Special Gadgets/LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt

LaCie has finally joined the Thunderbolt club with the release of its Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series. Announced earlier this year, the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt is available in 1 TB (7200RPM) and 2 TB (5400 RPM) HDD configurations at a price of US$399 and $499 respectively. There's also a 240 GB SSD model on the way but pricing is yet to be confirmed.
The unit measures a very manageable 1.6 x 5.5 x 3.3 inches (40 x 140 x 85 mm), weighs 1.4 lbs (650 g) and is dual cooled by its aluminum heat sink casing and a magnetic levitation fan, the HDD unit runs two 2.5" drives in a Mac OS RAID configuration and supports daisy chaining of up two six Thunderbolt devices. LaCie quotes read speeds more than 480MB/s in SSD and up to 190MB/s in HDD, and much faster speeds can be achieved when devices are daisy chained.

Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series key specs:
    • Interface: 2 x Thunderbolt 10Gbits
    • Protocols : Data: PCI Express
    • Video: Dual Mode DisplayPort
    • Data Channels: 10Gb/s independent uplink and downlink
    • Video Channels: 10Gb/s independent uplink and downlink
    • Daisy Chain: Up to six Thunderbolt Technology-compatible devices
    • Internal Hard Disk: 7200rpm, 5400rpm, SSD
    • Cache: 32MB (2x 16MB) or greater
    • SSD Type: Professional-grade 6Gb/s SATA
    • Interface Transfer Rate: up to 10Gbits/s
    • Data Transfer Rate : HDD: 7200rpm: 180MB/s / 180MB/s, 5400rpm: 190MB/s / 190MB/s, SSD: 480MB/s / 245MB/s
    • Size : 1.6 x 5.5 x 3.3 in. / 40 x 140 x 85 mm
    • Weight : 1.4 lbs / 650 g
    • System Requirements: Computer with Thunderbolt port, Mac OS X 10.6 or greater
    • Warranty: 3-Year Limited Warranty

The 1 TB HDD LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt costs US$399 and the 2 TB version costs $499. We'll keep you posted on the SSD pricing when it becomes available ... and don't forget to add $49 for a Thunderbolt cable.