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

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.
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I believe you are absolutely right. LaCie has made Mac their focus with pricey products from day one, years ago. While they are nicely styled in "Mac Style" cases, the problem is there relatively poor service life, as compared to other similar products. Since I put a lot of time on my computers and peripherals it's something I tend to notice long before less serious users.

I've tried several, and in each case the MTBF was quite short. But then again it's the influence of Apple Tax that has relieved them from taking responsibility for lifespan. A bit noisy, I've always questioned the quality of components inside. They embrace the same thinking as Apple, kind of an "oh well" mentality.
 
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
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Thunderbolt + SSD aren't made for simple photos.

If you have to ask for price, it's probably out of your budget.
 
Consultant said:
Thunderbolt + SSD aren't made for simple photos.

If you have to ask for price, it's probably out of your budget.
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They are probably not made for photos - but they help a lot with iPhoto ... ever since I put a SSD in my laptop iPhoto is responsive and usable again (with lot's of photos in it).

SSD is the best upgrade you can do to any computer - better than any new hardware/processor. If you have the choice between the next generation processor and a SSD upgrade, go with SSD (exceptions apply, some [few] people need the 'processing' power of newer processors). The harddrive is the biggest single bottleneck in modern machines - SSD is the cure for it. (And for external harddrives it is Thunderbolt + SSD drive)
 
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Bluethree said:
SDSARUTPFTAC

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

Move on nothing to see here.
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Thunderbolt will be catering more to the pro market until hardware prices drop for items that require such incredible speeds. A 7200RPM external HDD would barely use the channel.

Even still, if a normal (non-ssd) external had two thunderbolt ports it would be rather useful as you could dock your computer with only one cable plugged in, but have both display and external storage connected.

And once the cheaper mac lines get thunderbolt there will be more support as right now you only find it on $1200+ computers from Apple from this year, which is a small market for accessory companies. Adding Mac Mini, Mac Pro, and Macbook Air to that will increase the market substantially, along with time.
 
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.
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There is a difference between random IO and sequential reads. Don't forget, SSDs tend to use less power and are great for high vibration environments.

dagamer34 said:
...

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
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How would you know what the Torrent file names would look like?

Sincerely, Your friendly MPAA.
 
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.
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You do realize that these are RAID 256 GBx2 SSDs!

subsonix said:
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.
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Exactly! Not to mention the reduced latency for the drives and the near instant read/write speeds reaching peak and longevity.
 
orfeas0 said:
Aren't external disks made for more storage? Why would you buy an external ssd?
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To run apps that require maximum speed on an iMac or especially laptop. Think video editing on the road.

Pros are going to kill for these. And they shouldn't be that much more expensive than an SSD, the peripheral just needs to be a case and TB ports while the internal drive can be any bare drive.

Pro users are going to buy these like hotcakes, this lifts one of the biggest bottlenecks in a laptop.


CplBadboy said:
What sort of speeds can we expect from a spinny HDD??
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Same as you're getting now. In most cases HD speed is more a bottleneck than bus.
 
For the time being I've got about 6 TB of storage - all Fantom drives by Micronet. Highly recommend.

Good enough for now, mostly because there's a lot of expensive storage out there that's still too small in size.
 
CplBadboy said:
What sort of speeds can we expect from a spinny HDD??
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milo said:
Same as you're getting now. In most cases HD speed is more a bottleneck than bus.
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Not when we talk about external interfaces. USB 2.0 maxes out at ~40MB/s in real world. FW800 provides about 80MB/s.

The speed of the HD depends on couple of things. First, the rotation speed. Usually that is either 5400rpm or 7200rpm. Second, the capacity. Usually bigger drive means higher density which speeds things up since more data can be read/written per rotation. The fastest HDs provide roughly 150MB/s.
 
I have both that laptop and that monitor, by the looks (24 inch samsung). This means I HAVE to get the LaCie setup too :))
 
At those prices it's gonna be a while before most people buy these things.
Maybe another 2-3 years from now.
 
artpease said:
Oh, let's guess! My guess is $1499 :(
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I'll bite and I guess $1399 :D

There was another version which supposedly uses 510 GB SSDs and that external drive will be mucho dinero! Too bad though, as TB looks promising. I am hoping to buy the little big or an equivalent for scratch disk duties, but the price has to be south of 10 Benjamin's.
 
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.
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Considering this is an external drive, it's not half bad. Other external drives average at 50-80MB/s anyway, or 150-180 if it's an SSD connected via USB 3.0.
 
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umbriell said:
For 240 gb?

That's outrageous.

How about $600?
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For 256GB I bet on $1,300, considering the market this is headed to. Remember this also offers RAID and dual SSD's, so this isn't actually an outrageous price.

I would KILL for a $100 8GB Thunderbolt flash drive.
 
first to market with a simple single empty 2.5" drive enclosure priced at 100$ will be a millionaire in a matter of hours.

Why haven't we seen this yet, is it overly technical to produce?
 
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