LaCie is the premium arm of Seagate technology which is shown by their approach to design and performance. The company has been making premium storage solutions for some time now, and their latest LaCie Mobile SSD is on my desk for review.
My experience with LaCie products wasn’t very broad until I reviewed the LaCie d2 Professional. The d2 is still running like a champ and performing as good as it ever was. I was expecting that the LaCie Mobile SSD would be of similar quality and performance, and it didn’t disappoint. Read on for the full review of the LaCie Mobile SSD, a Techaeris Top Pick winner.
Specifications
The LaCie Mobile SSD has the following features and specifications:
- Capacities: 500GB/1TB/2TB
- Interface Transfer Rate: Up to 540MB/s
- Interface: Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 Type-C
- Compatibility: USB 3.1 Gen2 or Thunderbolt 3 computers.
- Format: SSD (Solid State Drive)
What’s In The Box
- LaCie Mobile SSD
- USB-C (USB 3.1 10Gb/s) cable
- USB-C to USB-A cable
- Instruction manual and warranty
Design
Design has always been a huge part of the LaCie fabric and the LaCie Mobile SSD looks absolutely amazing. Now, that being said, the company has always seemed to market their design language toward the Mac user. But make no mistake, this mobile SSD can be used with Windows and can complement laptops like the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 and the Lenovo Legion Y740.
The LaCie Mobile SSD is super-compact and small enough to fit into your pocket. Don’t believe me? Here are the measurements for this slim and tiny mobile SSD:
- Length (in/mm): 0.354in/9mm
- Width (in/mm): 3.085in/78.36mm
- Depth (in/mm): 3.872in/98.36mm
- Weight (lb/kg): 0.22lb/0.1kg
I absolutely love the lines on this SSD and the aluminum enclosure looks like a stealth fighter that fits in your pocket. It’s super easy to put in your bag and go. LaCie includes two cables for data transfer. One USB-C (USB 3.1 10Gb/s) cable and one USB-C to USB-A cable. I do wish they would have included one more USB-C (USB 3.1 10Gb/s) cable half the length.
I realize it’s a little strange to ask for less cable as we’re usually asking for longer ones. But in this case, because this is a mobile SSD, I used it right next to my laptop and the included 3′ cable was a little gangly. It’s not a big deal, just a minor want that probably means nothing to many of you.
There is one single port and a white LED on this SSD and that’s about it. Overall, the design of the LaCie Mobile SSD is spectacular. It’s compact, sleek, stylish, and ultra-portable. When I say portable, I mean it. Throw it in your pocket if you don’t have a bag with you and you are good to go.
Ease of Use
The LaCie Mobile SSD is super simple to use and setup. Here are the quick steps to getting started:
- Plug the drive into your computer
- Chose the LaCie drive from your computer
- Click on “Start Here” for Windows or Mac
- Register your LaCie drive with LaCie and agree to ToC
- Download the optional Rescue software (for data recovery)
- Redeem the optional one-month of Adobe Creative Cloud
You don’t have to do any of these steps, you can use the drive as is but the LaCie Toolkit will give you an option to reformat the drive to optimize it for Windows. Out of the box it is optimized for Mac, so going through these steps may be worth it. But be warned, if you do choose to optimize for Windows, you’ll lose compatibility with Mac. If you use both operating systems then it may not be a good idea.
The Toolkit also works as a backup program so you can choose what files you want to back up to the drive when you plug it in.
Other than the optimization features and Rescue software options, there is no other software, and you can just treat the drive as you would any other drive. Overall, this is simple to use. Basically plug and play unless you opt to install the Rescue software or use the Toolkit to optimize the drive for Windows.
Performance
We tested the LaCie Mobile SSD on the 14″ 2019 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and used ATTO Disk and Crystal Disk as our benchmark tools. LaCie claims speeds of up to 540MB/s and we were able to pull that and sometimes better on the read speeds. The write speeds were in the 500MB/s range which is still excellent. Our results (having optimized the drive for Windows) are in the screenshot below.
Running real-world tests garnered results well within or over the advertised read/write speeds LaCie has on the box. Speeds did slow down once we started moving files from HDD’s via USB 3.0 to the LaCie Mobile SSD. This is to be expected as USB-A speeds are significantly slower than USB-C or Thunderbolt 3.
Using the LaCie Mobile SSD as an external drive for Adobe Premiere Pro on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 15″ was a dream. Premiere Pro had no issues pulling the data from the drive and render times for 10-15 minute 4K videos were done in a matter of 8-12 minutes. Of course, it depends on what elements you have in your video. The more graphic overlays you have the longer the render will take.
Overall, this is a fantastic mobile SSD. It’s fast and performs very well. Its compact size makes it perfect for content creators on the go.
Price/Value
The LaCie Mobile SSD starts at US$129.95 for the 500GB and goes to US$399.95 for the 2TB version. Currently, Amazon has the 1TB version for US$148.95 which is a pretty great deal. I think the range of available drives is priced accordingly and there’s plenty of value here.
Wrap Up
The LaCie Mobile SSD is an outstanding portable SSD with a sleek look and great performance. It’s absolutely the perfect companion for a content creators mobile storage needs. The pricing is fair and you can even find them on sale at some retailers.
*We received a sample of the LaCie Mobile SSD for the purposes of this review.
Last Updated on February 3, 2021.
