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LaCie has many similar-looking exterior drives which are laborious to distinguish attributable to their related names and promotional pictures, so figuring out this one from the others isn’t straightforward.
All of them have an orange bumper that makes them appear to be inflatable life rafts, though this characteristic does present extra safety from being dropped from as much as 2 meters.
Concerning the measurement of an outdated cigarette packet, the LaCie Rugged SSD4 is functionally similar to the Rugged Mini (STMF2000400), however the electronics inside have been altered to help USB4 connectivity. The drive will nonetheless perform with USB 3.2, though to hook up with USB-A ports, you have to to supply an adapter, as LaCie doesn’t embrace one.
In case you join it to a USB4 port with 40Gbps mode, you possibly can obtain learn speeds of over 4,000MB/s and write speeds in extra of three,600MB/s. Having solely 20Gbps ports halves these numbers, and over USB 3.2 Gen 2, typical switch speeds are 1,000Mb/s.
Capacities are 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, offering ample house for 4K video captures or impressively massive knowledge units.
Costs begin at $119.99, and the biggest capability is $399.99. As a result of this isn’t an inexpensive choice for these capacities, that is solely appropriate for somebody who has a USB4 port and can solely hook up with machines with that port.
The efficiency is great, up there with the greatest rugged SSD we have tried, nevertheless it’s double the value of much less idiosyncratic designs for a similar quantity of space for storing. Whereas it ticks the switch velocity bins, the LaCie Rugged SSD4 isn’t one of the best design, and it scores poorly on worth for cash.
LaCie Rugged SSD4: Pricing and availability
- How a lot does it price? From $119.99/147.99 for 1TB mannequin
- When is it out? It’s beginning to be obtainable now
- The place are you able to get it? Direct from Essential or by means of on-line retailers like Amazon.
Even earlier than they turned a part of the Seagate enterprise in 2012, LaCie had a status for high-quality {hardware} that got here with a premium worth.
Clearly, when your clients anticipate issues to be costly, LaCie seems to see no must disappoint them.
The value immediately from the maker within the USA is $119.99 (1TB), $214.99 (2TB) and $399.99 (4TB), making this unit one of many costlier exterior SSDs obtainable. It is also obtainable on Amazon.com.
However pricing outdoors the USA is counterintuitively much more costly, with the identical drive capacities costing £203.99, £419.99 and £599.99 within the UK. Contemplating that LaCie manufacturing is in France, this extra price makes zero sense.
To place these costs into perspective, many exterior SSD makers are promoting their 4TB fashions for lower than LaCie is asking for its 1TB choice.
As a comparability, the Corsair EX400U, a drive with the same efficiency envelope, prices $139.99, $209.99, and $369.99 for a similar capacities immediately from Corsair. However on Amazon.com these might be had for $109.99, $199.99 and $359.99, undercutting LaCie at every capability.
The query it’s essential to ask your self is what about this drive is well worth the premium LaCie has utilized to it? As a result of from this reviewer’s perspective, there isn’t a lot.
LaCie Rugged SSD4: Specs
|
Mannequin No. |
STND1000400 |
|
Capacities |
4TB/2TB/1TB |
|
Capability examined |
2TB |
|
Examined sequential efficiency (Learn/Write) |
4068/3741MB/s |
|
Connection |
USB 40 Gbps, USB 20 Gbps, USB 10 Gbps, USB 5 Gbps1, Thunderbolt 5, Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 |
|
Encryption |
{Hardware} |
|
Dimensions |
105.3 x 66.9 x 17.3mm (WxHxD) |
|
Weight |
108g |
|
Guarantee |
3 years |
LaCie Rugged SSD4: Design
- Inflatable raft aesthetic
- Rugged-ish
- 3-year guarantee
As I’ve talked about beforehand, all of Lacie’s rugged drives have this mini-inflatable-raft aesthetic, which signifies that these gadgets are metaphorical lifeboats.
That’s an fascinating iconography, however aside from defending the drive from clumsy homeowners, there appears to be comparatively little about these decisions that make this product higher.
And, one other repeating theme of my exterior storage critiques, even with this bulbous orange bumper in place, this drive is just rated as IP54 and authorized for a fall of two meters and 1000lbs of crushing power.
Being life like, any solid-state electronics and not using a bumper ought to survive a fall of that distance, even onto a tough floor and nonetheless work. With the bumper on, it is a very low bar to clear, since all of the Corsair X collection drives can handle that degree of survivability and not using a bumper.
The IP54 ranking means that it provides safety towards restricted mud ingress and splashing water from any route. That doesn’t make it waterproof.
To attain this ranking, I’d recommend that we are able to assume the plug overlaying the USB port is in place, which everyone knows it gained’t be, as a result of the drive can have the cable connected from the second it comes out of its packaging to the purpose it will definitely stops working.
So, what occurs to the plug? It’s misplaced, as a result of there may be nowhere on the drive to position it as soon as it is eliminated. If the plug is changed, then there may be nowhere for the cable to be saved.
What kind of twists my noodle is that while you take away the plug emblazoned on the bumper, is the aid ‘designed by neil poulton’. He’s a Scottish-born industrial product designer based mostly in Paris, which is why I presume that LaCie used his firm for this challenge.
Unsure what temporary he was given, however not misplacing the plug or storing the cable evidently weren’t precedence necessities.
Neither have been all these folks with USB-A ports, as a result of there isn’t a adapter within the field, even when together with one would have price LaCie pennies.
General, it would look distinctive, and it’s properly engineered, however telephones include waterproof USB ports that don’t want a plug, and different exterior drives have built-in cables and USB adapters.
