Hands-On Video of LaCie Little Big Disk SSD With Thunderbolt

MacRumors · Jun 24, 2011

Since Apple and Intel introduced the Thunderbolt high-speed connectivity standard back in February, users have been waiting for third-party manufacturers to deliver compatible peripherals taking advantage of the significant speed boost over existing mainstream interfaces.

At the Thunderbolt debut, prominent external hard drive solution provider LaCie was one of the first to commit to the new connectivity standard, noting that it was planning to release Thunderbolt-enabled versions of its Little Big Disk external hard drives.

SlashGear today posted a hands-on video with the Thunderbolt-enabled Little Big Disk, showing off an SSD-based version packing two 160 GB drives. LaCie's setup saw two such drives daisy-chained in a RAID 0 configuration with a 24-inch display tacked on at the end of the chain, all connected to a Core i7-based MacBook Pro. The drive setup was able to handle impressive read speeds of over 825 MB/sec and write speeds of over 350 MB/sec.

The first demo was a raw speed test, reading and writing to the drives with 4GB files. As you can see in the video, the MBP was able to write at up to 352.5 MB/s, while read speeds reached 827.2 MB/s. The company told us that the same setup had hit 870 MB/s peaks in their own testing.

The second test was playing back three simultaneous video files stored on the drives, each coming in at 1080p Full HD resolution. Again, as in the video, playback was stutter-free whether windowed or full-screen. We were also able to scrub back and forth through the clip - with the two others running in the background - with no lag or pauses.

SSD models of the Little Big Disk with Thunderbolt are due to ship this summer ("a question of weeks from now", according to the LaCie representative), but pricing has not yet been released. More budget-friendly models based on traditional hard drives are also in the works, although LaCie has yet to offer a release timeline for those models.

Article Link: Hands-On Video of LaCie Little Big Disk SSD With Thunderbolt

dagamer34 · Jun 24, 2011

So they DO exist! I'm wondering what the cost will be for these boxes as I'd like to store my photo collection on them.

Also, Thunderbolt to USB 3.0, make the freaking adapter already!

EDIT: Anyone notice in the images on SlashGear that the copy of Avatar has a file name that is WAY too similar to what you'd find on torrent sites?? O_O

Anaemik · Jun 24, 2011

Things seem to be shaping up well for the future. Now all we need is the price of SSDs to drop to more affordable levels, and it looks like we're in sight of losing the biggest bottleneck that currently exists in computing.

0815 · Jun 24, 2011

Can't wait for the Thunderbold SSD drives.

The current iMacs have only a 256 GB SSD option and you can't even custom order one with bigger SSD drives or two SSD drives. I need > 512 GB SSD. This way I can order the 27' iMac with the small (256) SSD and attached more fast SSD storage through Thunderbold.

Anaemik · Jun 24, 2011

0815 said:
Can't wait for the Thunderbold SSD drives.

The current iMacs have only a 256 GB SSD option and you can't even custom order one with bigger SSD drives or two SSD drives. I need > 512 GB SSD. This way I can order the 27' iMac with the small (256) SSD and attached more fast SSD storage through Thunderbold.

I thought the same. I'm assuming TB drives are bootable?

Piggie · Jun 24, 2011

Very impressive.

Unfortunately the "normal, typical consumer" that Apple is now directly focussing on, is not the type of person who'd going to be willing to pay whatever stratospheric price tag this gear costs.

I love fast things. My only concern, and others who have posted in the past, is that 3rd party companies only make very high end, expensive products that use Thunderbolt, whilst a whole army of USB3 products at "typical consumer prices" come out, that work just as well, from the typical consumers viewpoint, at a fraction of the cost.

Ideally I'd like to see the same external drive come with USB3 or Thunderbolt at the same price, or something minor like $10 more for the thunderbolt version, perhaps due to an extra chip or something.

h1r0ll3r · Jun 24, 2011

The little blue lights on the HD's are mesmerizing. Me wanty.

NutsNGum · Jun 24, 2011

Megabucks nightmare heart attack.

Bluethree · Jun 24, 2011

SDSARUTPFTAC

Still Desperately Seeking A Remotely Useable Thunderbolt Peripheral For The Average Consumer !!!

Move on nothing to see here.

inket · Jun 24, 2011

The SSDs seem crap. "Up to 350MB/s" write speed isn't much considering *single* SSDs like Vertex 3 can achieve around 500MB/s.

subsonix · Jun 24, 2011

Piggie said:
Very impressive.

Unfortunately the "normal, typical consumer" that Apple is now directly focussing on, is not the type of person who'd going to be willing to pay whatever stratospheric price tag this gear costs.

I love fast things. My only concern, and others who have posted in the past, is that 3rd party companies only make very high end, expensive products that use Thunderbolt, whilst a whole army of USB3 products at "typical consumer prices" come out, that work just as well, from the typical consumers viewpoint, at a fraction of the cost.

Ideally I'd like to see the same external drive come with USB3 or Thunderbolt at the same price, or something minor like $10 more for the thunderbolt version, perhaps due to an extra chip or something.

