LaCie Big Disk Extreme

The Big Disk Extreme is a generous hard disk in every sense. Weighing in at 2.5kg it’s certainly hefty, but it’s smart, too. The 500GB capacity device is capable of some serious feats of storage, but the most generous feature is its connectivity, with a choice of three ports.

FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 are present, as you’d expect, but the Big Disk Extreme also offers FireWire 800, which, although built into some Power Macs and PowerBooks, remains a technological curiosity.

If you use the Big Disk as a self-contained unit, FireWire 800 is actually marginally slower than FireWire 400. However, once you invest in a RAID system, in which linked hard disks function as a single drive, the impact is really felt. The Big Disk supports RAID 0 deployment, with accessories enabling you to rack-mount the unit for a clear upgrade path.

The transfer rate you can expect from any external hard disk depends on your operating system and connections, but FireWire 400 on a Mac is a reliable test. Here, LaCie succeeds in getting a transfer rate of 18.8MBps, among the best we’ve seen for FireWire. Benchmark tests produce impressive read and write head speeds of 76MBps and 54MBps respectively.

The Big Disk has the muscle to deal with demanding studio use, and the technology to become part of a larger infrastructure. That it achieves all this while rarely rising above a quiet whine is the icing on the cake.