Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
If you ’re the proprietor of a new MacBook Pro , MacBook Air , Mac mini , or iMac , and you ’re look for something to plug into the fancy new Thunderbolt embrasure , your alternative are pretty modified . There ’s the Apple Thunderbolt Display ( ) , the Promise PegasusR4and R6 RAID array , and now theLittle Big Disk Thunderbolt Seriesfrom LaCie .
Like the other products in LaCie ’s niggling Big Disk product line , the Thunderbolt Series drives are aluminum , portable external two - driving maraud . The drives can be configured as mirrored or striped arrays by using OS X ’s Disk Utility .
Actually using the short Big Disk Thunderbolt Series requires the leverage of an AppleThunderbolt cable($50 ) , fetch the entire cost of the 2 TB version to $ 550 . That ’s nigh double what a 2 TB , portable cause with a quad - port might be . LaCie does n’t sell a 2 TB version of itsLittle Big Disk Quadra , but its 1 TB Quadra costs $ 100 less than the 1 TB Thunderbolt version and the Quadra comes with all of the cables you ’ll necessitate .
As with the other Thunderbolt campaign we ’ve tested ( the Pegasus R6 ) , the piffling Big Disk Thunderbolt Series of parkway has only one connection character , a duad of Thunderbolt port wine . Sure , Apple sells a set of Macs with Thunderbolt porthole onboard , but these driveway would be much more useful with an potpourri of connection . With the two Thunderbolt ports , however , you could daisy chain more Thunderbolt gimmick , or an Apple Cinema Display with Mini DisplayPort .
And while the LaCie private road is that its meant to be portable , it need external world power . If the drive require external mogul , why not use a design that habituate 3.5 - inch drives that are generally faster and less expensive than the 2.5 - inch drives that are used ?
That said , the LaCie effort is tight — at least twice as fast in most tests than a similar RAID array that we quiz , the Avastor XMR Mobile RAID Drive ( ) , which was essay using FireWire 800 . Whereas the Avastor top out at about 75.0MBps throughput , the Little Big Disk exceed 207MBps in the AJA organisation understand test and 190.0MBps in AJA System indite test . When show a 2 GB file , the Little Big Disk sped along at 167.0MBps , compared to 74.5MBps for the Avastor .
When compare to the Pegasus R6 12 TB RAID raiment , the LaCie definitely hold its own on the data file and booklet transfer tests , particularly the 2 GB file read which the Pegasus was just 6 percentage quicker than the LaCie . That performance gap increase to 15 percent on the folder read trial , 22 percent on the filing cabinet read and 27 pct faster than the LaCie on the folder write exam . The AJA System Test showed more of a difference between the two , with the Pegasus strive 707.6MBps on the write trial and 532.0MBps on the read test .
Macworld’s buying advice
If you do n’t have a Mac with Thunderbolt , then this twist is not for you as it does n’t offer any backwards compatibility . If you do have a late Mac with Thunderbolt , especially a MacBook Air , then the Little Big Disk is the least expensive , humble Thunderbolt drive , and debauched portable gruelling drive presently available . An SSD version of the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series will be coming to market soon and I ’m anxious to see the trial results for that one .
[ James Galbraith is Macworld ’s lab director . ]
