca also offers two six-bay models with nearly identical specifications. The ARC-8050T3-6M has a handle, which makes it travel-worthy. We assume the "M" stands for mobile. This is the only system we were not able to find for sale in the US. The non-M version has a different case design. The six-bay models also have expansion capabilities via an SFF-8644 two-lane connection on the back. These devices use the same 1.2GHz dual-core processor that comes in all models but the four-bay unit. Electrically, the ROC supports 12Gbps SAS, but it is also backward compatible with 6Gbps SAS and SATA. Areca backs the ROC with 2GB of DDR3-1866 memory.

The ARC-8050T3-8 is essentially a spruced up -6. The system is a little taller, but the two lanes used for external expansion on the -6 model instead route inside the unit to the eight-drive backplane. This system also adds a second HDD cooling fan running at a lazy 2,700-RPM.

We're testing the flagship model with twelve drive bays, a dual-core 1.2GHz ROC, and 2GB of DDR3-1866. The specifications read like a RAID controller because that's the technology in the box. Areca uses a powerful LSI (now part of Avago) hardware RAID processor to deliver very high performance. The processor can address sixteen channels. Twelve are internal, and four connect to expansion devices via an SFF-8644 cable.

Areca doesn't list performance claims for these products because it depends on the storage devices. This series is sold diskless, but B&H Photo and PC Pit Stop have preloaded systems available, so you don't have to piece a system together.

Features

Except for the four-bay model, all the ARC-8050T3 systems support RAID 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60, single disk and JBOD. The smallest system in this lineup doesn't support RAID 30, 50, or 60 because it doesn't have enough drive bays to support the advanced arrays.

The larger systems support hardware-level encryption without impacting performance. You can use self-encrypting drives (SED) with all of the ARC-8050T3 systems.

Pricing & Warranty

The ARC-8050T3 systems sell as standalone components. Some companies will bundle drives and others will even configure the system with the drive installed. The reseller handles those value-add configurations. The enclosures are normally sold diskless. Prices range from $999 for the four-bay and scale to $2,299 for the 12-bay model we're testing. Areca backs the ARC-8050T3 series with a standard three-year warranty.

Accessories

Areca keeps it all very simple. Inside the package, we found an easy to follow paper installation guide to walk us through the installation process. The system ships with screws for installing drives into the sleds, a long active Thunderbolt cable with Type-C connectors on each end, a power cable, and an Ethernet cable.

Areca makes, but does not include, a battery backup module. This is an optional purchase and allows the DRAM cache to retain data in the event of a power failure. The -4 and -6M models do not support this feature.

Software

You need to load the custom Thunderbolt 3 driver before you use the software or even plug in the ARC-8050T3. We made the mistake of plugging the system in first and then spending an hour trying to set up the device. The installation process takes less than three minutes if you install the driver first.

The management software is nearly identical to Areca's RAID controller software. The settings will seem overwhelming at first if you are not accustomed to this level of control. There are two ways to approach the software. You can dive into every setting and build a custom array, or you can simply use the Quick Create button and select from the eight options. The default setting is already configured and will get you up and running. The default settings will change when you select a different RAID level, so there is already some optimization built in.

The full custom experience is one reason why Areca's RAID controllers spent time at the top of the world record rankings for storage-based benchmarks. Enthusiasts can spend hours in the software to get the maximum performance. I've spent several late nights experimenting in the interface to squeeze out a few extra PCMark points.

Packaging

Areca keeps the packaging simple. All of these devices will sell online, so there is very little concern for shelf appeal. The system ships in a dense cardboard box with a full-color box inside. The inner box does have a picture and some specifications, but I would be surprised to see these in a brick and mortar store.

A Closer Look

We have the flagship model in the lab for testing. Areca calls this a desktop form-factor. The drives install in two rows, so the system is half the height of the LaCie 12big, but it only takes up a little more desk space. You can control the array with the buttons and display. You can use it to set the system up without even installing the software. A password keeps others from tampering with your array.

The system supports 12Gb/s SAS HDDs, which you won’t find on the LaCie Thunderbolt products. The sleds support 2.5" and 3.5" drives in both SAS and SATA flavors, so you have several options. It's possible to split the system into several arrays, too.

The business end of the system is on the back side. There are two large fans that cool the drives. A small fan cools the power supply, and a midsize fan keeps the electronics happy. We ran this system on a desk and didn't have any issues with noise. The system dynamically adjusts the fan speed based on internal temperatures.

The two Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports are the primary connectors. You can daisy chain Thunderbolt 3 devices together. The interface also carries a video signal. 

If twelve bays are not enough, you can also expand the system by connecting a JBOD box. The Areca software allows you to build a separate array or integrate the drives into your internal RAID. You can also daisy-chain more Areca ARC-8050T3 systems through Thunderbolt 3 and use one interface to control everything.

The systems have an advanced auto-power feature that is based on the host system's power status. This allows you to build one large RAID array that spans your other ARC-8050T3 systems.

The Ethernet port may be confusing for inexperienced users. This port allows you to run the Areca software remotely from another system (out-of-band management).

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Performance Testing & Final Thoughts

Comparison Products

Today we're testing the LaCie 12big, 8big, and 5big Thunderbolt direct-attached storage systems against the 12-bay Areca ARC-8050T3.

Testing Notes

To keep the tests fair, we pulled the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 v5 8GB drives from the 12big and used them in the Areca ARC-8050T3-12. We ran the 8050T3-12 in RAID 0, 10, 5 and 6. We also carried over the RAID 5 and 6 results from the 12big. We tested the 5big in RAID 5 and the 8big in RAID 6.

Sequential Read Performance

The internal RAID algorithms for the Areca and the LaCie systems are completely different. That becomes clear in the first test with a QD1 128KB read across the addressable user space. The LSI controller in the Areca comes from the enterprise side of the market. It's older technology, but the ROC is much quicker than LaCie's consumer technology that it brought up to serve the prosumer market.

The 128KB sequential read test shows us why the Areca is so much faster. At QD1, the Areca is 1,000 MB/s faster than the nearest LaCie. The Areca reaches full speed at QD2, but the 12big doesn't start to level off until QD8.

Sequential Write Performance

The ARC-8050T3-12's large 2GB DRAM cache and high clock speed fuels higher sequential write performance. We see a steep performance decline in RAID 10 as we write across the full LBA range, but 0, 5, and 6 hold steady.

The Areca offers twice as much performance with 64KB blocks than the LaCie. The 12big starts to come alive with 512KB blocks and performs better as we scale to larger data. The Areca muscles its way through all block sizes.

Random Read Performance

The ARC-8050T3-12 takes the lead in the random read test as we scale from 4KB to 32KB at QD1. The 12big in RAID 5 and 6 is competitive with the Areca in the 4KB and 8KB read tests. This will become more important later in the review when we move to real-world applications and directory transfers.

Random Write Performance

The Areca delivers the best performance in RAID 0. RAID 10 performance drops drastically, but RAID 5 and RAID 6 are even lower. All of the ARC-8050T3's RAID modes outperform the three LaCie products running RAID 5 and 6.

Sequential Mixed Workload Performance

For professional users, the 100% read and write tests are nice, but most work happens in mixed workloads where the data flows both ways. 70% sequential reads have long been considered the ideal test for audio, video, and photo production work. Areca's enterprise technology allows it to excel in these workloads.

Random Mixed Workload Performance

None of these systems were designed specifically for heavy workloads. Some users do run these systems attached to powerful host systems that with multiple virtual machines. Microsoft's Hyper-V is 4KB heavy, but VMware's technology favors 8KB blocks. We run both 4KB and 8KB tests with a focus on 70% reads for virtual machine users.

Real-World File Transfer Performance

This series of tests originates with our portable storage product reviews, but it's an excellent way to test moving real data from a host PC to an external device. The data comes from a high-performance NVMe SSD (Intel SSD 750 800GB) that is fast enough to saturate the device under test in sequential, random, and mixed workloads.

We tested with the Avatar (2D + 3D Edition) Blu-ray for the ISO transfer. We used rFactor from the post-installation directory (C:/Program Files) for the Game directory transfer. The Directory Test is a 15.2GB block of data that comes from a daily-use notebook. It contains a mix of images, software installations, ISO files, and multimedia that yields a nice real-world workload.

The Areca handles large sequential transfers much better than the 12big. That changes when we move to smaller blocks in the game directory test. We can tune the Areca for increased small-block performance, but we could also tune the LaCie systems to perform better as well.

The LaCie 12big outperforms the Areca in RAID 0 and 10 when we mix large and small blocks in the directory test. The 12big takes a much larger performance hit when we focus on the RAID 5 and 6 results. The Areca doesn't suffer as much of a performance penalty in arrays with redundant data. 

PCMark 8 Storage Benchmark

In this series of tests, we run applications workloads on the external storage devices. These are real-world mixed workloads with professional applications in the PCMark 8 storage suite including Photoshop, After Effects, InDesign, and Illustrator.

The Areca ARC-8050T3-12 has the strongest performance in the professional applications. There is very little deviation between the time to completion between the different arrays. The LaCie systems are also fast, but there is a clear gap between the systems in redundant arrays.

Total Storage Bandwidth

The ARC-8050T3-12 is the clear performance leader, but not all of the results are what we expected. RAID 5 and 6 delivered higher throughput than RAID 10. We expected RAID 10 to fall just below RAID 0.

Final Thoughts

Areca is known to deliver high-performance products at a low price, but "low price" is a relative term when we're talking about enterprise and prosumer computer hardware. The company's products are more value-focused than many of its competitors. Areca doesn't do a lot of advertising, but it has a strong enthusiast following that stems from delivering some of the highest-performing RAID products on the market. Serious prosumer users are not enthusiasts, though. To professionals, these products are tools rather than fun technology to fiddle with for fun and benchmark glory.

The Areca ARC-8050T3-12 is a clear performance leader. I would expect similar performance from the 6- and 8-bay models. They share the same RAID-On-Chip technology from LSI but have a reduced number of internal drive bays. The systems have features we don't see in competing products, such as a front-facing display screen and expansion capabilities that flow data back to the internal RAID controller.

The ARC-8050T3's large cache helps accelerate write performance in redundant arrays. In our testing, we only observed a small performance penalty in RAID 5 and 6. Other products have more trouble sustaining write speeds with parity arrays. LSI, now part of Avago, spent several years at the forefront of RAID technology. While LSI was widely considered the leader, only a few knew that Areca was doing it better with the same silicon.

The ARC-8050T3-12 sells for $2,299 and the LaCie 12big sells for $7,899. LaCie ships the 12big with twelve 8TB drives for a total of 96TB. Our system included Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 v5 drives that sell for $254 on Amazon. Adding the same drives to the Areca raises the cost to $5,347, or $2,552 less than the LaCie 12big.

After looking at the performance results in our tests, it's easy to figure out which system delivers the better value and performance.

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Features & Specifications

LaCie's new 12big Thunderbolt 3 breaks the direct attached storage mold. The 12big houses up to 12 drives, making it the largest storage tower we've ever tested. The Thunderbolt 3 interface provides twice the raw performance of Thunderbolt 2, and combined with the 12-drive capacity, this tower gives professional users the capacity and throughput to work with 4K, 5K, and even 6K video in real time. 

The LaCie 12big is 17.6 inches tall, but it looks much larger in pictures. You can tell this new pedestal tower is big, but its size becomes more apparent when you place it next to a computer monitor. LaCie also claims the tower can deliver 2,600 MB/s of throughput, so it might bring big performance to match the large footprint.

Intel developed Thunderbolt technology, but Apple brought it to market first. The broader PC market adopted the interface later. Apple brought Thunderbolt 3 (TB3), the latest and fastest iteration of the technology, to market in three MacBook Pro models. The laptops feature TB3 ports and not a single USB port (although TB3 also merged with USB 3.1 with the Type-C interface). Apple also built a $30 bi-directional TB3-to-TB2 adapter that allows older devices or host systems to communicate with the newer interface.

Thunderbolt technology is not new or particularly rare on the PC. Most motherboard manufacturers already have add-in cards or integrated onboard connectivity. The interface lets you run large storage systems at high speeds, but it originated with Intel-proprietary chips. Intel recently announced that it is giving away the IP so third parties can build less-expensive device-side controllers that are more power efficient. Intel will also bring Thunderbolt technology to the CPU die in future desktop processors. That will make Thunderbolt as common as the USB interface.

Until then, high component costs will limit TB3 technology to creative professionals. In recent years, systems like the HP Z800 workstation have pried market share away from Apple in the prosumer/creative space. HP systems are usually more powerful than Apple's, and cross-platform software allows you to run the same applications on both operating systems.

Creative professionals, such as YouTubers, filmmakers, and post-production specialists, are among LaCie's target audience. These groups are a growing demographic. For instance, YouTube viewership is through the roof as the number of so-called "cord cutters" just hit an all-time high last quarter.

Specifications

The 12big currently ships pre-loaded with drives at four capacity points. LaCie may increase the capacity range now that Seagate has new 12TB drives available. Many of LaCie's 12big systems shipped with Seagate Enterprise NAS HDDs, but those drives were retired and replaced by the IronWolf Pro from the Guardian Series HDDs. Our 72TB system shipped with twelve 6TB Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD V5 drives (review here).

The 12big's performance appears to be limited by processing power rather than disk performance. All four capacities come with the same specifications; up to 2,600/1,700 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput with Thunderbolt 3 and a RAID 0 array configuration. LaCie lists the RAID 5 specifications at 2,400/1,200 MB/s read/write. The system also supports USB 3.x, but the interface reduces performance to 400 MB/s of sequential read/write performance with RAID 0. That drops further to 350 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput over the USB interface with a RAID 5 array.

Features

The LaCie 12big comes packing many features that transform it into a smart storage device. An onboard RAID controller powers the system and provides several user-adjustable settings and modes. That allows you to dial in the best performance for your workload.

Nested RAID options like RAID 50 and RAID 60 aren't possible unless you have a large number of drives. The 12big supports powerful nested arrays, but most of us will use traditional RAID levels to maximize performance and capacity. The most popular options will be RAID 0, 5, 6, or 10. You don't have to use all twelve bays in a single array, either. It's possible to build a RAID 0 array to access data at very high speeds and then an additional RAID 5 or RAID 6 array for long-term storage. The 12big is also the only shipping Thunderbolt 3 system with USB capabilities and RAID 5.

Thunderbolt 3 is one of the best data interfaces ever released. The PCI Express 3.0 x4 control chips support 32Gbps of bandwidth and can carry both the display output and other traffic through the same cable. Combined, Thunderbolt 3 delivers 40Gbps bandwidth. The 12big features two Thunderbolt 3 ports for easy daisy chaining with other devices. It also features a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port that you can daisy chain with the Thunderbolt string. You can also use it to connect to a host system, but it is slower than Thunderbolt.

Pricing & Warranty

High capacity HDDs are not cheap, especially when you magnify the expense by twelve. The LaCie 12big starts out at $4,999 for 48TB (12x 4TB). That leaps to 72TB (12x 6TB) and moves the needle to $6,699, which one of the biggest price increases in the series. There is also a $1,700 increase to the $8,399 96TB (12x 8TB) model. Spending $10,000 nets you 120TB (12x 10TB) capacity.

All 12big systems carry a standard five-year warranty.

Accessories

The system ships with six different power cords so your ready no matter where you are in the world. It's a large system, but I've seen videographers boast about taking their 12big and 6big Thunderbolt 3 systems to every shoot. Now I understand why LaCie and third-party companies sell Pelican cases with custom form-fitting cushion inserts.

LaCie includes a single Thunderbolt 3 active cable with two Type-C connectors. The company also includes a USB passive cable with two Type-C connectors. The third cable is USB Type-C to Type-A so you can connect to legacy host systems.

Software

LaCie includes four applications plus a Thunderbolt driver. You will have to download the software from the LaCie 12big support page, but that ensures you get the latest revision. The suite includes two Backup Manager Pro applications (Genie and Intego). For the security conscious, LaCie's Public Private software supports AES 256-bit encryption.

The company also recently updated the RAID Manager software. This is the interface you use to configure your array (it ships in RAID 5), change the settings, set up notifications, and more. It's a comprehensive interface with powerful features. 

Packaging

Given its size and cost, LaCie will sell most 12big systems through online retailers. The company put together an attractive package for brick-and-mortar stores anyway. The front of the package has a drawing of the system and a list of specifications.

LaCie pre-installs the drives and wraps the 12big in a plastic bag. LaCie packaged the system very well. The design is like the packaging used with many large flat-panel TVs. The carton is built around an inner structure designed to keep the system secure.

