If you frequently
travel with a hard drive -- or just find yourself prone to knocking the thing off your desk -- you may want to take a
look at the LaCie Rugged, which the drivemaker is billing as an "all-terrain" drive. According to the
company, the 120GB bus-powered USB drive features a "unique scratch-protected aluminum shell and shock-resistant
rubber bumper." It's available now for preorder at $329.99; an 80GB version is $169.99. While we doubt this drive
can withstand extreme falls, it should come in handy if you find yourself in need of an on-the-go solution that's a
little heftier than a thumb drive.
[Via
TUAW]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brando K @ Jan 13th 2006 11:43AM
Does look pretty cool anyways....
Brando K @ Jan 13th 2006 11:43AM
Does look pretty cool anyways....
TIMMAH! @ Jan 13th 2006 11:51AM
Uh, I hope they have some kind of cover for those ports... Nothing like taking it into a harsh environment and then not being able to use it because some muck got into the connectors...
GeeksAreSexy @ Jan 13th 2006 12:29PM
This one is plain UGLY. Lacie usually manifacture pretty sweet looking devices, but I can't say that this is a visual success. I own a 80GB one designed by Lacie&porsche (yeah, the car company), and it's pretty sleek lookin. It would be cool to see some people try to drop it from a 15th story building and attach it to a computer after to see if it works.
Ben G @ Jan 13th 2006 12:35PM
Nice looking case. According to their spec:
Max drop height: 35 in. / 90 cm in non-operating mode
(dropping is not recommended in operating mode)
It a pity they didn't get techie about what that spec actually means. They could have dropped it onto rubber or a pillow for all we know. Take a leaf out of Panasonic's Toughbook page and quote something like:
"MIL-STD-810F testing Method 516.5, Procedure IV (Transit Drop Test). Sequential drops in non-operating mode, onto each face, edge and corner for a total of 26 drops from a height of 36 inches. The drop surface is two-inch-thick plywood over a steel plate over concrete." and I'll be impressed.
agmilmoe @ Jan 13th 2006 1:52PM
No Sudden Motion Sensor like on an Apple Powerbook? Why bother?
It should shut itself down when it knows it's falling to prevent the heads from crashing.
At least it matches my multimeter...
Christopher @ Jan 13th 2006 1:54PM
Agreed w/ #5. Unless it sense a drop and parks the heads for me, not interested. Scratch the shit out of the cover for all I care, just save me from a drop.
-C
lee @ Jan 13th 2006 6:55PM
LaCie stinks. Their externals look nice but crash within a year of use. They offer no recovery or part replacement support, do a search on the net and you'll find countless complaints.
Axel Roest @ Jan 14th 2006 4:58PM
Apart from the colour and the omission of a firewire port, this looks almost exactly like the LaCie Pocketdrive of three years ago. As a plus the old one also had slots to store the cable. Nothing new here, move along.
http://images.google.com/images?q=lacie+pocketdrive&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&start=20&sa=N
Apart from the colour and the omission of a firewire port, this looks almost exactly like the LaCie Pocketdrive of three years ago. As a plus the old one also had slots to store the cable. Nothing new here, move along.
http://images.google.com/images?q=lacie+pocketdrive&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&start=20&sa=N
ikkedus @ Jan 15th 2006 5:52AM
#8 There's a off the shelf maxtor drive in it as far as I know.
S. Dent @ Jan 16th 2006 3:42PM
Looks like LaCie is going for a nastalgic NERF look. You've seen the new Lacie Lego Brick, right?
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10695
Will B @ Jan 17th 2006 6:48AM
I'm with #8, I had a Lacie drive for less than 12 months and surprise surprise it died. Emails to Lacie gave me no response, so I packed the drive up and sent it back to the MD. Didn't hear a thing in response (again, little surprise). Perhaps 'rugged' in Lacie's definition means 'lasts past 12 months'. To use ebay phraseology "Negative: Bad seller, avoid!".