If you need a high level of protection against data theft and a rugged design, capable of withstanding heavy use, check out the LaCie Rugged Safe 500GB. Available in two capacities, 500GB or 1TB, the LaCie Rugged Safe 500GB has a Biometric fingerprint authentication feature on the top panel, designed to prevent others accessing your personal data and it’s possible to assign up to ten different fingerprints. If this isn’t enough, there’s AES 128-bit encryption - the same grade of encryption the US government use to protect documents.
The build quality is fantastic; the USB and FireWire interfaces are neatly laid out and the black rubber bumper fends off damage to the corners. In the hand it feels lightweight and it withstood our 1.5m-drop test with no problems.
Setting up the LaCie Rugged Safe 500GB took less than two minutes and it refused access to any unauthorised fingerprints. Performance speed was good, copying 1GB of data in 1min 5secs and opening our 200MB image in 14secs using USB2.0. Firewire 400/800 is featured if you require even faster read/write speeds.
If you require a portable drive that offers an incredibly high level of data protection and durable protection, the LaCie Rugged Safe 500GB is the drive to go for. At £165 for a 500GB version it’ll cost you 33p per Gigabyte.
AT A GLANCE
Street Price: £165
Capacities: 500GB & 1TB
Interface: USB2.0, FireWire400/800
Interface Transfer rate: USB2.0 480Mbits/s, Firewire800 800Mbits/s
System Requirements (PC): Windows XP, Vista, 7
System Requirements (Mac): OS X 10.5, 10.6
Dimensions (LxWxD): 145x90x28mm
Weight: 298g
www.lacie.com