LaCie 2big and eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series Drives Preview

LaCie used the 2012 CES to announce some new Thunderbolt-driven drives. The new 2big Thunderbolt Series delivers speed, flexibility and capacity, while the eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series allows users to connect external eSATA drives to Mac computers. LaCie's had a bunch of success with its Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series drives and he new drives look to deliver speeds and product enhancements to Mac computers that have been unavailable until recently. In particular, eSATA support has been completely lacking, though it exists as a compatible technology on the Intel-based boards used in iMac, MacBook Pro and PowerMac computers.

2Big Thunderbolt Series

With speeds up to three times faster than FireWire 800, the LaCie 2big also features RAID security, hot-swappable disks, daisy chain convenience and a solid-aluminum casing. Heavy data users will appreciate capacities up to 8TB with super-fast transfer rates up to 311MB/s. Daisy chaining multiple 2bigs even increases overall performance.

With the 2big, backups take a fraction of the time, letting the user back up more frequently. Videographers working in Final Cut Pro or other professional software can even stream multiple HD video streams directly from the drive. Photographers using Lightroom or Aperture will notice significantly more responsive photo library browsing.

eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series

The eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series gives new life to existing eSATA drives with Thunderbolt innovation and backward compatibility. It connects to a late-model Mac via the Thunderbolt port and features two eSATA ports. This lets the user connect two eSATA external hard drives to the Hub and get full eSATA speeds on their new Mac. The Hub also features a second Thunderbolt port that lets the user connect other Thunderbolt peripherals. This means up to 12 eSATA drives (6x Dock, 2x eSATA links per Hub) can be connected via a single connection to a Mac with full eSATA 3Gb/s speeds.

The 2big Thunderbolt Series and eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series will be available in the first quarter of 2012. Thunderbolt cables can be purchased separately on Apple.com. For full specifications and product information, visit www.lacie.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.