A Closer Look

The system looks great on your desk. You can tell it's a quality build and the system has a nice texture. We thought it was made entirely of aluminum, but we found plastic under the textured covering on the drive bays.

The famous signature LaCie blue orb also returns. The orb is smaller than we've seen on most of the previous models, but it still serves the same function. When it is blue, the system is on and operating correctly. If it turns red, you have a problem and should consult the LaCie RAID Manager application. The orb is also a button. Pressing it sends the system into a suspended mode to reduce power consumption. 

All of the connectors are on the back of the system. This is where you plug in the power, the two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and the single USB 3.1 port. There is also a reset button on the rear of the unit. LaCie also outfitted the 12big with a Kensington lock port near the reset button.

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Performance Testing & Conclusion

Comparison Products

We're using the LaCie 5big (5-bay) and 8big Rack (8-bay rackmount) Thunderbolt 2 systems as comparison models. Not to downplay the previous generation, but the new 6big and 12big with Thunderbolt 3 provide twice the maximum theoretical performance of the Thunderbolt 2 models. We tested the 5big in RAID 5 and the 8big in RAID 6. We also include the Western Digital VelociRaptor Duo in the comparison charts. As the name suggests, the VelociRaptor Duo uses two Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB drives in RAID 0. The drives spin at 10,000 RPM but still use a standard SATA connection.

We tested the LaCie 12big with all twelve drives in RAID 0, 5, 6, and 10. We did run across an unexpected issue. Most of the large RAID arrays we've tested over the last few years support SSDs or at least offer an option for an SSD cache. When you combine hard disk drives into an array, you multiply the throughput performance. Sadly, it can also multiply latency outliers as well. The increased potential for latency outliers can amplify inconsistent performance.

You can tame the issue by building more than one array and leveraging the additional volumes to gain a performance advantage. You will have to be mindful of where your project data comes from or goes to. One way to do this is to read from one array and write to another. This tactic reduces your performance loss from mixed workloads but also complicates your workflow. Luckily, LaCie's RAID Manager software allows you to customize your storage volumes. This isn't a one-size-its-all system.

Sequential Read Performance

All three LaCie systems and their various RAID levels provided similar performance during the sequential read test. The new 12big is slightly faster than the older systems, but the increased odds for latency outliers from so many drives introduces more performance variability.

The 12big system targets video professionals, so the default 128KB stripe size is appropriate. You should use a 64KB stripe size if you plan to use the system to run applications or manipulate smaller files.

It's possible to reach very high levels of performance with the right workloads. Large-block data, like we find in video files, wakes the 12big up. We found that even relatively small 128KB blocks at high queue depths can tease out more performance. 

There is very little difference between RAID 0 and RAID 5 during many of the read tests; they provide less performance and consistency than RAID 10.

Sequential Write Performance

RAID 0 and 10 didn't provide the best sequential write performance. The 12big's RAID 5 and 6 levels were much faster.

We can attribute the inconsistent results during the sequential write workload to the large drive count. This is where compounded latency can bite you. The drives have a small integrated cache, but the caching algorithms ignore large chunks of data. Unfortunately, the 12big doesn't have a sizable DRAM cache to help ingest incoming data like a dedicated high-end RAID controller does.

Random Read Performance

The 12big's different RAID levels delivered similar performance throughout many of the random read tests. There were a few outliers as we cycled through the various block sizes, but performance improves as we intensify the workload.

Random Write Performance

The 12big exhibits more write inconsistency, but that isn't entirely surprising with random data. The cache on the drives should absorb this data, but the platter takes the brunt of the load after the workload saturates the buffer.

Mixed Sequential Workload Performance

The increased number of disks in the arrays doesn't do much for performance in mixed sequential workloads. The same can be said for the extra bandwidth between the 12big and the host system. The 12big has an underpowered RAID controller, so it can't fully utilize the combined performance of the disks inside the tower.

Mixed Random Workload Performance

We see high, yet inconsistent, performance once again. The performance is high enough for you to run the intended workloads, but the 12big doesn't look like a significant improvement over the previous generation when we test with synthetic workloads.

Real-World File Transfer Performance

This series of tests is an excellent way to test real data transfers from a host PC to the 12big. The data originates from a high-performance NVMe SSD (Intel SSD 750 800GB) that is fast enough to saturate the device under test with sequential, random, and mixed workloads.

We often see performance measured in throughput, but time-based results are easier to interpret because the sense of time is universal. We tested with the Avatar (2D + 3D Edition) Blu-ray. For the Game test, we used rFactor to transfer data from the post-installation directory (C:/Program Files). The Directory Test consists of a 15.2GB data transfer. It contains a mix of images, software installations, ISO files, and multimedia that yields a nice real-world workload.

All of the products perform very well in these basic transfer tests, but the 12big configured in RAID 0, 5, and 6 wins many of the tests. The Blu-Ray test, which consists primarily of sequential data, is the closest to the 12big's intended use-case. We see a big performance increase over the previous generation systems, including the older Western Digital VelociRaptor loaded with 10,000 RPM drives.

PCMark 8 Storage Benchmark

There are many ways to utilize the LaCie systems. The system presents the storage pool as a drive volume (or several depending on your configuration), so you can install software to it like a local disk. We often discuss using iSCSI over a network, and the same concept is true here. You can host the operating system on a local SSD and then install other software on a secondary drive. This keeps your SSD running well by reducing the amount of clutter on the drive. It also keeps your secondary HDD storage running at high speed by reducing data fragmentation. Most of the random writes will go to the boot drive that hosts your operating system.

Again, we see strong performance from the 12big, but you could optimize and also adjust the number of disks to improve the performance.

Total Storage Bandwidth

We average the PCMark 8 results into a throughput metric to highlight the toll data redundancy takes on performance. The benefit is that you can weather a hard drive failure (RAID 5) or two (RAID 6) and your data is still secure. RAID 10 performance was slightly higher than RAID 0 and also offers data redundancy. It also cuts your usable storage space in half. We almost always recommend some form of data redundancy unless you plan to use the storage for scratch use and keep a permanent copy of the data on another storage device. 

Conclusion

We like to give you the laser focus on performance, but we also use some of the diffused light to pan around the outside edges. The LaCie 12big is a versatile product. The number of drives allows you to fine tune the array so that you can find the best performance for your use-case. Twelve-disk arrays are not always the best way to utilize the space, so you can also split the drives into several arrays.

The 6big pictured above is the 12big's half-height, half-capacity, and half-priced relative. It also features the same internals. It gives you a lower entry price point while still providing excellent features and redundant storage--just with fewer disks.

The 6big is relevant because the 12big's price is just as massive as the system. The 120TB model weighed in at $13,999 when it debuted on the market. Thankfully, LaCie lowered the price to $9,999. The LaCie 12big doesn't have a lot of pound-for-pound competition in the market. QNAP has attacked the Thunderbolt 3 market with NAS/DAS combination products, but they can also be expensive. They also require more experience to configure. Areca, a favorite among PC power users and enthusiasts (but an obscure company to everyone else), also has a 12-bay Thunderbolt 3 system. It also requires some storage knowledge to set up.

We really like the 12big's easy setup and overall design. Drive bay locks would be nice to ensure your disks never walk off unexpectedly. LaCie does offer a secure travel case with form-fitted foam to protect the system during travel. For some professionals, that's a big selling point. In an ideal world your 12big will sit in a comfortable studio, but when you need to go, LaCie makes it easy to take your big gun to the wild.

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Phanteks announced two new premium reservoirs to its Glacier Series of water cooling products. The company said these reservoirs were inspired by water distribution plates created by the modding community and were developed to showcase and highlight the liquid element of your build.

The Phanteks Glacier R160 and R220 reservoirs are constructed using a large polished acrylic block attached to a sandblasted aluminum backing heatsink with built-in fins for improved heat transfer. There is a nickel plated copper plate sandwiched between the large aluminum heatsink and the fluid in the reservoir to help prevent galvanic corrosion cause by dissimilar metals. Both reservoirs include a mounting location for a DDC water pump and includes a matching anodized heatsink for an optional pump.

These reservoirs feature a multi-port design and are equipped with integrated RGB lighting compatible with MSI’s Mystic Light Sync, Asus Aura Sync, and Gigabyte RGB Fusion. Each reservoir is fitted with a number of high-intensity RGB LED lights. Phanteks also includes a flexible mounting bracket that allows the reservoirs to be attached to either a 120mm or 140mm fan in multiple orientations.

The Phanteks Glacier R160 and R220 reservoirs will be available February 2018 with a MSRP of $90 and $110, respectively.

Phanteks announced that it has added a handful of new products to its Glacier Fitting Series, including GPU extenders, T-splitters, adapters, and 16mm hard tube adapters. Originally spotted at Computex 2017, these fittings are now ready for retail.

The company stated that these new fittings are CNC-machined from solid brass and precisely engineered to create a high-flow design for extreme water cooling performance. The new Glacier fittings are available for universal and hard tube applications and come in satin black and mirror chrome finishes.

The company uses Viton o-rings for improved durability and an overall superior seal compared to those made of regular rubber. Viton is an elastomer commonly used in all manner of sealing applications, including industrial use and the automotive and aerospace industries. Viton seals are popular due to their excellent compression properties and resistance to most oils and petroleum-based fuels and lubricants.

O-rings and seals made of Viton are also resistant to oxidation, UV exposure, fungus, and mold. This material has an effective operating range between 5°F and 400°F, making it an excellent choice for applications such as water cooling fittings.

It should be noted that just because these fittings are made by Phanteks, they do not necessarily have to be used with other Phanteks products. These fittings are compatible with any aftermarket open-loop water cooling system that uses standard G1/4 type fittings.

Phanteks stated the new Glacier Fitting Series will be available in “September 2017” and listed prices ranging from $18 to $20 for the hard tube fitting and $4 to $14 for the universal fittings.

Phanteks announced the Glacier C399A CPU water block designed specifically for AMD’s Threadripper processors.

The Glacier C399A features a see-through polished acrylic cover mated to a large nickel-plated copper base. The base of the water block measures 85 x 8 x 70mm (W x H x D) and is equipped with densely packed rows of 0.6mm-wide cooling fins spaced 0.4mm apart and standing 5mm tall.

Phanteks has integrated RGB lighting capable of displaying 16.8 million colors into the clear polished top. The C399A is compatible with any RGB-equipped case and motherboard fitted with industry standard 4-pin RGB lighting headers. The Glacier C399A water block is available with anodized satin black or mirrored chrome accents and is compatible with any aftermarket open-loop water cooling system that uses standard G1/4 type fittings. Fittings for both hard and soft tube applications are sold separately.

One of the unique aspects of Phanteks water blocks is their use of o-rings made of Viton. For those of you not familiar with the properties of Viton, this material is popular due to its excellent compression properties and resistance to most oils and petroleum-based fuels and lubricants.

Water block seals made of Viton offer improved durability and an overall superior seal compared to those made of regular rubber/ They’re also resistant to oxidation, ozone, UV exposure, fungus, and mold. Viton is an elastomer commonly used in a number of sealing applications, including industrial use and the automotive and aerospace industries. This material has an effective operating range between 5°F and 400°F, making it an excellent choice for applications such as CPU and GPU water cooling.

We reached out to the company for information on pricing and availability.

Features & Specifications

Thunderbolt 3 debuted nearly a year ago, but Thunderbolt 2 still has a massive user base. The technology wiped Fibre Channel DAS off the map and provided professionals an easy path to high-speed, high-capacity storage. At the same time, many professionals have migrated from the Mac Pro to powerful Windows-based systems like the HP Z Workstation platform. Companies like LaCie have catered to Apple users while keeping a toe in the Wintel waters. That experience positions the company to support Windows users, in contrast to companies that treated Windows users like second-class citizens.

Regardless of your current platform, Thunderbolt offers superior features compared to USB and isn't as expensive as 10Gb Ethernet. Thunderbolt connectivity first appeared on a limited number of PC motherboards designed for audio-video professionals, but over time the high-bandwidth technology trickled down to some mainstream and enthusiast motherboards.

The second version of the technology offers a full-duplex 20Gb/s connection. For the most part, Thunderbolt has been used exclusively for storage devices and monitors (thanks to DisplayPort Passthrough).

LaCie, a Seagate company, is the market leader in Thunderbolt storage. No other company offers as many different models with the technology. We tested the LaCie Rugged RAID, a truly portable Thunderbolt-enabled device, in early 2016. The new 12big pedestal storage system (review coming soon) is at the other end of the scale with twelve hard drives. Seven distinct products, separated by capacity, populate the middle range.

Today we're testing the two flagship Thunderbolt 2 models that pack a large amount of storage capacity in a small package. The LaCie 5big uses a traditional pedestal form factor that fits nicely on or under a desk. The LaCie 8big is only 1.75-inches tall. The 1U 8big was designed for larger installations where using a rackmount system to take advantage of Thunderbolt's pass-thru makes for a tidier installation. The system is based loosely on Seagate's Business NAS, but was given a makeover by Neil Poulton, LaCie's award-winning designer. 

Specifications

*Ships with Seagate enterprise-class HDDs.

The LaCie 5big and 8big Rack Thunderbolt 2 storage systems use Marvell hardware RAID technology. You can align the disks in RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 arrays or chose a simple JBOD configuration. You can also configure more than one array in the system.

Connectivity comes from dual 20Gb/s Thunderbolt 2 ports on the back of each system. Thunderbolt supports daisy-chaining up to six devices. Most host systems feature two Thunderbolt ports for up to 12 devices. This has added meaning for the 8big where users can build a large system in a rack for up to 1.7 petabytes of storage. The Thunderbolt specification supports cables up to 100 meters so you don't have to hear all of those spinning disks in your studio.

The performance varies for each specific product SKU and the type of array you build. The 5big comes in 10TB, 20TB, 30TB and 40TB capacities. The largest come outfitted with enterprise-grade disks. The 8big with eight drive bays ships in five capacities that range from 12TB to a massive 64TB. There are two stops at 48TB, one with, and one without, enterprise disks. The non-enterprise model uses Seagate's 8TB Desktop HDDs and the higher-spec unit uses Seagate's 8TB Enterprise NAS HDDs. The performance is close enough for LaCie to only list the performance by overall capacity. The real difference is in the build quality between the two drives. Enterprise HDDs are designed for environments with increased vibration, like a server rack. They also employ sturdier components and more robust firmware.

Pricing And Warranty

*Ships with Seagate enterprise-class HDDs.

High capacity hard disk drives are expensive, and when you need several to fill a device the cost amplifies quickly. The bare LaCie 5big starts at $1,199, but with five 8TB Seagate Enterprise NAS HDDs the final bill comes to nearly $4,000. The 8big Rack with eight drive bays has an even higher ceiling, but it starts at just $1,599. With the sale 8TB Enterprise NAS HDDs the price elevates to $6,899. We used MSRP pricing direct from LaCie for the chart, but there is some retail pricing drift. We found the 8big Rack 48TB for as low as $3,999 at Newegg. That is nearly $300 off the MSRP.

Both systems include a standard five-year warranty.

5big Packaging

The LaCie 5big ships with solid support and protection. The 5big features a full retail print allowing users to shop in retail stores with confidence. LaCie provided specification and features lists. Users also get a great look at the system thanks to the images on the front and back.

5big Accessories

The 5big comes ready for international travel with a five different power cables that accompany paper manuals and other assorted hardware. the system also ships with a Thunderbolt 2 cable. That will save users the added expense because these cables are not cheap.

The LaCie 5big

The system is identical to the now discontinued 5big NAS other than the two Thunderbolt ports that replace the Ethernet ports. The large blue orb on the front lights up when the system is turned on. You can press the button for a moment to put the drives to sleep or press it longer to shut the system down. There is a red LED inside for more complex operations like resetting the system to factory defaults.

8big Rack Packaging

The LaCie 8big Rack isn't the type of product you buy at a local Best Buy or Fry's Electronics store. The system has to ship double boxed due to the size and weight. The system ships exactly like the Seagate Business NAS, a 1U 8-bay NAS that shares the same basic case structure. The drives ship in a closed-cell form fitting foam to reduce vibration during shipping. Under the foam is another layer of protection via form fitting plastic that supports the 8big Rack NAS.

8big Rack Accessories

The 8big Rack ships with more accessories. LaCie includes rack rails and mounting hardware. There is also a cable management arm that actuates with the sliding action. The Seagate / LaCie slides are some of the best I've used if you have a square hole rack. The screws and washers fit inside the square holes to hold the rails center. You don't use rack nuts and the tapered screws fit flush allowing the 8big to fit perfectly flush with the rack.

