LaCie upgrades its Rugged RAID drive with integrated SD reader and Thunderbolt 3 compatibility

posted Sunday, April 8, 2018 at 8:00 AM EDT

There are few storage devices as iconic-looking as the LaCie Rugged series, and LaCie has done an excellent job upgrading their offerings over the years without deviating from its well-known design. The latest is no exception. Encased in the famous orange rubber shell, the new Rugged RAID Pro can be configured in either RAID 0 or RAID 1, now includes an integrated UHS-II SD card reader, and supports USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 through a single, unified port (while still being backwards compatible with USB 3.0). Additionally, while the drive is also shock, dust, crush and water resistant, LaCie has included a 3-Year Limited Warranty with Rescue Data Recovery Services (they're also throwing in a 1-Month Adobe All-Apps Plan worth $80) so you can continue to get service on your Rugged for years. The 4TB LaCie Rugged RAID Pro will be shipping this quarter for $349.

The integrated SD port on the Rugged RAID may have you thinking it's similar to the LaCie CoPilot announced at CES, but it's not quite the same. Though they both have the SD slot, the Rugged RAID still requires a computer in order to operate. The goal for LaCie was to include the card slot to allow users to avoid more dongled products on computers like the recent MacBook Pro. The end result is one interface, USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Thunderbolt 3 that was still USB 3.0 compatible. The drive is a total of 4TB across two drives like the predecessor, but 10% more compact than current Rugged RAID drive.

Features:

4 terabyte capacity
IP54 water and dust resit
Hardware RAID
Drop resist
Crush resist 1 ton
Seagate Secure Hardware encryption
Integrated SD card reader
Hardware RAID 0/1 flexibility for speed or security
New USB-C connector for next gen computers
Includes USB 3.0 adapter for PC or Mac (in this mode, you may need a power cable which is included)
3 year warranty with rescue services included
1 month adobe CC cloud all apps

LaCie is targeting the drive towards conscientious pro photographers, power-user video producers, bloggers and traveling content creators, and music professionals. For those that think the specifications of this new drive look familiar, you're not wrong. Though the performance of the drive (240 MB/s in RAID 0), the dust, water, and shock resist, the warranty and the backwards compatibility with USB 3.0 are all the same as the current Rugged RAID, there are a set of differences too: