Thunderbolt devices are
still rare, while the new standard is promising: it concentrates a data channel
and a video channel at a rate up to 10 Gb / s in both directions. Storage
specialist LaCie has every reason to be interested in: the Little Big Disk
Thunderbolt, with two 120 GB SSD, is offered at € 849. The price performance?
Designed by Neil Poulton
The Little Big Disk SSD is
available in Thunderbolt a few weeks after a hard disk version: 1 TB 7200RPM
for € 349.95, 2 TB 5400 RPM for € 449.95. The principle of the Little Big Disk
is known: LaCie uses two drives connected in RAID 0 (2x500 GB or 2 x 1 TB),
which allows to add capacity, and increase performance. However, you can choose
from RAID 1 (mirroring) or JBOD (concatenation). The SSD model, with a total
capacity of 240 GB, takes the concept: it has two 120 GB Intel SSD.
This model also looks like
SSD as two drops of water to his colleagues to hard disks: measuring 40x140x85
mm, it weighs 650 grams. A weight that may seem quite measured, but it must be
added that of food, necessary for the operation: despite its small size the
Little Big Disk is portable or mobile when using a small studio in the suitcase
or trunk ( So with power).Construction, as is often the LaCie is perfect: the
brushed aluminum casing designed by Neil Poulton with a fairly industrial look,
has no game, once the set up by you.
This case is not only
beautiful, it is also useful: the grooves increase the surface area of
dissipation by 60%, and thus allow, in theory, improve the cooling of
components. The Little Big Disk is, however, has a small fan noise certainly
limited, but particularly unpleasant (quite high). It will hopefully be covered
... by the sound of fans of the Mac at work to which the drive is connected.
A workhorse
Because this drive is
designed primarily as a workload for tasks audio, photo or video most
demanding: it is the purpose of the Thunderbolt, accentuated by the choice of
two connected SSD in RAID 0. LaCie promises very good performance: 480 MB / s
read. The Little Big Disk SSD as an external drive, it can be compared to one
... SSD and an external drive.
A reliable but SSD's
average performance, the Toshiba 512 GB HG2, offers a throughput of 218 MB / s
read, up to 250 MB / s write.
RAID 1 connected in 2x2 To
FireWire 800 (Hitachi
The SSD version leaves
this little world there. If it happens to reach top speeds of 480 MB / s, as
announced LaCie, an average of 10 tests had declined around 440 MB / s. In
reading, the flow reaches 350 MB / s. The flow rates are not linear: LaCie has
focused on raw performance of the heaviest files (audio, photo, video).
These rates are consistent
with what one expects from a good SSD RAID 0, neither more nor less. The
advantage of the Thunderbolt is to offer the Little Big Disk a highway on which
securely held. The LaCie box with two ports, one can link the records: two,
three, or more, whatever, it will stall around 800 MB / s. Remember that the
chaining, including an Apple Display Thunderbolt, tends to gradually degrade
performance, reaching a plateau (read: A test of the Thunderbolt Apple
Display).
The SSD speaking to their
full potential in this case, they tend to be heated: it includes the interest
of this annoying fan. The aluminum heat sink plays its role: it gradually
becomes warm, never hot. If the case remains rather cold, the cable Thunderbolt
- that you must purchase separately - in turn raises a real problem.The cable
is warm, the hot tips, and metal parts really hot: Be careful when removing the
drive.
In conclusion
Thunderbolt SSD allows
this Little Big Disk to "turn" at full speed: the performance is
good, very good, even excellent if you chain multiple drives. At € 849, the
bill is salty, but this disc is definitely a niche product: the pros of the
picture, audio and video product will find it a well finished, high
performance, to meet their mobility needs .
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