The system also ships with two power cords and a Thunderbolt 2 cable. the cable is the same as what ships with the 5big and is right around three feet in length. This may not be long enough for most installations unless your host system is also in the rack.

The LaCie 8big Rack

Neil Poulton designed an attractive rackmount system but the recessed status and button system could use some work. If your 8big is in the top of the rack the recessed area is difficult to view with another system mounted under. Things get worse if your 8big is at the bottom of the rack. The 8big itself obstructs the view and access to the buttons. The perfect mounting point is chest to eye level. Here you see the status LEDs and can easily work the buttons.

The system features a power, silence and ID buttons. The power button is obvious. The silence button mutes the alarm should there be a problem with a drive or power. The ID button flashes an LED on the front and back of the system. This makes it easy to identify the correct system in a rack with several installed.

The drives slide into space in the forward half of the 8big. There is a removable tool-free cover that users access with two pull tabs on the side. You simple use the thumb screws that allow the rack slides to pull the system out. From there you remove the cover with the pull tabs that unlock the metal top.

The system also features four user replaceable fans should one fail. All of the hardware is hot-swappable so you don't even need to turn the 8big off to replace a disk or fan.

The LaCie 8big we received to test features redundant power and two Thunderbolt 2 ports on the back. Smaller capacity systems that ship with only 4 HDDs come with a single power supply. LaCie offers a redundant power supply kit should you want a dual PSU system.

Software

There are three key software packages included with both the 5big and 8big.

• Intego Backup Manager Pro
• LaCie Private-Public (AES 256-bit Encryption)
• LaCie RAID Manager (Administrator Console)

You can use LaCie's administration tool or Marvell's. The Marvell software gives you a little more control with additional features to fine tune the array but the LaCie software is easier to manage. The LaCie management software gives users easy access to 95 percent of the options but it does seem to have a slight delay after issuing a command and that makes it feel clunky.

LaCie also includes system backup software via Intego Backup Manager Pro. LaCie Public-Private includes an AES 256-bit encryption engine to keep your data secure.ivity first appeared on a limited number of PC motherboards designed for audio-video professionals, but over time the high-bandwidth technology trickled down to some mainstream and enthusiast motherboards.

The second version of the technology offers a full-duplex 20Gb/s connection. For the most part

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Performance Testing & Conclusion

Comparison Products

We've tested portable Thunderbolt devices in the past, but the LaCie 5big and 8big Rack are the first permanent-placement products we've tested. I tested the Western Digital VelociRaptor Duo Thunderbolt device years ago, and we've included it in the results. The VelociRaptor Duo features two 1TB 10K prosumer HDDs in a small dual-drive enclosure.

The two LaCie systems support several RAID configurations but use similar underlying hardware (despite the different form factor). We present performance data with redundant arrays. The 5big is the perfect system to utilize RAID 5 spread across five disks, while the 8big Rack gives you enough capacity to run a RAID 6 array comfortably.

Our systems shipped with different drives. The 5big features five Seagate Enterprise NAS HDDs with 8TB of capacity each. The 8big Rack features eight Seagate Desktop HDDs with 6TB each.

The larger DAS systems undergo a test regimen derived from our portable storage and NAS storage workloads. The tests allow us to sample a wide range of workloads that represent typical use cases.

Full LBA Span Sequential Read

We start with a basic read across the entire LBA range of the array. The Western Digital Thunderbolt system delivers consistent performance, but performance decreases as we move to slower inner portion of the drives. This is a natural result of having only two drives. The two LaCie Thunderbolt products don't suffer the same performance loss as the drives fill with data, but the performance is less consistent due to redundancy and the high drive count.

Full LBA Span Sequential Write

We conduct a simple write workload across the entire array before we dive into more complicated workloads. This is another QD1 test that examines performance consistency and HDD performance degradation. The two LaCie systems don't suffer from degraded performance because the onboard cache allows them to maintain a steady level of performance.

Sequential Read Performance

Synthetic testing allows us to examine read performance and the all-important 128KB transfer size at different queue depths. The 5big and 8big scale very well. Both can surpass 1,000 MB/s in RAID 0. We approached that mark in RAID 6, and even surpassed it in RAID 5.

Sequential Write Performance

The sequential write test also reveals excellent scaling as we increase workload intensity by manipulating the block size and queue depths. Most of these systems run sequential workloads for most of their lives because they are designed for audio-video professionals. The tests reveal that you need heavy workloads to reach peak performance. Even at low queue depths, we achieve very good performance that far surpasses what a single hard drive can provide.

Random Read Performance

Compared to flash-based devices, the two LaCie Thunderbolt 2 systems fall short on random read performance. They improve with heavier workloads, but both systems could benefit from flash-based acceleration with a cache drive. It's a missing feature that's not even available on the latest 12big system.

Random Write Performance

We expected to see some system-level DRAM cache on the two LaCie systems, but it doesn't appear they employ any cache to absorb the incoming random data. However, each drive has a small DRAM cache that accelerates random write performance. As mentioned, these systems are most commonly used for sequential workloads.

Sequential Mixed Workload Performance

Mixing sequential reads and writes can severely decrease system performance. Performance drops to low levels even with a reasonably moderate workload. For example, this will happen if you're manipulating files on the LaCie 5big or 8big Rack with Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier while simultaneously writing a finished project back to the system. This is a common workload for most professionals.

Random Mixed Workload Performance

The DRAM cache on the HDDs helps to remedy the extreme bathtub curve we observed with sequential data.

File Transfer Tests

This series of tests originates with our portable storage product reviews, but it's an excellent way to test moving real data from a host PC to an external device. The data comes from a high-performance NVMe SSD (Intel SSD 750 800GB) that is fast enough to saturate the device under test in sequential, random, and mixed workloads.

We often see performance measured in throughput, but time-based results are easier to interpret because the sense of time is universal.

We tested with the Avatar (2D + 3D Edition) Blu-ray. We used rFactor from the post-installation directory (C:/Program Files) for the Game directory. The Directory Test is a 15.2GB block of data I modeled for another project several years ago. It comes from a daily-use notebook and contains a mix of images, software installations, ISO files, and multimedia that yields a nice real-world workload.

The two LaCie Thunderbolt DAS systems cruise through the sequential workload (Blu-Ray ISO transfer) without any issue. The RAID 6 array struggles a bit when we add data with smaller blocks. During the Backup Directory test, the RAID 6 array in the 8big Rack takes nearly twice as long to write the same data compared to the 5big operating in RAID 5.

PCMark 8 Storage Test

There are many ways to utilize the LaCie systems. The system presents the storage pool as a drive volume (or several depending on your configuration), so you can install software to it like a local disk. We often discuss using iSCSI over a network, and the same is true here. You can host the operating system on a local SSD and then install other software on a secondary drive. This keeps your SSD running well by reducing the amount of clutter on the drive. It also keeps your secondary HDD storage running at high speed by reducing data fragmentation. Most of the random writes will go to the boot drive that hosts your operating system.

Application Bandwidth

We average the results into a throughput metric to highlight the toll data redundancy takes on performance. The benefit is you can weather a hard drive failure (RAID 5) or two (RAID 6), and your data is still secure. Both LaCie Thunderbolt DAS systems support RAID 0 for the best performance, but you have to weigh the throughput increase against what the value of the data. As someone that's lost data due to a failed drive in RAID 0, I always recommend data redundancy over a striped array.

Final Thoughts

Thunderbolt's popularity is on the rise. Intel continues to improve the power consumption of the PCIe-to-Thunderbolt bridge chips, and the shift to USB 3.1 Type-C cables for the latest revision has decreased overall costs. The technology has even trickled down a level or two on the motherboard side. Now most $1000+ notebooks feature the technology.

All of that does little for Thunderbolt 2 products like the LaCie 5big and 8big Rack. These are powerful systems but come from a generation where Thunderbolt was primarily an Apple feature even though PC motherboards had the required hardware and connectors. For a time, it looked like Thunderbolt would follow Firewire into oblivion as another failed innovation that worked better in spirit than it did in the real world.

Like the technology, you have to go through baby steps in the review process. We asked for the 5big and 8big Rack to get a set of performance results ready knowing the 12big would come to market in the coming months. The LaCie 6big and 12big with the new Thunderbolt 3 40Gbps connection are now shipping.

If you need a direct attached storage device for your PC, you shouldn’t leave the Thunderbolt 2 5big and 8big off your consideration list. Even though Thunderbolt 3 offers double the bandwidth between devices, hard disks drives are still the limiting technology. You can best leverage the performance benefits of RAID if you have a heavy workload, but the 5big and 8big still deliver excellent performance at low queue depths. Both systems ship with cables, so all you need is a motherboard with built-in support or a PCI Express add-in card.

We hope both systems experience a price drop as more users transition to new Thunderbolt 3 systems. The hard drives make up a large portion of the cost, so keep an eye out for stale inventory sales that can provide an excellent bargain. Both systems require a sizable investment, but most users fall into specific professional categories that can write the purchase off as a business expense.

The 5big has the broadest appeal for small offices with a limited number of users. I would consider this model the best option for photo, smaller video, and prosumer audio use. The system is quiet, but it's not the type of hardware you want in a post-production mixing booth or studio control room surrounded by expensive hardware.

The 8big Rack fits the bill for post-production work. Money is truly not a concern in this environment because reliability and fast access to data equate to reduced production time. Thunderbolt's daisy chain feature comes in handy and allows for up to 1.7 petabytes to fit in just a handful of rack units. The 8big is an excellent product with an attractive design, but it's not for everyone.

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Phanteks added a new water block for use with AMD processors to its current line of CPU liquid coolers. The Glacier C350A is compatible with any aftermarket open-loop water cooling system that uses standard G1/4 type fittings. The polished clear acrylic cover is fastened to a nickel-plated copper base. The Glacier C350A water block is available with anodized satin black or a mirrored chrome accents.

Phanteks’ integrated RGB lighting is compatible with all Phanteks RGB-equipped cases and motherboards fitted with industry standard 4-pin RGB lighting headers.

The 70 x 70 x 4mm nickel plated copper base features densely packed rows of integrated 0.4mm-wide cooling fins that stand 5mm tall. Fittings for both hard and soft tube applications are sold separately.

As with all Phanteks' water blocks, the company uses o-rings made of Viton. Viton offers improved durability and an overall superior seal compared to those made of regular rubber. Viton is an elastomer commonly used in a number of sealing applications, including industrial use and the automotive and aerospace industries. Viton seals are popular due to their excellent compression properties and resistance to most oils and petroleum-based fuels and lubricants. Water block seals made of Viton are also resistant to oxidation, ozone, UV exposure, fungus, and mold. This material has an effective operating range between 5°F and 400°F, making it an excellent choice for applications such as GPU water cooling.

Pricing and availability was not available at press time.

Even for people outside of the technology field, DJI's Phantom is what we think of when someone mentions drones or drone technology. DJI has pioneered and innovated, and a new product can't come to market without competing with a similar model from the company. Now that the technology has been sorted, it's time to find practical uses for drones that go beyond toys and the cool factor. The first real professional leap is a moving, sometimes autonomous, recording platform that can follow a target while shooting professional video. That data has to be stored on light, yet robust media. At CES 2017, Seagate and DJI announced a partnership without announcing a product.

At CES, we actually saw a product build by Seagate but branded with a DJI logo. Seagate didn’t allow us to photograph the gray plastic box with a rubber bumper, but the company recorded a video with less detail than we would like.

DJI has a need for a storage technology partner. Many, if not all of its drones come with some sort of video recording device, or you can add one. Drone technology lives and dies by the weight of the vehicle, so working with a company like Seagate could easily extend the battery life for each flight. For instance, the Phantom series averages 20 minutes per flight, which would decrease if you packed the drone with a hard disk drive.

Some of DJi's professional products, like the Inspire 2, already use high-performance M.2 NVMe SSDs with the PCI Express 3.0 protocol. If you follow our SSD reviews, then you already know that different devices consume power at different rates and there is a large divide between the best and worst products.

Once the video comes from the drone, it has to rest somewhere before and during manipulation. There isn't an interface loved more by professional videographers than Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is the new FireWire, but it's backed by Intel and used on both Apple and Wintel PCs. The technology is now on its third revision, and Seagate and LaCie have been through each revision every step of the way. As a whole, Seagate has the broadest Thunderbolt product lineup available. At the show, we saw the current Thunderbolt products that range from portable, to not so portable, to downright massive (see below). We even found a LaCie Rugged clone at another booth. This tells us the competition for rugged devices will tumble around in 2017.

The 12big from LaCie stands unphased by competitors. This product doesn't have any competition outside of re-purposed enterprise systems. We've seen the 12big on display at other shows, like Intel Developers Forum in a Thunderbolt 3 display, but never captured its presence on film (or 0s and 1s on a memory card). The 12big is the design inspiration behind other recently announced products, like the 6big. The blue orb is smaller, but it's still present as a throwback to previous designs from the company. Performance wise, the 12big can transfer one hour of 4K ProRes 444 QX video (764GB) in 5 minutes or less using hard disk drives. LaCie just released a new 120TB version outfitted with enterprise-class hard disk drives.

It goes without saying that you will need several drone batteries to fill this system with flight video.

LaCie, which serves as the premium consumer arm of Seagate's product line, debuted two new products designed by Neil Poulton.

d2 Thunderbolt 3

The d2 Thunderbolt 3 makes the step up to a dual Thunderbolt 3 connection and also features a USB-C port. Like its Thunderbolt 2-equipped predecessor, the unit supports a dual connection that allows you to daisy chain two 4K displays, one 5K display, or up to six d2 enclosures.

The d2 also brings up to 10TB of capacity to bear, which eclipses the previous limitation of 8TB, and it also comes in 6TB and 8TB options. The enclosure packs the enterprise-class 7,200-RPM Seagate Barracuda Pro HDDs. The single drive provides up to 240MBps of throughput, which is a slight increase over the previous-generation drives. Of course, the HDD isn't suitable for random access. The previous generation offered an SSD upgrade path, but there is no mention of that option with the new model.

The svelte aluminum unibody can be a bit misleading, because the enclosure uses an external power supply, which isn't pictured. The unit features a Kensington lock, which would be helpful in an office environment.

LaCie includes a 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 USB-C cable, along with a USB 3.0 USB-C to USB-A adapter cable. All capacities come with a 5-year warranty and start at $430. The drives will be available worldwide this quarter.

LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C

LaCie's Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C drives are designed to stand up to not only rough-and-tough use but also the elements. LaCie claims the drives can withstand the force of being run over by a 1-ton car, a 6.6-foot drop, and dust and water (IP54-rating). The drives also support AES 256-bit software encryption.

The Rugged series features a USB-C connector and supports up to Thunderbolt 2 speeds.

The rugged drives come in both SSD and HDD flavors. The SSD models come in 1TB and 500GB capacities and offer transfer speeds up to 510MBps. The HDD models top out at 130MBps and use the Seagate BarraCuda drives. They come with 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB options, and prices start at $250. The drives will be available worldwide this quarter and carry a three-year warranty. 

Specifications And Features

Thin is in. A quick look at most new business-class notebooks, a majority of external storage products, and even your monitor sitting right in front of you confirms the trend. Height challenged products may look cool, but when it comes to storage, you can't pack as many bits into a slim design. Thankfully, companies like LaCie give us options, such as the small capacity products that satisfy the need for trendy slim designs. The company also provides larger devices for massive storage capacity when the job requires it.

LaCie's Porsche Design line consists of three products. The largest is a desktop model that currently pegs the capacity scale at 8TB. The drive is fairly large, uses a wall outlet for power and doesn't meet the standards for portable use. The Porsche Design Mobile Drive is on the other end of the scale with a slim 10mm Z-height and up to 2TB's of storage capacity. Both products are very attractive and useful for their intended use case, but there was a gap in the middle. LaCie recently filled that gap with the new Mobile Drive 4TB.

The LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive with 4TB of storage has double the Z-height (thickness) of the 1TB and 2TB products. To reach the massive 4TB capacity point, LaCie needed to use a taller hard drive. 2.5-inch hard drives range from 5mm to 15mm with a few stops in between. In time, the hard drive companies will release a 4TB product in a slimmer form factor, but for now, the Momentus / Laptop HDD (Seagate Branding) only ships with the large 15mm thickness.

Specifications

The Porsche Design Mobile Drive product line consists of four part numbers that fall into three capacities. The mid-tier 2TB product ships in two colors; silver like the rest of its siblings and gold for a little extra bling. The large 4TB model offers twice the storage capacity of the others but also uses a taller, and heavier, enclosure.

