LaCie Rugged Drive Gets Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 Update

LaCie has given its Rugged hard-drive a polish, with the tough orange external drive offering both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 connectivity, as well as resistance to shock, dust, and water. Intended for use with PCs and Macs, the rubber-clad drive now has an integrated interface cable, as well as offering a choice of traditional, spinning-platter HDD, or alternatively an SSD inside.

Larger in capacity, and cheaper to buy, the HDD versions will be available with up to 2TB of storage space. The SSDs will only run to 500GB at most, but with no moving parts they'll be more resilient to drops.

Either way, the casing design is the same. LaCie has engineered it to meet MIL-spec ruggedization, to IP54 level, though only the SSD models will be marked as handling vibration and shock. Both versions will shake off dust and water.

Whether you choose to connect via USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt, there's bus-power meaning no external PSU is needed. LaCie claims up to 387 MB/s rates with the SSD model, and up to 122 MB/s for the USB 3.0.

The LaCie Rugged will go on sale midway through this month. In the traditional drive range, it'll be priced at $219.99 for the 1TB and $299.99 for the 2TB; as for the SSDs, they'll go on sale in early July, priced at $299.99 for the 250GB model, and $499.99 for the 500GB.