#Lacie hd review install#

In our review of the Promise Pegasus R6 we measured 8Gbps of sustained data transfers from a four disk SSD array while driving a 27-inch panel, all over a single Thunderbolt cable. Thunderbolt's peak performance is very good. If you need high speed external storage on a modern (2011+) Mac, your best option is Thunderbolt. The fastest USB 2.0 devices are only good for around 40MB/s and FireWire 800 can deliver about twice that. I suspect Apple will deliver USB 3.0 when it moves to Ivy Bridge in the coming months, but until then your options are limited if you've got a Mac. The move to USB 3.0 helped address this, but thus far Apple hasn't adopted USB 3.0 in its machines.

Although SSDs have given notebook users desktop-like internal storage, external storage has often been painfully slow. Thunderbolt is extremely important, particularly to the notebook-as-a-desktop usage model.

#Lacie hd review install#

Ivy Bridge is supposed to bring Thunderbolt to PCs, which should obviously broaden the install base and hopefully push vendors to come out with more affordable solutions. I honestly wouldn't expect prices on Thunderbolt storage to drop until the second half of the year when cheaper Thunderbolt controllers (Cactus Ridge) are available. Prices haven't come down much at all, although LaCie has helped fill in the gaps left by Promise's $1000 and up Pegasus line.

Since then we've noticed a common theme: Thunderbolt storage is very expensive. We've been covering Thunderbolt storage ever since the first Promise Pegasus hit our labs last summer.