This isn't the first 4TB external HDD we've tested. Several months ago, we tested the 4TB LaCie Rugged RAID ($379.99). The Rugged RAID unit requires two 2TB hard disk drives to provide high capacity, but some users prefer a single drive to a RAID pair. The latter adds an extra device to the storage pool, thus increasing the odds of a failure in a RAID 0 array.

The Porsche Design Mobile Drive 4TB uses a USB Type-C connector but still delivers the same bandwidth as 5Gbps USB 3.0. The interface speed isn't much of a concern with hard drives because the connection bandwidth isn't the limiting factor.

LaCie doesn't list performance specifications for the Porsche Design series. We’ve noticed this troubling trend with the HDD companies on several products over the last couple of years.

We found a Seagate ST4000LM016 from the Momentus / Laptop HDD product line inside the enclosure. This drive uses shingled magnetic recording (SMR) to reach the high capacity point. SMR is a controversial subject because it's similar to three-bit per cell flash. SMR increases capacity, but it writes data slower when the drive is full because the manufacturer overlaps the recording tracks. The overlap means that existing data on the overlapped tracks is affected by writing new data to neighboring tracks. The drive must read the data, modify it and then rewrite it to overwrite the existing data, just like an SSD. This isn't a big problem for mass storage with a normal sequential workload, but SMR encounters performance problems with random data during heavy use.

Pricing And Warranty

B&H lists the 4TB Porsche Design Mobile Drive for $229.99, and the drives are in stock. The 2TB silver model retails for $149.99 and the 1TB model for $109.99. All three products include a 3-year warranty that covers manufacturer's defects.

Packaging

The LaCie Porsche Design Mobile sells online and in retail stores. LaCie chose to use a full retail package that outlines many of the specifications and features of the product.

LaCie packaged the drive in a plastic container to keep it secure. The accessories and paper Quick Installation Guide fit under the drive in a recessed area of the plastic container.

Accessory Package

The drive ships with two cables in the package. The cables give users the ability to connect to a legacy USB 3.0 Type-A port, and also the new USB Type-C port featured on many new PCs and Apple products. I feel this would have been a great product to include a combo cable with. We're starting to see cables with a Type-A adapter cap fitted over the end of a USB Type-C connector. The cables are fairly low-cost, less than $15 online, but we've yet to use one, so we can't comment on quality.

A Closer Look

The drive itself is a full metal design that aims to add both style and protection to your data. Inside is a small printed circuit board attached to a Seagate Laptop HDD (Part Number ST4000LM016). A support structure keeps the components together but also reduces direct vibration to the delicate internals.

The drive uses the new USB Type-C connector, but it still offers the same 5Gbps peak transfer performance found with USB 3.0.

Software Interface

The Porsche Design Mobile Drive ships with applications loaded on the drive so you don't have to find and download the software from the LaCie website. The software is also available on the site in case you lose or delete it.

After you find the software, you can run the installer, which asks you questions during the setup. The software will format your drive and even give you the option to set up two partitions. Non-Windows devices can access the first partition (but Windows can access the data too), and the second partition has the NTFS file system that only Windows can access without third-party tools.

LaCie's software suite includes backup scheduling software, encryption management and formatting tools. LaCie also gives customers access to backup software for Mac products. We pulled these software images from the Rugged RAID, but the software, setup and features are identical.

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Performance Testing And Conclusion

Comparison Products

Our test group includes the previously reviewed Sony PSZ-HB2T 2TB and LaCie Rugged RAID 4TB. The two products utilize a dual interface design that supports both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2. The charts also list the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB. A full feature review for this model will come in the following weeks, but you get a sneak peek of its performance in this review. 

There are a limited number of 4TB portable hard disk drives on the market. Seagate managed to pack a lot of capacity into a very small package.

Sequential Scaling Block Sizes

The three single-drive external HDDs deliver nearly identical sequential performance. The USB 3.0 Sony PSZ-HB2T enjoys a slight performance increase with 8KB and 16KB block sizes. The LaCie Rugged RAID (two HDDs in RAID 0) has a much higher performance ceiling, but the cost also increases proportionally with the performance.

Full LBA Span Performance

In this test, we read and write data across the entire user LBA range to find the peak, median and low performance. Hard disk drives operate at a higher speed while working on the outside of the platter, but the inner section of the platter is slower. The drives write new data to the outer tracks first, which is why your HDD-powered notebook or desktop starts out fast but becomes slower as you populate the drive with data.

Again, we see the three single-drive products delivering nearly identical performance, while the Rugged RAID offers nearly a 2x improvement.

File Transfers

To demonstrate real-world performance, we have three tests to represent the most common data types stored on portable storage devices. The first test transfers a Blu-ray ISO of a popular movie to the drives, so the workload consists of a large block sequential transfer.

In the second test, we transfer the entire directory of rFactor, a PC video game. The drive transfers both small and large blocks of information during the test.

The third test involves transferring a 15.2TB directory of files similar to what you have in your My Documents folder. We're mixing photos, Microsoft Office documents, MP3s, PDFs and a couple of small game files.

Just as before, the three single-HDD products all group together with similar performance. The Rugged RAID steps away from the crowd with the highest level of performance, just as you would expect.

The LaCie Porsche Design Mobile 4TB struggled with the backup and game directory tests, which have a mixture of small and large block data. SMR hard disk drives tend to struggle with small block transfers. The test reveals performance degradation when small-block data is mixed in with large sequential blocks of data. Users will have to decide if the additional storage capacity, and lower cost, is worth the slower performance. I'm going to guess that most shopping for the largest portable HDD will make the trade and never look back.

Conclusion

LaCie raised the bar for portable storage once again. The Rugged RAID was a great breakout product, but the company passed the additional expense of two 2TB HDDs connected to a RAID bridge (required to reach the 4TB capacity mark) to the user. The new Porsche Design Mobile Drive reduces the overall expense required to reach the high capacity mark, and the company passes those savings on to end users.

This product doesn't improve performance over existing products, but we didn't observe a crippling reduction in performance, either. Users get a 2x capacity increase over the existing products in the line without twice the cost. The Porsche Design Mobile Drive offers a great balance of capacity and price while holding the performance steady.

LaCie has stepped to the forefront of both external and Thunderbolt technology products. For a long time we looked at the LaCie products as a niche for wealthy elites with more money than sense, but in the last couple of years the prices have come down, and the products now offer leading technology features. Before, we would get a product that looked amazing but lacked true innovative features. That isn't the Seagate LaCie we have today. The product we tested, and others like the 12big, shows LaCie's leadership and determination to be a real premium brand.

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Intel announced Thunderbolt 3 one year ago. We just started seeing final designs a few months back, at NAB in Las Vegas. LaCie announced a large 12-bay Thunderbolt 3 product while other companies focused on lower drive count, or flash-based products. We didn't expect to see another large system to compete with the LaCie 12big, but we were wrong. At Computex, Areca displayed a prototype of the new ARC-8052T3, another 12-bay high-performance product aimed at high bit-rate video production environments.

Areca's claim to fame started when enthusiasts and power users found the DRAM buffer algorithm to be superior to other available RAID controllers. Areca used the same Avago (formally LSI) and Marvell controllers but paired them with more DRAM that acts like a buffer for writing data to the array. Users could even upgrade many of the RAID controllers with more commodity ECC DRAM to increase the data buffer density. The end result was vastly superior performance compared to many other competing products.

The new ARC-8052T3 uses Areca's proprietary RAID buffer algorithms to support both SATA and SAS drives in a high-density 12-bay enclosure. The system isn't finalized yet, but the early prototype supports two Thunderbolt 3 ports via USB Type-C connectors. It also adds eSATA and 4-port SAS expansion ports, as well as an out-of-bandwidth management port via Ethernet.

Areca told us the final specifications may be different. We suspect the eSATA and SAS expansion ports may disappear on the final production units to reduce retail pricing. We don't have any pricing information yet but hope to learn more in the coming months when Areca finalizes the design and feature list.

The system will replace Areca's ARC-8050T2 8-bay Thunderbolt 2 system that is currently shipping for $1,699 (pricing from B&H, New York). RAID level support for 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60 and JBOD will carry over to the updated Thunderbolt 3 12-bay model. Users can build more than one array with the system to divide the disks into separate LUNs. Management comes from both CLI and GUI interfaces, both from Areca. The software supports both in- and out-of-bandwidth management.

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Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Specifications, Pricing, Warranty & Accessories

Rugged storage is all the rage these days. We recently reviewed the LaCie Rugged RAID Thunderbolt Portable Storage, learning more about how photographers and videographers use high-capacity devices on the road to protect their work.

In a perfect world, every shoot would take place indoors with carefully-placed lighting, climate-controlled rooms and only a few people around, none of them tripping over your valuable equipment. But in the real world, these professionals often have to deal with dust, dirt and water. It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that there are standards for grading resistance to environmental conditions.

Sony has some of the best imaging products in the world, with Alpha cameras and professional video products used to record some of the most memorable content on television. With the transition to 4K underway, even small clips take up an enormous amount of space on disk. At high-quality settings, the most powerful models can record data at 600 Mb/s (75 MB/s). They can also record directly to external storage devices like Sony's PSZ-x products.

Today, we're testing the PSZ-HB2T rugged external storage drive. This model features two interfaces, one USB 3.0 and the other Thunderbolt. The drive comes formatted in exFAT for use with other Sony products, and offers IPX5-level dust resistance and IP4X-level water resistance. This is the same rating as the previously-tested LaCie Rugged RAID, meaning the drive can take water splashing against it, but not submersion or a dusty environment with little ingress.

Specifications

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Sony offers six different SKUs in its PSZ series. There are three main groups, starting with one model that fits a 256GB solid-state drive inside the enclosure. Three models ranging from 500GB to 2TB connect via USB 3.0 or FireWire 800, just like the single SSD version. But the solution we're testing today ships with either 1TB (PSZ-HB1T) or 2TB (PSZ-HA2T) of capacity and differs from the other models by replacing FireWire 800 with a more modern Thunderbolt port.

Inside, we find a Samsung (now part of Seagate) SpinPoint M9T 5400 RPM 2TB hard drive.

Pricing & Warranty

We found the PSZ-HB1T (1TB model) for as low as $169 and the PSZ-HB2T for $273. The PSZ-HA models with FireWire 800 instead of Thunderbolt are a bit cheaper. The 1TB drive costs just $139, while the 2TB version sells for $250. The one SSD-equipped offering is priced at just $120, but it's also the lowest-capacity family member.

Accessories

Our sample shipped with two paper documents. The first is a simple statement that covers the terms of the limited warranty, while the second serves as an instruction manual (providing you're able to read its very small print). There's also a sticker included so that you can write down the enclosure's data contents.

Two cables come bundled, and they're around .6 meters long. One is a USB 3.0 cable and the other facilitate Thunderbolt connectivity. Thunderbolt cables are particularly expensive compared to most other interfaces, so we're glad to see Sony include one in its package.

Software

The system ships with software on the drive that you can install on your PC or Mac. This package lets you easily format the drive in different file systems. Some of the available options work with Apple products, while NTFS only works with Windows-based systems. The drive is formatted in exFAT from the factory, allowing you to read data from the drive on both platforms.

A Closer Look

The system ships in a brown box that lists a few of its specifications and post-format capacity. We found the travel case interesting because it looks like a film case once used for analog media.

Inside, there are separate compartments for the storage device, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt cables.

A rubber bumper protects the drive from accidental falls. The PSZ-SA25 model with its SSD would give you more shock protection, but if course at the expense of limited capacity.

The bumper also acts as a stacking system for securely fitting more than one drive on top of another. One side has recesses, while the other has small feet that match the recesses in a stacked position.

The rubber also protrudes out from the metal case to offer better corner protection. A carefully hidden LED just behind the plastic end cover emits light when the drive is connected.

The two interface connections are hidden by form-fitted covers that give the system its IP54 dust- and water-resistance ratings. We took the main drive out of the bumper to get a better look at its dual interface.

Performance Testing And Conclusion

Sequential Scaling Block Sizes

To start our testing, we look at sequential reads and writes according to block sizes. Some products are tuned to deliver higher performance depending on the type of data being transferred. But most of the tuning happens with solid-state storage, rather than mechanical disks.

We tested the PSZ-HB2T with both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt connections. Surprisingly, USB 3.0 delivered higher performance than Thunderbolt when it came to sequential transfers.

Full LBA Span Performance

Now we're reading and writing across the entire user logical block addressing range of the drives. Hard disks read and write faster along the outer portion of their platters, and lose performance as more data occupies the drive. This test allows us to isolate the maximum and minimum transfer rates.

In our test with 128KB blocks, Sony's PSZ-HB2T delivered 131 MB/s on the outer tracks, 95 MB/s in the middle and just 54 MB/s on the inner tracks. It should also be noted that you get more consistent performance with USB 3.0 than Thunderbolt.

File Transfers

Rounding out our external storage performance test are simple file transfers to the unit we're evaluating. We use Disk Bench to measure the results in both throughput and time. Time, it turns out, is a better measurement for displaying results because everyone can relate to it. We also added Adata's SE730—a flash-based external storage model—to the results.

When working with large-block data moved sequentially, the PSZ-HB2T's USB 3.0 port is fastest. When we shifted over to mixed data, the Thunderbolt connection took the lead. Thunderbolt can handle small file transfers better than USB, so this didn't surprise us. The Game Directory Transfer Test (using rFactor) consists of almost all small files, and really shows the difference in interface connection speeds.

Conclusion

As media files continue to get larger, the need for high-capacity portable storage also increases. The transition to 4K video is happening swiftly, putting more emphasis on speed and size. Sony's latest external storage model can sustain high bit rate 4K transfers for half of the drive's capacity, but not across the full user LBA range. This could be an issue for professionals using the disk as a direct-attached target, and it'll likely strain a camera's buffering system. In my experience, once the buffer fills, the camera drops frames to ease the load. However, I've admittedly never used a full professional 4K system designed to deliver broadcast-quality video. I have used professional-grade 1080p devices that record at 60 frames per second, so I'm one generation behind the curve.

As an external backup storage device, Sony's PSZ-HB2T is an average solution once you factor out its enhanced durability features. It's essentially a low-cost 2.5-inch hard drive inside a fancy case that you can drop from waist-level heights.

Then again, there are very few ruggedized external storage products on the market that aren't SSD-based. Sony's biggest competitor is probably LaCie, and that company's Rugged Thunderbolt is a direct competitor (LAC9000489 2TB model at $270 MSRP) to the product we tested today. Unfortunately for Sony, it fails to hit a more attractive price point. Surely that won't come as a surprise to anyone who has compared the prices of Sony consumer electronics to those of other manufacturers.  

All of these types of products tend to cost significantly more than their non-rugged counterparts. Who knew rubber and foam were so expensive?

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Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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LaCie released the first 5big Thunderbolt DAS back in January 2013. The device is so popular with professional users that three years later it sells for more than the original MSRP. Like the LaCie NAS of similar design, this system was designed by Neil Poulton, an artist that has worked with the company on many products, like the Rugged RAID Thunderbolt Portable Storage. Today, LaCie updated the system with a new 5-year warranty and a larger 40 TB capacity size.

The 5big capacity expansion comes via Seagate's new 8 TB Enterprise Capacity hard disk drive that was designed for 24x7 operation. The Enterprise Capacity HDD features a large 256 MB DRAM buffer and 7,200 RPM platters. The drives use RV sensors to combat disk and appliance vibration that can reduce performance and product life. The drive is one of the fastest high-capacity mechanical hard disk drives available today with a SATA 6 Gbps interface.

The 5big utilizes a hardware RAID chipset to increase performance and add redundancy over a single disk. Users can choose a single or multiple arrays that spread across the five internal hard disk drives. The system uses dual Thunderbolt 2 connections back to the host to deliver up to 1050 MB/s of sequential read and write performance. There is enough throughput to sustain 4K workflows for professional users.

Old features that carry over from previous 5big models are also included. The system uses a high volume but quiet Noctua fan to cool the disks and internal system components. Thunderbolt 2 offers 20 Gb/s per interface, and users can daisy chain other Thunderbolt accessories like monitors and other storage devices through the dual connections on this system.

The 5big now ships in four capacity sizes. The 10 TB model sells for $1,299. The 20 TB model moves the needle to $1,999, and the 30 TB model goes up to $2,999. The new 40 TB model with a 5-year warranty and Seagate enterprise-class hard disk drives will be available this quarter for $3,999.