It's the first real product ever shown that is not just marketing material or vaporware. More and cheaper products will most likely be available down the line. But the target audience that is going to use the bandwidth needs something faster than regular magnetic hard drives, otherwise there is no point in using the faster bus speeds.

orfeas0 · Jun 24, 2011

Aren't external disks made for more storage? Why would you buy an external ssd?
If you're rich, sure, go for it... But I don't think most people will spend money for an 160gb external ssd while they can probably buy a 2tb hard drive with the same money...

OllyW · Jun 24, 2011

Piggie said:
Ideally I'd like to see the same external drive come with USB3 or Thunderbolt at the same price, or something minor like $10 more for the thunderbolt version, perhaps due to an extra chip or something.

I've got a feeling Thunderbolt drives are going to be marketed as high end products in the same way that FireWire 800 drives were and will be pitched at similar premium price levels.

TwoLabsMedia · Jun 24, 2011

Depends on how much performance we want. I use an SSD to work on projects at hand, then archive them to a cheaper larger spinning drive. The reason is not only is transfer faster when working off SSD, but rendering and all the bandwidth intensive tasks that take place when editing HD video is faster as well.

subsonix · Jun 24, 2011

inket said:
The SSDs seem crap. "Up to 350MB/s" write speed isn't much considering *single* SSDs like Vertex 3 can achieve around 500MB/s.

They shouldn't be using SATA drives to begin with since they have access to the PCIe bus, then they can get above 1GB/s easily, especially in raid 0.

tsugaru · Jun 24, 2011

dagamer34 said:
So they DO exist! I'm wondering what the cost will be for these boxes as I'd like to store my photo collection on them.

Also, Thunderbolt to USB 3.0, make the freaking adapter already!

EDIT: Anyone notice in the images on SlashGear that the copy of Avatar has a file name that is WAY too similar to what you'd find on torrent sites?? O_O

Someone needs to make a Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 / eSATA 6Gbps / Firewire 1600 or 800 / HDMI or (mini)Displayport in/out hub. One cable to rule them all.

BTGeekboy · Jun 24, 2011

Anaemik said:
I thought the same. I'm assuming TB drives are bootable?

I hope so, and am going on the assumption they are. I have this weird idea of being able to take a 2.5" SSD in an enclosure and velcro it to the back of an iMac, so I don't have to take the whole thing apart or send it to OWC to get Apple's SSD installed.

Thunderhawks · Jun 24, 2011

Piggie said:
Very impressive.

Unfortunately the "normal, typical consumer" that Apple is now directly focussing on, is not the type of person who'd going to be willing to pay whatever stratospheric price tag this gear costs.

I love fast things. My only concern, and others who have posted in the past, is that 3rd party companies only make very high end, expensive products that use Thunderbolt, whilst a whole army of USB3 products at "typical consumer prices" come out, that work just as well, from the typical consumers viewpoint, at a fraction of the cost.

Ideally I'd like to see the same external drive come with USB3 or Thunderbolt at the same price, or something minor like $10 more for the thunderbolt version, perhaps due to an extra chip or something.

OWC probably already at work to come out with an HD with 3 or 4 connectors in the back. Only a matter of time

As for prices, wait a while until there is ample of supply and production capacities and they'll come down as usual!

*LTD* · Jun 24, 2011

But weren't all the naysayers saying there isn't any Thunderbolt support and that no one cared about it?

addicted44 · Jun 24, 2011

OllyW said:
I've got a feeling Thunderbolt drives are going to be marketed as high end products in the same way that FireWire 800 drives were and will be pitched at similar premium price levels.

I dont believe that at all. With FW, Apple was the only one pushing it, and Apple had little to no traction in those days. Currently, even if Apple is the only one pushing TB (I doubt that will be the case, since Intel's chips will include support for it), they have enough marketshare that it will be heavily supported by mass market peripheral makers.

dark knight · Jun 24, 2011

i agree that these will cost a huge amount and that the average consumer is not going to buy them, but for those who slate on this basis just remember that Apple get accused of leaving the 'pros' out in the cold more often - they just cant win.

everything sounds great in that french accent too!

artpease · Jun 24, 2011

NutsNGum said:
Megabucks nightmare heart attack.

Oh, let's guess! My guess is $1499

OllyW · Jun 24, 2011

*LTD* said:
But weren't all the naysayers saying there isn't any Thunderbolt support and that no one cared about it?

I think a lot of members have been complaining that they've had their Thunderbolt equipped Macs since February and have not been able to purchase any peripherals to take advantage of it.

Don't worry, they'll soon be complaining how expensive the first products are when they finally do go on sale.

citi · Jun 24, 2011

orfeas0 said:
Aren't external disks made for more storage? Why would you buy an external ssd?
If you're rich, sure, go for it... But I don't think most people will spend money for an 160gb external ssd while they can probably buy a 2tb hard drive with the same money...

These would be used to read and write to. Like for video guys that are doing high resolution editing. Probably be very good on live TV broadcasts.

umbriell · Jun 24, 2011

artpease said:
Oh, let's guess! My guess is $1499

For 240 gb?

That's outrageous.

How about $600?

Hands-On Video of LaCie Little Big Disk SSD With Thunderbolt

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