CES: Seagate, LaCie Hard Drives Offer New Twists on Storage

by Nathan Eddy

The Backup Plus Fast drive features a USB 3.0 interface to deliver transfer speeds up to 220MB per second and offers a whopping 4TB capacity. The drive is available through the company’s Website for $299.99.

Seagate’s Dashboard software provides a one-click backup solution but can also be set as a scheduled backup, as needed. Additionally, the Dashboard software will back up Facebook and Flickr albums to ensure that even video and photos shared through these networks are backed up and easy to find.

The Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 will be available for purchase in the first quarter of 2014 through LaCie’s resellers and the company’s Website. It comes with a Thunderbolt cable and is protected by a three-year limited warranty.

LaCie worked with designer Neil Poulton to bring a modern, all aluminum look to the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2, which offers speeds up to 1,375M bps. The drive is powered by a set of 500GB PCIe Gen 2 solid-state drives in RAID 0 to allow for streaming and editing of 4K or 3D video while in the field.

The Fuel, designed for Apple mobile devices, offers up to a 10-hour battery life and creates its own WiFi network, much like a router, so other devices can connect directly to it without the need for Internet access.

The LaCie Fuel acts as a hotspot when connected to the Internet through WiFi. This feature lets the Fuel share Internet access with other connected devices. With Dropbox integration, users can sync files between a computer and the Fuel automatically, so every time files are added to the Dropbox folder on their Mac, the change is reflected on the Fuel—or vice versa.

Building on LaCie’s initial partnership with Christofle that produced the Galet USB key, the Sphere integrates Christofle’s luxurious heritage with LaCie’s 1TB hard-drive technology and will retail for a whopping $490. It’s already sold out.

Whoever was lucky enough to splash out on LaCie’s Sphere will get a handcrafted hard drive enclosed in a spherical case of silver-plated steel. It features high-speed USB 3.0 and is powered through the USB cable, so no power cord is ever necessary. A complete software suite includes automatic backup for Mac and PC computers, as well as password protection and an energy-saving mode.

Due to its round shape, the Sphere requires a careful manual plating process. It is stamped, silver-plated and polished for brightness in Christofle’s silversmith workshop in Yainville in Normandy, France.

“The shape of the globe inspired the design concept for the LaCie Sphere. The sensual and strong silhouette naturally led us to the product name,” Thierry Oriez, president and CEO of Christofle, explained. “We combined our obsession with the reflection of silver with LaCie’s technical expertise to create a hard drive that exudes elegance and sophistication like no other.”