Specifications, Pricing And Warranty

Most enthusiasts would question the usefulness of a portable storage drive designed to survive abuse, until they actually need one. But by the time you realize you need rugged storage, it's already too late. Some would argue that the best devices to build for harsh treatment are thumb drives and SSDs. The problem with flash, though, is that it gets expensive when you start looking a big capacities. Sure, there are very large SSDs out there. I can buy a Ferrari, too, if I plan to live in it.

The LaCie Rugged RAID is designed for working professionals whose offices aren't lit with incandescent light or surrounded by isolation walls. Its 4TB capacity begs for multimedia files that zip to and from your system at higher than hard drive speeds thanks to an on-board RAID controller. If you move mission-critical data, the Rugged RAID also supports RAID 1, keeping the same data on two disks for extra security.

Security comes in many forms. It's one thing to have your data on redundant repositories, but encryption is required to truly keep sensitive information safe from unauthorized viewers. The Rugged RAID adds a software component that applies AES-256 to your data. The software package also ensures you can access protected files on host systems using different file systems. Many of LaCie's products take extra steps to fully support Apple devices. Not all products on the market are designed to balance both popular operating systems.

There are very few external storage devices on the market that combine portability with the resilience of RAID. When you add in its ruggedness, only the LaCie Rugged RAID 4TB stands out. That's not to say a competitor doesn't exist; we just didn't find one. The Rugged RAID supports several unique features, combining them to make a unique product. In RAID 0, you get 4TB of capacity. That's cut in half if you switch to RAID 1, trading you the resilience of data mirroring instead. The closest competitor is WD's My Passport Pro, but it only connects via Thunderbolt and is limited to Macs.

Meanwhile, the Rugged RAID supports both NTFS and FAT32 file systems with LaCie's bundled software tools. This gives Windows and Mac users access to the data volumes (NTFS is read-only on Apple products). The data is also stored behind 256-bit encryption, so it's safe if you physically lose the hardware.

LaCie connects its Rugged RAID through 10 Gb/s Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 at 5 Gb/s. The drive isn't fast enough to saturate either interface, but easily pushes data faster than USB 2.0. The 2.5-inch HDDs use 5V power, unlike 3.5-inch drives that still rely on a 12V rail. USB 3.0 does feed 5V to the to the device, though two mechanical disks need more current than some systems provide. Because of that, you have to use the included external power supply. Thunderbolt doesn't suffer the same shortcoming; you can leave the extra cable in the box if you plan to use Thunderbolt exclusively.

According to LaCie, the system is shock-resistant and can survive falls from up to five feet when it isn't turned on. It can supposedly take up to one ton of weight on it. While we didn't have that exact mass to test with, the drive did survive being run over with a 5545-pound Mercedes GL450 (curb weight) with both the front and back tires. The car doesn't have perfect front-to-back weight distribution, so we exceeded LaCie's claims for a brief moment in the driveway at roughly 3 mph.

The first number in the IP54 Dust and Water rating system relates to solids, and the second number relates to liquids, summarized by this information:

Dust Protected - Ingress of dust is not entirely prevented, but it must not enter in sufficient quantity to interfere with the satisfactory operation of the equipment; complete protection against contact.

Splashing Water - Water splashing against the enclosure from any direction shall have no harmful effect.

The Dust Protected rating is the second highest on the scale, and the Splashing Water is right in the middle.

Pricing & Warranty

LaCie sells the Rugged RAID 4TB on its official product page for $420, though it's currently on back order. We found a handful of reputable online e-tailers that had the drive in stock, selling it for $400. LaCie covers the Rugged RAID with a three-year limited warranty that can be extended through an optional purchase.

A Closer Look

This is the drive with its cover removed. The indented orange area at the top-left glows bright orange when the drive is connected or powered on. Again, USB 3.0 operation requires external power. It's a clumsy way of hooking up to your machine, with the USB cable going one way and power going the other. However, it does bestow more flexibility than a Thunderbolt-only device. If you have a Mac at work and a PC at home, you can use the drive both places.

Perhaps you were wondering where the Thunderbolt connector is located, since we haven't mentioned it yet. The cable is connected directly to the metal case, and it wraps around the center groove for storage. The head of the Thunderbolt cable tucks into the opening in both the body and the cover. Thunderbolt cables are expensive since they have active electronics inside. With the cable permanently connected, you won't have to worry about misplacing and having to replace it. Just be careful not to mistreat it.

A fixed cable isn't without drawbacks. To test the drive, I had to reach around my PC and poke around to find the Thunderbolt port. Owners of cylindrical Mac Pros can spin the system around enough to make a direct connection. You may also have a chain of Thunderbolt devices that the drive can plug into. I would personally like to have a longer cable, but not at the expense of it being detachable.

Inside, we found a pair of 2TB Samsung 2.5-inch hard disks. Samsung and LaCie were both acquired by Seagate in recent years. A PCB underneath contains the RAID-oriented logic.

The inner design is just as impressive as the outside, demonstrating nice build quality and attention to detail.

Software Interface

When you attach the Rugged RAID to a PC, you're asked for permission to connect to the device.

You still can't use the drive quite yet, though. Within a few seconds after connecting, a software prompt walks you through the setup process, the most important part of which is defining how the device should be formatted. You'll need to adjust the slider to dictate how space on the drive should be allocated. This will be determined by how you intend to use the Rugged RAID (in Windows-only environments, on a mix of operating systems or as a tool for sharing information between different machines).

LaCie's software tools include scheduled backup software, encryption management and formatting tools. LaCie also gives customers access to backup software for Mac products.

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Performance Testing And Conclusion

We built a new system for testing external devices. Gigabyte was kind enough to supply a GA-Z97X-UD7 TH with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 support. We also purchased a PCIe add-in card for future USB 3.1 testing. At the heart of the system is an Intel Core i7-4790K running at stock clock rates and paired with two Corsair Vengeance DDR3 modules running at 1866 MT/s. This system will serve as our external storage platform until we need to add Thunderbolt 3 technology.

Sequential Scaling Block Sizes

Most data sent to external storage products moves sequentially. The files are made up of different block sizes, and some interfaces and products perform better or worse depending on that variable.

We chose a couple of different devices to compare to LaCie's Rugged RAID 4TB. We'll post a review of the Seagate Backup Plus 8TB in the coming weeks, and WD's My Passport 1TB is a drive I use around the office. This is the first external storage review on Tom's Hardware in quite some time, but we plan to expand our coverage (and by extension, the data in these charts) to include more of these products.

LaCie's Rugged RAID 4TB was tested over Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3.0. In many of our tests, both interfaces perform identically, though under real-world conditions Thunderbolt is slightly faster due to less interface latency.

The Rugged RAID performs well in our block size tests. Its RAID 0 array easily outpaces the other products in the chart, faring best with sequential file transfers just as we expected.

Full LBA Span Performance

Both mechanical and solid-state drives slow down as you put more data on them. The reason why is different, though. For hard disks, the physical location of information matters. Access times vary depending on whether bits reside on the inner or outer parts of the platter.

LaCie's Rugged RAID with 2.5-inch drives does not have a density advantage—the amount of data held in a unit of area—over Seagate's Backup Plus 8TB, but the RAID 0 configuration does confer a performance advantage.

File Transfers

I love testing storage products and representing their results over time. We often see performance measured in throughput, but nobody ever says, "Wow, that transfer was really fast—I bet it was doing at least 150 MB/s." Time-based results are easier to interpret. Time is universal.

The Blu-ray we tested with is Avatar (2D + 3D Edition). The Game directory is rFactor from the post-installation directory (C:/Program Files), and the Directory Test is a 15.2GB block of data I modeled several years ago for another project. It's a mix of images, software installations, ISO files, multimedia and so on, yielding a nice real-world workload pulled from a notebook that gets used every day.

This is where Thunderbolt's latency advantage affects file transfer performance. The benefit of RAID 0 is also apparent from these tests; LaCie's Rugged RAID quickly swallows incoming data at a higher rate than comparison products.

Conclusion

The Rugged RAID isn't for everyone. Its price alone will dissuade most folks. But, at the same time, photography and multimedia professionals won't hesitate to drop $400 if it means getting their valuable work from here to their safely. Under the right conditions, this model represents a reasonable value. That condition is fairly binary; if you drop most external hard drives with mechanical internals, there is a good chance you'll lose your data. Really, it doesn't take much to crater a disk. In fact, I recently dropped an internal drive on a concrete floor from around eight inches and now is has the famous click of death. Oops! Good thing I didn't lose anything important...this time.

However, if I had just finished a photo shoot, loaded my pictures onto the drive and then dropped it, I'd be much more upset. Nobody tries to break their hard drives, but gravity happens. LaCie claims the Rugged RAID can absorb a drop from five feet and continue to work. It's plausible that most drops happen from that distance or less, so you're getting a fair amount of protection against physical abuse.

The big rebuttal we expect from the audience involves flash. It was right here at Tom's Hardware that editors played baseball with a solid-state drive, and it continued to work even after taking a Louisville Slugger shot. Flash is much more impact-resistant. But it's also very expensive. In a few years, cost may be less of an issue. After all, we could argue that a 1TB SSD in a low-cost enclosure could do the same job as LaCie's Rugged RAID at a similar price.

However, there's still a problem with flash in that scenario. To keep SSDs writing data quickly, the drives need to be told when memory cells are freed. USB and Thunderbolt don't pass along the proper commands to do this. Once all of the cells are "dirty", new write commands overlap where the drive thinks data already exists. The drive is "surprised," and it leaps into action to first clean the cell and then write to it. Suddenly, your 500 MB/s-capable SSD is writing data slower than all three of the mechanical disks in today's charts. The chart above perfect illustrates this steady state performance degradation.

My biggest complaint about LaCie's Rugged RAID is its external power supply for USB 3.0. The length of the attached Thunderbolt cable is another critique. Given that the Rugged RAID doesn't have any competition matching its feature set, these issues are diminished, though. In a future version, Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 should take care of the power issue. But we're still a year or more away from a high enough adoption rate for LaCie to release such a product.

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Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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USB-C brings the promise of faster speed and more flexibility, and the storage industry is embracing the interface with a spate of new USB Type-C enabled storage devices. The latest storage releases from LaCie, the premium brand in the Seagate arsenal, continue the trend. USB 3.1 and Type-C comes in several somewhat confusing flavors, which we distilled down for our readers in this handy guide.

LaCie Chrome

Both of the new LaCie offerings leverage the USB Type-C connection with the USB 3.1 interface, but the Chrome employs the faster Gen 2 10 Gbps interface to provide enough speed for the two 500 GB M.2 SATA SSDs in RAID 0 that populate the stylish Neil Poulton design.

Together, the two SSDs provide up to 940 MBps of throughput, but LaCie is not sharing much information on the brand of SSDs employed, nor detailed performance and endurance specifications. LaCie has utilized Samsung SSDs for its external enclosures in the past.

The Chrome enclosure docks to the stand with powerful neodymium magnets that allow removal of the base for easy transport. The rectangular case is tilted on its edge, but the sturdy base and internally secured cables ensure that it remains upright and solid. The aluminum enclosure, which features a chrome finish, draws external power and can charge other USB Type-C connected devices.

The Chrome employs a fan and heatsink arrangement to cool the SSDs and will be available in a single 1 TB capacity point for $1,100. The Chrome comes with a two-year warranty and will be available in the March timeframe.

LaCie Porsche Design Drives

LaCie also introduced its new Porsche Design Drives, which it developed in collaboration with the Porsche Design Group. The aluminum enclosures come in five different capacity points of 1, 2, 4, 5 and 8 TB, and capacity dictates the size of each respective offering.

All of the Porsche models employ the USB Type-C connector, but LaCie chose to utilize the USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface because the HDDs are the limiting factor in terms of speed -- not the 5 Gbps interface.

The Porsche Design Mobile drive features a small form factor for the 1 and 2 TB models, which employ Seagate's new 5,400-RPM SMR HDDs with a 7mm Z-height. The 1 and 2 TB models are bus-powered so users will not have to use an external power source.

The 4 TB model comes in an incrementally larger housing and also features an internal SMR HDD, which requires an external power source. The enclosure can also charge connected devices during use.

The 5 and 8 TB models come in the largest enclosure and also require an external power source. The 8 TB model employs a standard PMR-based HDD. LaCie is not releasing detailed performance specifications at this time, but the company indicated that the performance should be sufficient for the majority of external data storage use cases.

All of the drives come with a two-year warranty. The 1, 2 and 4 TB Porsche Design Mobile Drives will start at $109.99. The 4, 5 and 8 TB LaCie Porsche Design Desktop Drives will start at $209.95, and availability begins in the March timeframe. 

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A spokesperson for Seagate confirmed on Wednesday that the company is discontinuing mainstream support for Thunderbolt and will only provide the technology on products listed under its LaCie premium brand.

According to the Seagate rep, the lifecycle of the products depending on Universal Storage Module (USM) technology is "coming to a conclusion." This SATA-based tech allowed Seagate’s external hard drives to connect to a variety of devices by way of removable adapters or built-in USM ports on desktops, laptops and more.

News of Seagate’s move to discontinue support for Thunderbolt on its external drives doesn’t spell doom for the technology. In fact, the LaCie division will still continue to offer Thunderbolt-based solutions while Seagate addresses Windows and Mac customers with USB 3.0, USB 3.1 and wireless storage solutions.

Seagate acquired Mac storage provider LaCie back in 2012 for $186 million. As seen on Tuesday, the latest LaCie Thunderbolt-based offering includes the d2, the 2big, the 5big, and the 8big Rack. These devices work on both Windows and Mac machines equipped with Thunderbolt ports and range in price from $299 to $4,599.

As we've seen over the last several years, Thunderbolt is marketed as a USB killer, although the adoption of the technology in the Windows-based arena has been rather slow. Thunderbolt was originally introduced as Light Peak back in 2009 and depended on optical cables. However, to reduce the cost, Intel and Apple decided to use copper wiring instead when the technology launched in 2011. Apple's Macs were the first to utilize the technology, and the Windows-based market has yet to see the same saturation.

For the uninitiated, Thunderbolt provides speeds of up to 10 Gbps while USB 3.0 can clock up to 5 Gbps. The newer standards of each are even zippier, with Thunderbolt 2 seeing 20 Gbps speeds, while USB 3.1 can theoretically pushing data at up to 10 Gbps. The big selling point with Thunderbolt is not only in its speed, but the ability to daisy chain up to six Thunderbolt devices.

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Thunderbolt is making its way from Apple products to the PC with more hardware manufacturers adopting the new I/O, which has blazing fast data transfer speeds that are especially ideal for working with video and audio. One of the latest manufacturers to provide Thunderbolt capabilities for PC users is LaCie, which now has four storage products that work across Mac and PC platforms.

The storage capacity ranges from 3 TB to 48 TB across four devices. It's compatible with Windows 7 and 8, so all you need to do is install the drivers on your Thunderbolt-enabled PC, and you should be ready to work.

At the bottom of the range is the d2, which offers 3 TB, 4 TB, and 6 TB capacities at $299, $399 and $499, respectively. Additionally, LaCie claims the d2's speeds can reach up to 220 Mbps. The d2 features two Thunderbolt 2 ports along with a single USB 3.0 port.

Next up is the 2big, which features RAID capabilities across two disks and speeds up to 420 Mbps. The 2big comes in 6 TB, 8 TB, and 12 TB capacities that will cost $599, $799 and $999, respectively, and it features the same two Thunderbolt 2 ports and USB 3.0 port as the d2.

The 5big features RAID across five disks and removes the USB 3.0 port, rolling exclusively with the two Thunderbolt 2 ports. It comes in 10 TB, 20 TB, and 30 TB configurations and will cost you $1,299, $1,999 and $2,999, respectively. In regards to 4K video editing, the company claims the 5big can reach speeds of 1050 Mbps.

At the top of the list is the 8big Rack, which features 8 bays in a 1U rack along with RAID features. Once again, only the Thunderbolt 2 ports are included. It comes in 12 TB, 24 TB and 48 TB capacities and will cost $1,599, $2,599, and $4,599, respectively. For 4K video editing, it can reach speeds up to 1330 Mbps.

All of these devices work with both Mac and Windows, so it won't be difficult to move data between platforms. These devices might not be for the average user, but those who need the space and performance for a workstation could benefit from LaCie's latest external storage family members.

Update, 2/5/15, 8:05am - Fixed typo.

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Often external hard drives are rather unremarkable, but this time around LaCie has a little something different in store. LaCie's new d2 Thunderbolt drive has not one, but two special features, starting with (you guessed it) Thunderbolt support. There are already a fair number of Thunderbolt drives already on the market, but what sets this drive apart is the upgradeable storage design.

