LAS VEGAS--If LaCie's Little Big Disk Thunderbolt is, well, too little for you, get ready for this!
LaCie announced today at CES 2012 that its new LaCie 2big external hard drive now features a Thunderbolt connection. Originally, the 2big series only offered USB 2.0, FireWire, and eSATA for Macs. There's also a version that offers USB 3.0, which is geared toward Windows users.
The fact that the LaCie 2big features dual-volume, allowing for RAID 1 and RAID 0, means that Mac users now have another option, other than the Promise Pegasus, to have a fast external storage device that also offers data security. LaCie's other Thunderbolt drive, the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt, only comes with a single internal drive, hence it's susceptible to disk failure.
Similar to the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt, the new Thunderbolt-based LaCie 2big comes with two Thunderbolt ports for daisy purposes and supports no other connection types. This means it only works with Thunderbolt-enabled computers.
LaCie says the new Thunderbolt LaCie 2big drive will offer speeds up to three times faster than FireWire 800, its internal drives are hot-swappable, and its casing is made of solid aluminum. The drive offers up to 8TB of storage space in RAID 0 (or 4TB in RAID 1), and when two or more of the drives are daisy-chained together, performance will be increased.
The new Thunderbolt-based LaCie 2big is slated to be available in the first quarter of 2012 with pricing to be announced then. One thing you can know now, however: it will not include a Thunderbolt cable, which you'll need to purchase separately from Apple for $50.