LaCie’s new is a speedy addition to the Rugged line. It is bus-powered over Thunderbolt and includes an optional USB 3.0 port, which you can use with an AC adapter attached.

Due to the double dose of drives inside, it is a little bigger and weighs more than other portable hard drives. The rubber exterior surrounding the drive protects it from drops from up to 5-feet. An integrated Thunderbolt cable allows it to maintain its dust and water resistant status even while in operation. Aside from the rugged label, the things that are likely to bring you to this drive are the capacity and the speed, both of which are achievable thanks to the RAID 0 capability of the drive. You can also select RAID 1 as a format option. Photo and video editors alike will appreciate the portable size of a 4TB drive. It is still a very compact package considering how much storage you have inside. In RAID 0 configuration, the LaCie Rugged RAID Thunderbolt drive gave me a little better than 245MB/s write and read speeds, which you can see the disk speed test screenshot below. Notably, my tested speeds were even faster than LaCie’s max speed rating for the drive, which is 240MB/s.

Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt Usb 3.0

I ran the LaCie Rugged RAID Thunderbolt drive through the paces with photo and video editing over the past month. Mac gpu monitor. It does about as well as any portable drive that I have ever used. Sure, an SSD drive will best it in the speed department; however, you won’t find 4TB of SSD capacity in this size or price range. At $399, LaCie’s 4TB Rugged RAID Thunderbolt drive falls close in line with similar capacity Thunderbolt drives on the market.

The rugged features are an added bonus for this solid-performing hard drive. If you need loads of storage on the go, this drive is definitely worth your consideration. The LaCie 4TB Rugged RAID Thunderbolt drive is available from Photography Bay’s trusted retail partner, B&H Photo, at the following link: By making your photography purchases at B&H Photo through these links, you are helping Photography Bay to continue bring quality camera tests, news and reviews. Thanks for your continued support.

Rugged Raid Pro

Lacie’s Rugged RAID Pro is an external portable RAID-enabled HDD that’s primarily aimed at photo and video editors who often find themselves on-the-go. Donning an unmistakable bright orange shock-resistant rubber sleeve, it fits right in with the Seagate-owned company’s other storage-centric options.

On paper, the won’t light up the scoreboards. Even in the RAID 0 performance mode, it features a rather pedestrian 250 MB/s max read speed. But where the drive lacks in speed, it makes up for in the sheer amount of storage offered — 4TB — stuffed inside a rugged chassis.

It also comes with a feature that sets it apart from other bus-powered external drives on the market: a built-in UHS-II SD Card reader — extremely handy for MacBook Pro users. Does the Lacie Rugged RAID offer enough to make it worthy of consideration? Have a look at our hands-on video review for the details.