LaCie Rugged SSD4: Software program
- Adobe trial
- Seagate software program
- No firmware device
This exterior drive, like many others from completely different manufacturers, comes with a two-month free subscription to Adobe Artistic Cloud All Apps Plan. In case you’re already paying for it, you gained’t get one other couple of months free of charge, and in the event you aren’t, you’ll be including one other $54.99 to your month-to-month bills for Adobe’s costly software program as soon as the 2 months are up.
There’s the LaCie Toolkit, which helps you to sync folders to the drive mechanically. It’s the identical software program Seagate (the mother or father firm of LaCie) provides with a lot of its drives. You may again up commonplace folders, comparable to paperwork and footage, and arrange your personal customized folders to maintain them secure. It’s not one of the best syncing software program on the market, nevertheless it does the job, which is what most patrons of this drive would anticipate.
On the draw back, there are not any cloud storage choices or instruments obtainable to test for firmware updates. What’s slightly disturbing is that in the event you use the Seagate-approved drive detect device on this drive, it doesn’t recognise the serial quantity, and due to this fact can’t give you any firmware.
Contemplating the asking worth, the included software program is proscribed and wishes updating.
LaCie Rugged SSD4: Efficiency
|
Bench |
Take a look at |
LaCie Rugged SSD4 2TB |
Corsair EX400U 2TB |
|---|---|---|---|
|
CrystalDiskMark 8.04 |
Default Learn |
4058 |
4056 MB/s |
| Row 1 – Cell 0 |
Default Write |
3741 |
3630 MB/s |
| Row 2 – Cell 0 |
Actual World Learn |
2034 |
2303 MB/s |
| Row 3 – Cell 0 |
Actual World Write |
2542 |
3269 MB/s |
|
AJA System Take a look at 16GB |
Learn |
3235 |
2827 MB/s |
| Row 5 – Cell 0 |
Write |
3249 |
2638 MB/s |
|
AS SSD |
Learn |
3326 |
3506 MB/s |
| Row 7 – Cell 0 |
Write |
2638 |
3197 MB/s |
|
ATTO |
Learn |
3780 |
3780 MB/s |
| Row 9 – Cell 0 |
Write |
3490 |
3470 MB/s |
|
PCMark Knowledge Drive Bench |
Row 10 – Cell 1 |
1791 |
2028 |
Because the LaCie Rugged SSD4 has its USB4 efficiency entrance and centre, the plain comparability I may make was between this and the Corsair EX400U.
General, it’s a flip-flop between the drives as to which take a look at it wins, however the LaCie Rugged SSD4 most likely edges it barely in lots of instances. The exceptions to this are the AS SSD scores, the place the Corsair performs a lot better, and the Actual-World CrystalDiskMark outcomes, the place once more the Corsair holds court docket.
Is that this the quickest exterior drive we’ve ever examined? Most likely, however we have not examined any Thunderbolt 5 drives, and so they may very well be considerably faster.
One warning, nonetheless, about USB4 drives and USB4 ports. Once I was testing this initially, I used a GMK mini PC for testing, the EVO-T1. This machine utilises the Intel Core Extremely 9 285H processor, which is the top-of-the-line Intel processor for cellular platforms.
The twist got here once I couldn’t get benchmarks a lot above 2,000MB/s, and realised that to offer OCulink on that PC, the USB4 port had been downgraded to 20Gbps.
To attain the efficiency that I’ve offered right here required the Bosgame M5 AI, a Mini PC based mostly on the newest AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip.
The ethical of this story is that simply because a pc has a USB4 port, it doesn’t essentially present the complete 40Gbps that you simply would possibly assume.
LaCie Rugged SSD4: Verdict
This drive is much like the LaCie Rugged Mini SSD, sharing the identical bodily measurement however providing twice the efficiency, offered you have got a 40Gbps USB4 port. Which means it has the identical poorly thought-about design, the place the port cowl might be misplaced, and the cable must be both all the time connected or a third-party pouch bought for it and the drive to dwell.
Given how costly this drive is, that appears remarkably low effort on LaCie’s half.
The software program offered features a helpful backup device and a mechanism to help Adobe’s struggling enterprise mannequin. I discover it amusing that once I reviewed the Rugged Mini, the giveaway was a single month of Adobe Artistic Cloud, and now it is two months.
In case you don’t use Adobe, and creatives nowadays are working, not strolling, away from these companies, two free months off an costly subscription service isn’t related.
What it does add over the Rugged Mini is {hardware} encryption, one thing that the Corsair EX400U lacks.
Nevertheless, the massive concern right here is the value, which appears excessively inflated. If the value differential between the Corsair providing and this have been narrower, then it is perhaps the appropriate alternative, however the hole is at present too vast on the bigger capacities.
And, speaking of capacities, if Essential can match 8TB into an object lower than half the dimensions and 1 / 4 of the amount, why can’t LaCie put that a lot capability on this?
The reply to that query is perhaps heat-related, for the reason that rubber bumper isn’t more likely to make a scorching drive cooler, and the higher the capability, the extra doubtless it’s to get scorching.
As fast as this drive is, the velocity doesn’t compensate for the repetition of errors made with earlier LaCie rugged drives, and a worth degree that’s laborious to justify.
Ought to I purchase the LaCie Rugged SSD4?
|
Worth |
Costly for a drive that doesn’t have a 5-year guarantee or {hardware} encryption |
3 / 5 |
|
Design |
An odd liferaft motif and a scarcity of artistic occupied with the lack of the port plug or the place the cable lives |
3 / 5 |
|
Software program |
Adobe trial, some helpful software program, however no firmware administration |
3 / 5 |
|
Efficiency |
Wonderful efficiency for 40Gbps USB4 |
4/ 5 |
|
General |
The velocity and {hardware} encryption are good, however the worth is simply too excessive |
4 / 5 |
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
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