The device has a replacement PCB, which has a built-in SSD, and while it may only be 128 GB in size, it does support transfer speeds of up to 1150 MB/s – that's staggering, especially for an external drive. The standard hard drive that's built-in has transfer speeds of up to 220 MB/s.

When mounting the drive to your PC through the Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 interface (and the d2 upgrade module is installed), you'll see it mounted as two separate drives; one is the SSD, and the other is the HDD.

As usual, LaCie has also built the drive with a full-aluminum enclosure along with vibration-dampening rubbers both inside the enclosure and under the foot. This should result in cooler operation and elimination of the 'vibrating desk' symptom of using an external hard drive.

The drives will cost between $299 and $499, with capacities ranging from 3 TB to 6 TB. The d2 SSD upgrade module will set you back an additional $299. Availability is slated for this month.

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LaCie announced on Thursday that it updated its Rugged Thunderbolt-tainted external drive with faster speeds, a tougher design and an integrated Thunderbolt interface cable. The drive also has improved dust, shock and water resistance, and provides a USB 3.0 port for customers who don't have Thunderbolt tech on their desktop or laptop.

The company reports that there are two versions of the Rugged drive: the SSD version and the hard disk version. With the SSD version, this drive provides transfer speeds of up to 387 MB/s. The hard disk version provides speeds of up to 122 MB/s, a 35 percent improvement in speed when compared to a FireWire 800 connection.

"With both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces, the LaCie Rugged is an ideal match for Mac and PC users," states the PR. "Because USB 3.0 is backward compatible, users can connect it to any standard computer. The LaCie Rugged is also fully bus–powered through the USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt cables."

According to LaCie, the HDD version of the Rugged drive is MIL-compliant, which means the outer casing is so tough that data is protected when the drive is accidently dropped up to 6.6 feet (in non-operating mode). The drive also has IP 54-level protection against dust and water when the removable cover is put back into place. The SSD version adds to all of that, featuring protection against shock and vibration too.

The specs show that both versions of the Rugged drive come packed with LaCie Backup Assistant so that users can backup their PC to the drive, and LaCie Private-Public, which offers password protection with AES 256-bit software encryption.

The updated Rugged drive provides four capacities in all: 1 TB ($219.99) and 2 TB ($299.99) hard drives (5400 RPM, 64 MB of cache), and 250 GB ($299.99) and 500 GB ($499.99) SSDs (SATA 3). All four will be available mid-June through LaCie resellers.

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Seagate-owned LaCie announced on Monday three new storage solutions that feature Intel's Thunderbolt 2 technology: the LaCie 8big Rack Thunderbolt 2, the 5big Thunderbolt 2 and the 2big Thunderbolt 2. Ideal for 4K workflows, these three models also feature parent company Seagate's new 6 TB hard drive, which was also announced on Monday.

According to the company, the 8big Rack is the company's first Thunderbolt 2 rackmount storage solution. The appliance features up to eight 6 TB drives, totaling 48 TB of storage in a 1U form factor. The device also delivers speeds up to 1330 MB/s, and features two Thunderbolt 2 ports for daisy chaining, allowing users to daisy chain up to six Thunderbolt rack units together, and then connect them with a single cable to a computer.

The LaCie 8big Rack with Thunderbolt 2 will be available this quarter in 4-disk (12 TB) or 8-disk (24 TB and 48 TB) configurations through the LaCie online store and LaCie resellers.

As for the LaCie 5big, the company indicated that this new version is nearly two times faster than the previous model, delivering speeds up to 1050 MB/s. And thanks to Seagate's new 6 TB hard drives, the 5big boasts a 20 percent capacity increase, which, according to LaCie, makes it the most compact 30 TB storage device on the market. This model also features a cooling system to prevent overheating, consisting of a heat-dissipating aluminum casing, a Noctua cooling fan, and jumbo heat exhausts.

The new LaCie 5big, featuring Thunderbolt 2, will be available this quarter in 10, 20 or 30 TB capacities through the LaCie online store and LaCie resellers.

Finally, we have the dual-bay LaCie 2big with two Thunderbolt 2 ports, hardware RAID and a new industrial design. This solution provides transfer speeds of up to 420 MB/s, and up to two 6 TB 7200 RPM hard drives from Seagate, making it what LaCie considers to be the fastest, highest capacity dual-bay external storage on the market. The device also includes USB 3.0, making it compatible with most computers, and a re-designed cooling system featuring an ultra-quiet Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX thermo-regulated fan.

"I designed the new LaCie 2big as pure desktop architecture – a deceptively simple aesthetic to house the highest tech on the market," said award-winning industrial designer Neil Poulton. "Like a marble Carlo Scarpa staircase, the details are precise and honed. The new LaCie 2big is a Bauhaus building for your desk. On rubber treads."

The LaCie 2big, featuring Thunderbolt 2, will be available this quarter in 6, 8 or 12 TB capacities through the LaCie online store and LaCie resellers.

Back in January, LaCie introduced us to its Fuel wireless hard drive (pictured above). Fuel made its debut at CES 2014 in Las Vegas. It allows users to expand the storage capacity of their iPads without plugging in an external drive. Instead, access to your files comes via a wireless connection and a dedicated app. Now, LaCie is upping the ante by doubling the capacity of Fuel.

Available starting in April, the LaCie Fuel 2 TB is available only in the United States and will cost $249, which is about $50 more than the 1 TB version. Not bad considering its twice the storage.

This 2.5-inch drive works by creating a WiFi network for other devices to connect to (it can support up to five devices) and is a collaboration between Seagate and Lacie. It can also act as a wireless hotspot for other devices when connected to the web. We assume this 2 TB model will exist alongside the 1 TB version, but we've reached out to LaCie for clarification on that.

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LaCie announced on Tuesday the shipment of what it deems as the world's fastest portable external storage solution, the new Little Big Disk featuring Thunderbolt 2 technology. The device is packed with two 500 GB PCIe Gen 2 SSDs, achieving read speeds up to 1,375 MB/s.

According to the specs, the Little Big Disk has an interface transfer rate of up to 20 Gb/s and an average write transfer rate of 1,180 MB/s. The device is also pre-configured for RAID 0 striped set, uses AES 256-bit software encryption, and is Kensington lock compatible.

As shown, the external drive uses two heat-dissipating aluminum plates and a large thermo-regulated fan to keep things cool. This fan will only come on when needed, and will produce nearly zero noise when it's activated. Two Thunderbolt ports are provided on the back for daisy chaining with other Thunderbolt devices such as the LaCie Thunderbolt Series products.

"Professionals can daisy chain up to five LaCie Little Big Disks plus a 4K display, and connect them to a computer via a single cable," states the company's PR. "Now it's possible to create a plug–and–play 4K video editing environment that delivers scalable capacity, incredible speed and convenience to workflows."

The new Little Big Disk ships with Intego Backup Manager Pro and LaCie Private-Public software. The unit measures 1.6 x 5.5 x 3.3 inches, and weighs 1.4 pounds without the included stand. A Thunderbolt cable is included with the drive along with the external power supply and quick install guide.

LaCie's Little Big Disk retails for $1,299 and can be purchased directly from the company here.

Is that price a bit steep? The company provides four other Little Big Disk solutions providing Thunderbolt (1) connectivity. These include the 2 TB (HDD) model for $419.99 and the 4 TB (HDD) model for $599.99. There is also the 512 GB model (SSD) and the 1 TB model (SSD) that's available at resellers for only around $419 and $999, respectively.

LaCie announced on Thursday that its 5big Thunderbolt Series, 2big Thunderbolt Series and d2 Thunderbolt Series now provide users even more external storage by using 5 TB 7200 RPM hard drives from Seagate, which use Shingled Magnetic Recording technology (SMR) to pack data closer together.

"SMR achieves higher areal densities by squeezing tracks closer together," Seagate explains. "Tracks overlap one another, like shingles on a roof, allowing more data to be written to the same space. As new data is written, the drive tracks are trimmed, or shingled. Because the reader element on the drive head is smaller than the writer, all data can still be read off the trimmed track without compromise to data integrity or reliability. In addition, traditional reader and writer elements can be used for SMR."

The LaCie 5big Thunderbolt series is a five-bay unit that provides capacities of 10 TB ($999), 20 TB ($1,999) or 25 TB ($2,499). Features include speeds up to 785 MB/s, RAID 0, 1 and JBOD support with hot swap, dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining, and "whisper-quiet" cooling.

The LaCie 2big Thunderbolt series is a two-bay unit that provides capacities of 4 TB ($499), 6 TB ($629), 8 TB ($799) or 10 TB ($899). Features include speeds up to 327 MB/s, RAID flexibility, dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining, and two hot-swappable disks for non-stop data access.

Finally there's the LaCie d2, which is a single-bay device built for "pros." This external storage solution provides capacities of 3 TB ($299), 4 TB ($399) or 5 TB ($449). Features include data encryption, a fan-free aluminum heat sync design, speeds up to 170 MB/s, and a USB 3.0 port for alternate connectivity.

"Increasingly larger file formats for film and photography have driven the demand for more storage capacity. The availability of 5 TB hard drives enables LaCie to deliver significantly more storage capacity in its same compact desktop designs. This saves professionals valuable desktop space," reads the company's press release.

The new capacities are also available on the LaCie 2big Quadra and d2 Quadra storage solutions. For more information about the company's Thunderbolt products, head here.

Performance That Matters: Going Beyond A Graphics Card's Lap Time

If you're an auto enthusiast, you've no doubt debated the performance of two sports cars with a friend at some point. One might have made more horsepower. Maybe it had a higher top speed, superior handling, or lighter weight. Typically, those conversations come down to comparing lap times on the Nürburgring and end when someone spoils the fun by reminding us that we can't afford any of the contenders anyway. 

In many ways, high-end graphics cards can be quite similar. You have average frame rate, frame time variance, noise from the cooling solution, and a range of price points, which can incidentally double the cost of a current-gen gaming console. And if you needed any further convincing, some of the latest video cards have aluminum and magnesium alloy frames, just like race cars. Alas, some differences remain. Despite my best attempts at impressing my wife with the latest graphics processor, she remains impervious.

So, what is the lap time equivalent for a video card? What is the one measure that distinguishes winners from losers, cost being equal? It's clearly not just average frames per second, as demonstrated by all of the coverage we've given to frame time variance, tearing, stuttering, and fans that sound like jet engines. Then you get into the more technical specifications: texture fill rate, compute performance, memory bandwidth. What significance do all of those numbers hold? And, like a Formula 1 pit crew member, does your new card require headphones just to be tolerated? How do you account for the overclocking headroom of each card in an evaluation?

Before we dig into the myths that envelop modern graphics cards, let's start by defining what performance is and what it is not. 

Performance Is An Envelope, Not One Number

Discussions of GPU performance are often distilled down to generalizations based on FPS, or average frames per second. In reality, a graphics card's performance includes far more than the rate at which it renders frames. It's better to think in terms of an envelope, rather than one data point, though. This envelope has four major dimensions: speed (frame rate, frame latency, and input lag), quality (resolution and image quality), quietness (acoustic performance, driven by power consumption and cooler design), and of course affordability. 

Other factors play into a card's value, such as game bundles and vendor-specific technologies. I'll cover them briefly, but won't try to weigh them quantitatively. Truly, the importance of CUDA, Mantle, and ShadowPlay support is very user-dependent.

The above graph illustrates the GeForce GTX 690's position in this variable envelope I'm describing. Stock, it achieves 71.5 FPS using a test system I'll detail on the following page in Unigine Valley 1.0 at the ExtremeHD preset. It generates an audible, but not bothersome 42.5 dB(A). If you're willing to live with a borderline-noisy 45.5 dB(A), you can easily overclock the card and get a stable 81.5 FPS using the same preset. Lower the resolution or anti-aliasing level (affecting quality), and you get a big bump up in frame rate, all else being equal. Of course, the (un)affordable $1000 price point doesn't change.

For the sake of running tests in a more controlled manner than you're used to seeing, let's define a reference for video card performance.

For the purposes of today's story, I'll specify performance as the frames per second a graphics board can output at a given resolution, within a specific application along the described envelope (and under the following conditions):

1. Quality settings in a given application set to their highest value (typically the Ultra or Extreme preset)
2. Resolution set to a constant level (typically 1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160, or 5760x1080 in a three-monitor array)
3. Driver settings at each manufacturer's defaults (whether global or application-specific)
4. Operating in a closed enclosure at a set 40 dB(A) noise level measured three feet away from the enclosure (ideally, tested on a reference platform that gets updated annually)
5. Operating with an ambient temperature of 20 °C/68 °F and one atmosphere air pressure (this is important; it directly affects thermal throttling)
6. Core and memory operating at temperature equilibrium as far as thermal throttling is concerned (so that core/memory clock speeds under load remain fixed or vary within a tight range, given a constant 40 dB(A) noise level (and corresponding fan speed) target
7. Maintaining a 95^th percentile frame time variance below 8 ms, which is half a frame at a typical display refresh rate of 60 Hz
8. Operating at or near 100% of GPU utilization (this is important to demonstrate a lack of platform bottlenecks; if there are bottlenecks, GPU utilization will be below 100% and the test results will not be very meaningful)
9. Averaged FPS and frame time variance data from no fewer than three runs per data point, each run no less than one minute long, with individual samples exhibiting no more than 5% deviation from the mean(ideally we want to sample different cards of the same time, particularly when there is reason to believe a vendor's products exhibit significant variance)
10. Measured with either Fraps for a single card or any built-in frame counter; FCAT is required for multiple cards in SLI/CrossFire

As you can imagine, the reference performance level is both application- and resolution-dependent. But it's defined in a way that allows for independent repetition and verification of tests. In this sense, it's a truly scientific approach. As a matter of fact, we encourage the industry and enthusiasts alike to repeat the tests we perform and bring any discrepancies to our attention. Only in this way will the integrity of our work be assured.

This definition of reference performance does not account for overclocking, or the range of behaviors a given GPU might exhibit from one card to another. Fortunately, we'll see that's only an issue in a few cases. Modern thermal throttling mechanisms are designed to eke out maximum frame rates in as many situations as possible, so cards are operating closer than ever to their limits. Ceilings are often hit before overclocking adds any real-world benefit.

Unigine Valley 1.0 is a benchmark we use extensively in this article. It features a number of DirectX 11-based features and produces highly repeatable tests. It also doesn't rely on physics (and thus CPU) as much as 3DMark (at least in its overall and combined tests).

What Are We Setting Out To Do Here?

In the course of this two-part story, I plan to look at each of the dimensions that compose a video card's performance envelope, and then try to answer common questions about them. We'll extend the conversation to input lag, display ghosting, and tearing, all of which relate to your gaming experience, but not specifically to frame rates. I'd also like to compare cards using this criteria. As you can imagine, testing this way is extremely time consuming. However, I think the additional insight is worth the effort. That doesn't mean our graphics card reviews are going to change; we're experimenting, and taking you with us.

With the definition of graphics card performance already covered, the rest of today's piece involves methodology, V-sync, noise and the noise level-adjusted performance of graphics cards, and a look at the amount of video memory you really need. Part two will look at anti-aliasing technologies, the impact of display choice, various PCI Express link configurations, and the idea of value for your money.

Time to move on to the test system setup. More so here than in other reviews, you will want to read that page carefully, since it contains important information about the tests themselves.

Graphics Card Myth Busting: How We Tested

Two Systems; Two Purposes

All of today's tests are performed on two separate rigs. One plays host to an older Intel Core i7-950, and another based on Intel's Core i7-4770K.

The first test system needed to facilitate repeatable results in a real-world environment. So, I set up a relatively old, but still very capable LGA 1366-based machine in a full-tower enclosure.

Test system number two needed to fulfill more specific requirements:

1. Support PCIe 3.0 with a limited number of lanes (an LGA 1150-equipped board with a Haswell-based CPU, which only offers 16 lanes)
2. Do not employ a PLX bridge chip
3. Support three-way CrossFire in x8/x4/x4 or SLI in x8/x8 configurations

ASRock sent us its Z87 Extreme6/ac, which fit that description. We previously tested this board (minus the Wi-Fi module) in Five Z87 Motherboards Under $220, Reviewed, where it received our prestigious Smart Buy award. The sample we received was easy to set up, had no problem overclocking our Core i7-4770K sample to 4.6 GHz.

The board's UEFI gave me the option to set PCI Express transfer rates on a slot-by-slot basis, which enabled testing of PCIe Gen 1, 2 and 3 on the same motherboard. You will see the results of these tests in part 2 of this article.

