LaCie refreshes 'd2' and 'Rugged' external drives with Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

LaCie's external drives are iconic -- especially in the Apple community. While the USB storage drives will work with Windows and Linux-based operating systems too, the designs are often more in line with Mac computers.

Last year, Apple released new MacBook Pro laptops which only have USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports. Naturally, LaCie needed to refresh its products to accommodate these modern ports, and it has done so with two of its most popular  -- the "d2" and "Rugged".

As you can see in the image above, the smaller orange-rubber encased Rugged USB-C uses 2.5-inch drives. Consumers can choose between mechanical hard drives for higher capacity (2TB, 4TB or 5TB), or solid state drives (500GB or 1TB) for better speed and reliability.

"The new LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C combines iconic Rugged toughness with USB-C compatibility and fast Thunderbolt speeds. Users can store even more footage, and so carry fewer devices, thanks to the industry-leading mobile HDD capacity up to 5TB. The LaCie Rugged features Seagate BarraCuda drives for best-in-class reliability and performance. In addition, the 1TB SSD version delivers speeds of up to 510MB/s, a 30 percent increase over the previous SSD generation. With these speeds, creative professionals can transfer 100GB of content in about three minutes and enjoy more responsive photo library browsing in Adobe Lightroom," says LaCie.

The elegance-focused company further says, "The new LaCie d2 Thunderbolt 3 is a great companion to limited-capacity SSD-based laptops and all-in-one computers to expand storage up to 10TB for professional bandwidth-intensive creative applications. Featuring Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 speeds through the USB-C port, the new LaCie d2 drive performs great on late-model laptops such as the new MacBook Pro -- as well as on USB 3.0 computers. With industry-best capacities of up to 10TB the LaCie d2 drive can easily store large photo and video projects. It features a Seagate BarraCuda Pro 7200RPM hard disk drive for industry-leading performance and reliability".

The d2 drive uses high-capacity 3.5-inch mechanical hard drives only (6TB, 8TB or 10TB) and is designed to remain on a desk -- not be portable. With that said, you can take it with you when traveling if you really need to do so. Speeds are just average at 240MB/s -- a limitation of the internal drive.

The d2 drive pricing starts at $429, while the Rugged begins at $249. Availability will be later in Q1 2017.