Cooler Master supplied the second test system's chassis and power supply. The unconventional HAF XB enclosure, which also received Smart Buy honors in Cooler Master's HAF XB: Give Your LAN Party Box Breathing Room, proved comfortable to work with. It's very open, of course, so the components inside can get noisy if you don't have the right cooling setup. The case benefits from good airflow though, particularly if you hook up all of the optional fans.

The modular V1000 power supply allowed us to drive three high-end graphics cards, while containing cable clutter in a setting that was destined to get messy.

Comparing Test System 1 And 2

It's striking to see how similarly these systems perform once we get past their underlying architectures and focus on their frame rates. Here's a head-to-head between them in 3DMark Firestrike.

As you can see, the performance in graphics tests is essentially the same, even though the second machine has faster system memory (2133 versus 1800 MT/s, counter-balanced by Nehalem's triple-channel architecture compared to Haswell's two channels). Only in the host processor-dependent tests does the Core i7-4770K demonstrate an advantage.

The second system's main advantage is more overclocking headroom. Our Core i7-4770K sits at a stable 4.6 GHz on air, while the Core i7-950 can't exceed 4 GHz cooled by water. 

It's also worth noting that the first test system is benchmarked using Windows 7 x64 instead of Windows 8.1. There are three reasons for this:

• First, the Windows desktop manager (Windows Aero or wdm.exe) uses a significant amount of graphics memory. At 2160p, it ties up an additional 200 MB in Windows 7 and 300 MB in Windows 8.1, on top of the 123 MB already reserved by Windows. This cannot be disabled without significant side effects in Windows 8.1, while it can be disabled in Windows 7 by switching to a basic theme. Four hundred megabytes is 20% of a 2 GB card's memory.
• The memory usage in Windows 7 is consistent with a basic theme enabled. It is always 99 MB at 1080p and 123 MB at 2160p on a GeForce GTX 690. This makes for more repeatable tests. In contrast, the additional ~200 MB of memory used by Aero varies up and down by roughly 40 MB.
• As of Nvidia's 331.82 WHQL driver, a bug exists affecting 2160p when Windows Aero is enabled. This only surfaces when Aero is enabled on a tiled 4K display, and it manifests itself as lowered GPU utilization during benchmarks (bouncing in the 60-80% range, instead of close to 100%), and a resulting drop in performance of 15% or so. Nvidia was notified of this.

Tearing and ghosting effects do not show up in regular screen shots or game videos; I used a fast camera to capture the actual on-screen image.

Case ambient temperature is measured with the Samsung 840 Pro integrated temperature sensor. Background ambient temperature was in the range of 20-22 °C (68-72 °F). Background sound pressure level for all noise tests was 33.7 dB(A), +/- 0.5 dB(A).

A variety of tools can be used for measuring graphics card memory use. We went with HWiNFO64, taking advantage of its maximum mark. The same results can be obtained through MSI Afterburner, EVGA Precision X, or simply the RivaTuner Statistics Server stand-alone.

To Enable Or Disable V-Sync: That Is The Question

Speed is the first dimension that comes to mind in a graphics card evaluation. How much faster is the latest and greatest than whatever came before? The Internet is littered with benchmarking data from thousands of sources trying to answer that question.

So, let's start by exploring speed and the variables to consider if you really want to know how fast a given graphics card is. 

Myth: Frames rate is the indicator of graphics performance

Let's start with something that the Tom's Hardware audience probably knows already, but remains a misconception elsewhere. Common wisdom suggests that for a game to be playable, it should run at 30 frames per second or more. Some folks believe lower frame rates are still alright, and others insist that 30 FPS is far too low.

In the debate, however, it's not always reinforced that FPS is just a rate, and there is a host of complexity behind it. Most notably, while the frame rate of a movie is constant, a rendered game varies over time and is consequently expressed as an average. Variation is a byproduct of the horsepower required to process any given scene, and as the on-screen content changes, so does frame rate.

The simple point is that there is more to quality of a gaming experience than the instantaneous (or average) rate at which frames are rendered. The consistency of their delivery is an additional factor. Imagine traveling on a highway at a constant 65 MPH compared to the same trip at an average of 65 MPH, spending a lot more time switching between accelerator and brake. You reach your destination in roughly the same amount of time, but the experience is quite a bit different.

So, let's set the question "How much performance is enough?" aside for a moment. We'll get back to it after touching a few other relevant topics.

Introducing V-sync

Myths: Frame rates over 30 FPS aren't necessary; the human eye can't tell a difference. Values above 60 FPS on a 60 Hz display aren't necessary; the monitor is already refreshing 60 times a second. V-sync should always be enabled. V-sync should always be disabled.

How are rendered frames actually displayed? Because of the way almost all LCD displays work, the image on-screen is updated a fixed number of times per second. Typically, the magic number is 60, though there are also 120 and 144 Hz panels capable of more refreshes per second. When you talk about this mechanism, you're referring to the refresh rate, which of course is measured in Hertz.

Now, the mismatch between the graphics card's variable frame rate and the display's fixed refresh rate can be problematic. When the former happens faster than the latter, you end up with multiple frames displayed in the same scan, resulting in an artifact called screen tearing. In the image above, the colored bars denote unique frames from the graphics card getting thrown up on-screen as they're ready. This can be highly distracting, particularly in a fast-paced shooter.

The image below shows another artifact commonly seen on-screen, but rarely documented. Because it's a display artifact, it doesn't show up in screen shots, but instead represents the image your eyes actually see. You need a fast camera to capture it. FCAT, which is what Chris Angelini used to create the traffic cone shot in Battlefield 4, does reflect tearing, but not the ghosting effect I'm illustrating.

Screen tearing is evident in both of my BioShock Infinite images. But it's more evident on the 60 Hz Sharp than the 120 Hz Asus panel because the VG236HE runs at a refresh rate that's twice as high . This artifact is the clearest indicator that a game is running with V-sync, or vertical synchronization, disabled. 

The other issue in the BioShock image is ghosting, which you can see especially in the bottom of the left image. This is attributable to screen latency. In short, individual pixels don't change color quickly enough and show this type of afterglow. The in-game effect is far more dramatic than my images suggest. An 8 ms gray-to-gray response time, which is what the Sharp screen on the left is specified for, appears blurry whenever fast movement happens on-screen.

Back to tearing. The aforementioned V-sync is an old solution to the problem, which synchronizes the rate at which the video card presents frames to the screen's refresh rate. Because multiple frames no longer show up in a single panel refresh, tearing is no longer an issue. However, if your crank up the graphics quality of your favorite title and its frame rate drops below 60 FPS (or whatever your panel's refresh is set to), then your effective frame rate bounces between integer multiples of the refresh, illustrated below. Now, you face another artifact called stuttering.

One of the Internet's oldest arguments is whether you should turn V-sync on or leave it off. Some folks insist it's one or the other, and some enthusiasts will change the setting based on the game they're playing.

So, V-sync On, Or V-sync Off?

Let's say you're in the majority and own a typical 60 Hz display:

• If you play first-person shooter games competitively, and/or have issues with perceived input lag, and/or if your system cannot sustain at least 60 FPS in a given title, and/or you're benchmarking your graphics card, then you should turn V-sync off. 
• If none of the above applies to you and you experience significant screen tearing, then you should turn V-sync on.
• As a general rule, or if you don’t feel strongly either way, just keep V-sync off.

If you own a gaming-oriented 120/144 Hz display (if you have one, there's a good chance you bought it specifically for its higher refresh rate):

• You should consider leaving V-sync on only when playing older games, where you experience a sustained >120 FPS and you are experiencing screen tearing.

Note that there are certain cases where the frame rate-halving impact of V-sync doesn't apply, such as applications supporting triple buffering, though those cases aren't common. Also, in some games (like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim), V-sync is enabled by default. Forcing it off by modifying certain files can cause issues with the game engine itself. In those cases, you're best off leaving V-sync on.

G-Sync, FreeSync, and the Future

G-Sync Technology Preview: Quite Literally A Game Changer was a preview of Nvidia's solution to all of this. AMD made a somewhat feeble attempt at responding by showing off its FreeSync technology at CES 2014, though that might only be viable on laptops for now - that said, we applaud AMD's open-source approach to the technology as the right way to go. Both capabilities work around V-sync's compromises by allowing the display to operate at a variable refresh.

It is hard to say where the industry is heading, but as I mentioned in my G-Sync coverage, we're not fans of proprietary standards (and I bet most OEMs agree). I'd like to see Nvidia consider opening up G-Sync to the rest of the community, though we know from experience that the company tends not to do this.

Do I Need To Worry About Input Lag?

Myth: Graphics Cards Affect Input Lag

Let’s say you’re getting shot up in your favorite multi-player shooter before you have the chance to even react. Is your opposition really that much better than you? Could they be cheating? Or is something else going on?

Aside from the occasional cheat, which does happen, the truth might be that those seemingly super-human reflexes are at least partly assisted by technology. And they might have very little to do with your graphics card.

It takes time for what happens in a game to show up on your screen. It takes from for you to react. And it takes time for your mouse and keyboard inputs to register. Somewhat improperly, the delay between you issuing a command and the on-screen action is commonly called input lag. So, if you press the trigger in a first-person shooter and your weapon fires .1 seconds later, your input lag is effectively 100 milliseconds. 

Human reaction times to visual inputs vary. According to a 1986 U.S. Navy study, the average F-14 fighter pilot reacted to a simple visual stimulus in an average of 223 ms. And it might not seem correct, but human beings actually react faster to sound than visual inputs. Reactions to auditory stimuli tend to be in the ~150 ms range.

If you're curious, you can test for yourself how quickly you react to either by clicking the simple visual test and then the audio test.

Fortunately, no matter how poorly-configured your PC may be, it probably won't hit 200 ms of input lag. So, your personal reaction time remains the biggest influencer of how quickly your character responds in a game.

As differences in input lag increase, however, they increasingly do affect gameplay. Imagine a professional gamer with reflexes comparable to the best fighter pilots at 150 ms. A 50 ms slow-down in input means that person will be 30% slower (that's four frames on a 60 Hz display) than his competition. At the professional level, that's notable.

For mere mortals (including me; I scored 200 ms in the visual test linked above), and for anyone who would rather play Civilization V leisurely than Counter Strike 1.6 competitively, it’s an entirely different story; you can likely ignore input lag altogether.

Here are some of the factors that can worsen input lag, all else being equal:

• Playing on an HDTV (even more so if its game mode is disabled) or playing on an LCD display that performs some form of video processing that cannot be bypassed. Check out DisplayLag's Input Lag database for a great list organized by model.
• Playing on LCD displays, which employ higher-response time IPS panels (5-7 ms G2G typical), versus TN+Film panels (1-2 ms GTG possible), versus CRT displays (the fastest available).
• Playing on displays with lower refresh rates; the newest gaming displays support 120 or 144 Hz natively.
• Playing at low frame rates (30 FPS is one frame every 33 ms; 144 FPS is one frame every 7 ms).
• Using a USB-based mouse with a low polling rate. The default 125 Hz is a ~6 ms cycle time, yielding a ~3 ms input lag on average. Meanwhile, gaming mice can go to ~1000 Hz for ~0.5 ms average input lag.
• Using a low-quality keyboard (keyboard input lag is 16 ms typically, but can be higher for poor ones).
• Enabling V-sync, especially so when using triple buffering as well (there is a myth that Direct3D does not implement triple buffering; the reality is that Direct3D does account for the option of multiple back buffers, but few games exploit this). Check out Microsoft's write-up, if you're technically inclined.
• Playing with high render-ahead queues. The default in Direct3D is three frames, or 48 ms at 60 Hz. This figure can be increased to 20 for greater “smoothness” and dropped to one for increased responsiveness at the cost of greater frame time variance and, in some cases, somewhat lower FPS overall. There is no such setting as a zero setting; what zero does is simply reset to the default value of three. Check out Microsoft's write-up, if you're technically inclined.
• Playing on a high-latency Internet connection. While this goes beyond what would be defined as input lag, if effectively stacks with it

Factors that do not make a difference include:

• Using a PS/2 or USB keyboard (see a dedicated page in our article: Five Mechanical-Switch Keyboards: Only The Best For Your Hands)
• Using a wireless or wired network connection (just try pinging your router if you don’t believe us; you should see ping times of less than 1 ms). 
• Enabling SLI or CrossFire. The longer render queues required to enable these technologies are generally compensated by higher frame throughput.

Bottom Line: Input lag only matters in "twitch" games, and really matters only at highly competitive levels.

There is a lot more to input lag than just display technology or a graphics card. Your hardware, hardware settings, display, display settings, and application settings all influence this measurement.

The Myths Surrounding Graphics Card Memory

Video memory enables resolution and quality settings, does not improve speed

Graphics memory is often used by card vendors as a marketing tool. Because gamers have been conditioned to believe that more is better, it's common to see entry-level boards with far more RAM than they need. But enthusiasts know that, as with every subsystem in their PCs, balance is most important.

Broadly, graphics memory is dedicated to a discrete GPU and the workloads it operates on, separate from the system memory plugged in to your motherboard. There are a couple of memory technologies used on graphics cards today, the most popular being DDR3 and GDDR5 SDRAM.

Myth: Graphics cards with 2 GB of memory are faster than those with 1 GB

Not surprisingly, vendors arm inexpensive cards with too much memory (and eke out higher margins) because there are folks who believe more memory makes their card faster. Let's set the record straight on that. The memory capacity a graphics card ships with has no impact on that product's performance, so long as the settings you're using to game with don't consume all of it.

What does having more video memory actually help, then? In order to answer that, we need to know what graphics memory is used for. This is simplifying a bit, but it helps with:

• Loading textures
• Holding the frame buffer
• Holding the depth buffer ("Z Buffer")
• Holding other assets that are required to render a frame (shadow maps, etc.)
  

Of course, the size of the textures getting loaded into memory depends on the game you're playing and its quality preset. As an example, the Skyrim high-resolution texture pack includes 3 GB of textures. Most applications dynamically load and unload textures as they're needed, though, so not all textures need to reside in graphics memory. The textures required to render a particular scene do need to be in memory, however.

The frame buffer is used to store the image as it is rendered, before or during the time it is sent to the display. Thus, its memory footprint depends on the output resolution (an image at at 1920x1080x32 bpp is ~8.3 MB; a 4K image at 3840x2160x32 is ~33.2 MB), the number of buffers (at least two; rarely three or more).

As specific anti-aliasing modes (FSAA, MSAA, CSAA, CFAA, but not FXAA or MLAA) effectively increase the number of pixels that need to be rendered, they proportionally increase overall required graphics memory. Render-based anti-aliasing in particular has a massive impact on memory usage, and that grows as sample size (2x, 4x, 8x, etc) increases. Additional buffers also occupy graphics memory.

So, a graphics card with more memory allows you to:

1. Play at higher resolutions
2. Play at higher texture quality settings
3. Play with higher render-based antialiasing settings

Now, to address the myth.

Myth: You need 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 GB of graphics memory to play at (insert your display's native resolution here).

The most important factor affecting the amount of graphics memory you need is the resolution you game at. Naturally, higher resolutions require more memory. The second most important factor is whether you're using one of the anti-aliasing technologies mentioned above. Assuming a constant quality preset in your favorite game, other factors are less influential.

Before we move on to the actual measurements, allow me to express one more word of caution. There is a particular type of high-end card with two GPUs (AMD's Radeon HD 6990 and 7990, along with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 590 and 690) that are equipped with a certain amount of on-board memory. But as a result of their dual-GPU designs, data is essentially duplicated, halving the effective memory. A GeForce GTX 690 with 4 GB, for instance, behaves like two 2 GB cards in SLI. Moreover, when you add a second card to your gaming configuration in CrossFire or SLI, the array's graphics memory doesn't double. Each card still has access only to its own memory.

These tests were run on a Windows 7 x64 setup with Aero disabled. If you’re using Aero (or Windows 8/8.1, which doesn't have Aero), you should add ~300 MB to each and every individual measure you see listed below.

As you can see from the latest Steam hardware survey, most gamers (about half) tend to own video cards with 1 GB of graphics memory, ~20% have about 2 GB, and the number of users with 3 GB or more is less than 2%.

We tested Skyrim with the official high-resolution texture pack enabled. As you can see, 1 GB of graphics memory is barely enough to play the game at 1080p without AA or with MLAA/FXAA enabled. Two gigabytes will let you run at 1920x1080 with details cranked up and 2160p with reduced levels of AA. To enable the full Ultra preset and 8xMSAA, not even 2 GB card is sufficient.

Bethesda’s Creation Engine is a unique creature in this set of benchmarks. It is not easily GPU-bound, and is instead often limited by platform performance. But in these tests, we newly demonstrate how Skyrim can be bottlenecked by graphics memory at the highest-quality settings.

It's also worth noting that enabling FXAA uses no memory whatsoever. There's a value trade-off to be made in cases where MSAA is not an option.

More Graphics Memory Measurements

Io Interactive's Glacier 2 engine, which powers Hitman: Absolution, is memory-hungry, second only (in our tests) to the Warscape engine from Creative Assembly (Total War: Rome II) when the highest-quality presets are taken into account.

In Hitman: Absolution, a 1 GB card is not sufficient for playing at the game’s Ultra Quality level at 1080p. A 2 GB card does allow you to set 4xAA at 1080p, or to play without MSAA at 2160p.

To enable 8xMSAA at 1080p you need a 3 GB card, and nothing short of a 6 GB Titan supports 8xMSAA at 2160p.

Once again, enabling FXAA uses no additional memory.

Note: Ungine’s latest benchmark, Valley 1.0, does not support MLAA/FXAA directly. Thus, the results you see represent memory usage when MLAA/FXAA is force-enabled in CCC/NVCP.

The data shows us that Valley runs fine on a 2 GB card at 1080p (at least as far as memory use goes). You can even use a 1 GB card with 4xMSAA enabled, which is not the case for most games. At 2160p, however, the benchmark will only run properly on a 2 GB card so long as you don't turn on AA, or use a post-processing effect instead. The 2 GB ceiling gets hit with 4xMSAA turned on.

Ultra HD with 8xMSAA enabled gobbles up over 3 GB of graphics memory, which means this benchmark will only run properly at that preset using Nvidia's GeForce GTX Titan or one of AMD's 4 GB Hawaii-based boards.

Total War: Rome II uses an updated Warscape engine from Creative Assembly. It doesn't support SLI at the moment (CrossFire does work, however). It also doesn't support any form of MSAA. The only form of anti-aliasing that works is AMD's proprietary MLAA, which is a post-processing technique like SMAA and FXAA.

One notable feature of this engine is its ability to auto-downgrade image quality based on available video memory. That's a good way to keep the game playable with minimal end-user involvement. But a lack of SLI support cripples the title on Nvidia cards at 3840x2160. At least for now, you'll want to play on an AMD board if 4K is your resolution of choice.

With MLAA disabled, Total War: Rome II’s built-in “forest” benchmark at the Extreme preset uses 1848 MB of graphics memory. The GeForce GTX 690’s 2 GB limit is exceeded with MLAA enabled at 2160p. At 1920x1080, memory use is in the 1400 MB range.

Note the surprising factor of running a supposedly AMD-only technology (MLAA) on Nvidia hardware. As both FXAA and MLAA are post-processing-based techniques, there is no technical reason why they won't run on interchangeable hardware. Creative Assembly is either switching behind-the-scenes to FXAA (despite what the configuration file says), or AMD's marketing department hasn't picked up on the fact above.

You need at least a 2 GB card to play Total War: Rome II at its Extreme quality preset at 1080p, and likely a CrossFire array with 3 GB+ to play smoothly at 2160p. If you only have a 1 GB card, the game might still be playable at 1080p, but you'll have to make some quality compromises.

What happens when graphics memory is completely consumed? The short answer is that graphics data starts getting swapped to system memory over the PCI Express bus. Practically, this means performance slows dramatically, particularly when textures are being loaded. You don't want this to happen. It'll make any game unplayable due to massive stuttering.

So, how much graphics memory do I need?

If you own a 1 GB card and a 1080p display, there's probably no need to upgrade right this very moment. A 2 GB card would let you turn on more demanding AA settings in most games though, so consider that a minimum benchmark if you're planning a new purchase and want to enjoy the latest titles at 1920x1080.

As you scale up to 1440p, 1600p, 2160p or multi-monitor configurations, start thinking beyond 2 GB if you also want to use MSAA. Three gigabytes becomes a better target (or multiple 3 GB+ cards in SLI/CrossFire).

Of course, as I mentioned, balance is critical across the board. An underpowered GPU outfitted with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory (rather than 2 GB) isn't going to automatically be playable at high resolutions just because it's complemented by the right amount of memory. And that's why, when we review graphics cards, we test multiple games, resolutions, and detail settings. It takes fleshing out a card's bottlenecks before smart recommendations can be made.

Thermal Management In A Modern Graphics Card

Modern graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia employ protection mechanisms to ramp up fan speeds, and eventually throttle back clock rates and voltages if they get too hot. This technology doesn't always work to keep your system stable (particularly when you're overclocking). Rather, it's meant to keep the hardware from getting damaged. So it's not unheard of for an over-tuned card to crash, requiring a reset.

There has been much debate about how hot is too hot for a GPU. However, higher temperatures, if they're tolerated by the equipment, are actually desirable as they result in better heat dissipation overall (as the difference with ambient temperature, and thus amount of heat that can be transferred, is higher). At least from a technical perspective, AMD's frustration over reactions to the Hawaii GPU's thermal ceiling is understandable. There are no long-term studies that I'm aware of speaking to the viability of given temperature set points. From my own experiences with device stability, I have to rely on manufacturer specifications.

On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that silicon transistors broadly perform better at lower temperatures. That is the main reason you see competitive overclockers using liquid nitrogen to get the chips they're testing as cold as possible. In general, lower temperatures help facilitate more overclocking headroom.

Some of the most power-hungry cards in the world are the Radeon HD 7990 (375 W TDP) and GeForce GTX 690 (300 W TDP). Both are dual-GPU cards. Single-GPU boards tend to be quite a bit lower, though the Radeon R9 290-series cards creep up closer to 300 W. In either case, that's a lot of heat to dissipate.

Volumes have been written about graphics card cooling, so we wont delve into that. Rather, we're interested in what actually happens when you begin applying load to a modern GPU.

1. You launch a processing-intensive application like a 3D game or your favorite bitcoin miner
2. The card's clock rates increase to their nominal/boost values; the board starts warming up due to greater current absorption
3. Fan speed progressively rises, up to a point defined by firmware; usually it'll taper off when acoustics approach 50 dB(A)
4. If the programmed fan speed isn't enough to keep the GPU's temperature below a certain level, clock rates scale back until the temperature falls below the set threshold
5. Your card should operate stably within a relatively narrow frequency and temperature range until the application driving the load is shut down

As you can imagine, the exact thermal throttling point depends on many factors, including the specific load, the enclosure's airflow, the ambient air temperature, and even ambient air pressure. That's why cards throttle at different times, or not at all. This thermal throttling point can be used to define a reference level of performance. And if we set a card's fan speed (and thus noise level) manually, we can create a noise-dependent measurement level. What use is that? Let's find out...

Testing Performance At A Constant 40 dB(A)

Why 40 dB(A)?

First of all, note the A in the decibel notation. That stands for A-weighting. It means that sound pressure levels are adjusted using a curve that mimics human sensitivity to noise levels at different frequencies.

Forty decibels is generally considered to be the average background noise level for a commonly quiet apartment. Recording studios might be in the 30 dB range, while 50 dB might be a quiet suburb or a conversation at home. Zero is commonly considered the threshold of human hearing, although it's uncommon to hear in the 0-5 dB range unless you're less than five years old. The decibel scale is logarithmic, and not linear. So 50 dB is twice as loud as 40, which is twice as loud as 30.

Trivia

Trivia: The world's quietest room has a -9 dB background noise level, and will reportedly give you hallucinations in less than an hour if you stand inside in the dark, due to sensory deprivation.

A PC operating at 40 dB(A) tends to blend in with the background noise level of your home/apartment. Generally, it shouldn't be noticeable.

How Do You Dial In 40 dB(A) Consistently?

A card's noise profile is affected by a few variables, one of which is the speed of its fan. Not all fans make the same amount of noise at the same RPM level, but each fan, on its own, should be consistent at a given rotational speed.

So, by measuring directly with a SPL meter from three feet away, I manually set each card's fan profile right at 40 dB(A).

The table above shows us that the Radeon R9 290X and GeForce GTX 690 achieve 40 dB(A) at the same fan speed, although at different fan settings. The Radeon's fan can be pushed higher overall, hitting rotational speeds and noise levels that the GTX 690's cooler cannot. Nvidia's GeForce GTX Titan, on the other hand, has a different noise profile, hitting 40 dB(A) at a higher 2780 RPM, but at a setting (65%) similar to the GeForce GTX 690 (61%).

This table illustrates fan profiles along a variety of presets. Overclocked cards under load can get pretty loud; I measured around 47 dB(A). The Titan is the quietest under a typical load, at 38.3 dB(A), while the GeForce GTX 690 is the loudest at 42.5 dB(A).

Can Overclocking Hurt Performance At 40 dB(A)?

Myth: Overclocking always yields performance benefits

Setting a specific fan profile, and letting cards throttle until they reach stability, yields an interesting and repeatable test.

Only the GeForce GTX Titan performs better when it's overclocked. The Radeon R9 290X gets absolutely no benefit, while the GeForce GTX 690 actually loses performance at our 40 dB(A) test point, cutting clock rate as low as 575 MHz when we overclock.

This test shows how much more performance headroom the Titan has compared to the other cards. Although it doesn't match the GeForce GTX 690, the overclocked Titan gets close, leaving the Radeon R9 290X further behind than more typical benchmarks might suggest.

Another interesting point is how much higher the ambient temperature gets with a GeForce GTX 690 in my case (12-14 °C). That's the effect of its center-mounted axial fan, which blows hot air back into the chassis, limiting thermal headroom. In most real-world cases, we'd expect a similar scenario. So, the trade-offs between more noise for more performance (or the other way around) need to be considered based on your own tastes.

Now, with V-sync, input lag, graphics memory, and benchmarking at a specific acoustic footprint explored in-depth, we'll get back to work on part two, which already includes exploring PCIe transfer rates, display sizes, deep-dives on proprietary vendor technologies, and value for your dollar. Of course, if there are other topics you'd like to see us broach, please let us know in the comments section!

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. 

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

Lacie today unveiled its new Fuel wireless storage device for iPad. As we all know, choosing a storage capacity for a media device can be tricky, especially when that device doesn't have the option to expand storage via MicroSD. The iPad is one of the most popular tablets available today, and users are stuck with the storage capacity they selected at check out. However, Lacie is hoping to solve that problem with the Fuel.

The Fuel is a wireless drive for your iPad. The idea behind it is to wirelessly expand the storage of your iPad without the muss or fuss of cables. We went hands on with the Fuel last night at Pepcom's Digital Experience and were pretty impressed with the experience. The device connects via a dedicated application and can handle up to five connections at once (though you're limited to just three connections for HD video streaming). We were told that not all of these connected devices have to be iPads or iPhones and that Android devices were supported. The apps UI was clear and well laid out, making it easy to select pictures and video for viewing or streaming. We didn't get a chance to try streaming to multiple devices at once, so we can't say what that experience is like.

It's a USB 3.0 drive and it uses WiFi 802.11 b/g/n for interfacing with the connected devices. It has a range of about 150 feet. The Fuel measures 4.5 x 4.5 x 0.9 inches and is quite light at 9.7 ounces, though the plastic casing makes it feel a bit too much like a router for our liking. Light is good, but too light a device can start to feel cheap. The Fuel is just on the right side of that line, but only just.

If you're looking to connect your device to this, you'll need Windows Vista or higher, Android 2.3 or higher, a Kindle Fire, iOS 5.1.1 or higher or Mac OS X 10.6 or higher.

Availability for the Fuel is coming very soon; the device costs $199.99.

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

When Lacie announced its Culbuto USB key, we knew we had to see it for ourselves. A USB key that was also one of those wobble bobble ornaments and a picture clip to boot? To say there was nothing else like it at Pepcom's pre-CES showcase last night would be wholly accurate. In fact, we'd wager Lacie is the only company with this kind of USB key at CES. Impressive, given CES is lousy with "me too" products. 

The Culbuto is weighty and smooth to the touch. The contrast between the smooth metal and rubberized black is really elegant and it feels solid in your hand. There's no arguing that it's a well made product. Unfortunately, we kind of don't see where it fits in the market. Are there people who really want a USB key photo clip? If so, how much are they willing to pay? Lacie is asking $49.99 for the 16 GB or $79.99 for the 32 GB.

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Last night, we got a chance to go hands on with Lacie's newest line of products just ahead of CES's official opening this morning. The venue was Pepcom's Digital Experience showcase at the Mirage Hotel on the Las Vegas strip. The perfect setting for Lacie's sleek, shiny, oppulent Sphere.

The Sphere resembles a crystal ball and was designed by Christofle. Inside is 1 TB of storage space with USB 3.0 to help those data transfers along. Lacie lists the interface transfer rate at up to 5 Gb/s with USB 3.0 or up to 480 Mb/s via USB 2.0. The whole thing weighs in at 500g, or just over one pound, so it feels solid, but it's not crazy heavy either. 

One of the downsides is that its mirrored surface collects fingerprints like crazy. The device actually had a little sign next to it saying "DO NOT TOUCH" (we definitely touched, oops) and there were Lacie reps on hand with cloths to wipe away smudges left by filthy rule breakers. 

That said, it's not the fingerprints that will put people off. We'd wager the price is the hardest pill to swallow. There's just the one 1 TB model and Lacie is charging $490 for it. That's not cheap for 1 TB of storage. Then again, it's beautiful to look at, so those that have the money might not mind splashing out. Availability is set for sometime this quarter.

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Along with the Sphere and the Culbuto, Lacie today announced the Fuel, a wireless drive for your iPad. The idea behind the Fuel is to wirelessly expand the storage of your iPad without the muss or fuss of cables. With a capacity of 1 TB, users can store hundreds of movies and access the content from their iPad via a dedicated app. Not only that, but the drive can be accessed by up to five devices at a time, and users can stream to their TV via Apple TV.

The Fuel works by creating a WiFi network for other devices to connect to and is a collaboration between Seagate and Lacie. It can also act as a wireless hotspot for other devices when connected to the web. 

Lacie says the built-in battery will last for about 10 hours, so you can take it on a road trip and have each passenger watching their own shows on their smartphones or tablets.

Pricing is set at $199; availability is nothing more specific than 'soon.'

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

CES brings all kinds of whacky gadgets; Lacie has a couple of choice pieces at its booth this year. The company on Wednesday launched the Culbuto USB key, which is a thumb drive that doubles as a picture holder. It also has a weighted, rounded base, so it doesn't tip over. Not an unusual feature for a picture clip, but definitely unusual in a USB drive.

"The search for movement and balance is essential in my work," said  product designer Constance Guisset. "Repeated and infinite oscillation fascinates me. For my first project with LaCie, I proposed a slightly roly–poly key that eventually became LaCie Xtremkey. When LaCie asked me to develop this idea, Culbuto was the result. It's an irresistibly fun USB key."

This USB 3.0 memory stick comes in 16 GB and 32 GB capacities. The former is priced at $49.99 while the latter is priced at $79.99.

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!

On Monday during CES 2014, LaCie introduced the Sphère, an external hard drive that not only stores your files, but looks pretty in the process. The overall exterior was designed by Christofle, a French manufacturer of fine silver flatware and home accessories. This company is well known for its hollowware, crystal vases and silvery jewelry.

LaCie's new drive consists of a handcrafted spherical case of silver-plated steel. According to LaCie, this drive's outer shell requires a careful manual plating process. The shell is stamped, silver-plated and polished in Christofle's silversmith workshop in Yainville (Normandy), France. The result: a super shiny, reflective decorative piece that will spruce up any desktop.

According to the specs, the hard drive connects via a USB 3.0 port (USB 2.0 compatible), and does not require a separate power adapter (bus powered). Unfortunately, LaCie doesn't provide any information regarding speed, but the drive currently only arrives in one capacity: 1 TB.

Bundled software includes LaCie Private-Public password protection, LaCie Backup Assistant, and Eco Mode. System requirements include Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8, or Mac OS X 10.5 or later (LaCie Private-Public software requires Mac Intel processor). The drive's overall dimensions are 5.3 x 5.3 x 4.9 inches.

"With the Sphère, LaCie and Christofle have once again thought outside the box. In an industry where square thinking is the rule, this product reflects LaCie's innovative edge," Philippe Spruch, executive vice president, Seagate branded, CEO and chairman of the board, LaCie.

The LaCie Sphère will be available this quarter through the LaCie Online Store, select concept stores, and Christofle retail stores and corners starting at $490.00.

Check out all of our CES 2014 coverage!