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If you’re on the move and need to carry valuable data or images around with you, the last thing you want to use is your desktop hard drive. Desktop hard drives are not built to be moved around and are susceptible to damage if taken away from a desk. A much better option is to purchase a small portable hard drive that’s small enough to fit in your pocket or bag, and this will allow to you carry around valuable data easily and safely.
LaCie has turned to famous designers in the past to develop their portable hard drives and this time they’ve worked in collaboration with world renowned designer Phillippe Starck. The portable hard drive is constructed from 2mm thick polished aluminium and at the rear there’s an embedded, removable, USB 2.0 cable that sits flush to the shell of the body. This is a good idea and saves you coiling a longer USB cable around the drive on your travels. The main disadvantage, however, is that the embedded cable is only 17.5cm long, so the drive usually has to be stood up on its end, rather than sitting flat on its base. Also at the rear of the drive there’s a small LED that displays orange when it’s powered up and turned on.
The LaCie Starck features a 60MB/s transfer rate, the same as LaCie’s Rugged USB 2.0 mobile hard drive. Testing the drive with our standard transfer test showed it took 1 minute 28 seconds to transfer 1GB of RAW files onto the drive, and 11 seconds to load up a 200MB file into Photoshop CS3. These speeds are not as quick as you would expect from a firewire portable device such as the LaCie Rugged Firewire 800 (100MB/s), but it’s still very capable and good for all-round use.
In the box you’ll also get LaCie backup and setup assistant software, which is invaluable for setting up the drive with your machine. There are three file format categories to choose from including NTFS, FAT 32 and HFS+. More information about these file formats can be found at the bottom of this page. If you need to partition the drive you can do this, too; it’s a handy feature if more than one person is going to be using the drive and it’s an excellent way of keeping the drive divided into different sections.
The fantastic build quality and impressive performance of the LaCie Stark makes it an excellent buy if you’re in the need of a portable storage device. It’s available in both 320GB and 500GB capacities but the only thing we’d say is that it’s heavier than it looks at 355g.
Should you fancy a desktop drive to match the design of the mobile Starck, there are two versions of these available. The 1TB costs £110 and the 2TB version costs £205.
To watch a video on the LaCie Starck Click here.
Photoanswers File Format Information
Use NTFS if... ...you will be using the drive only with Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista (performance will generally be greater when compared to FAT 32). This file system is compatible in read-only mode with Mac OS 10.3 and higher.
Use HFS+ if... ...you will be using the drive on Macs only; performance will generally be greater when compared to FAT 32. This file system is NOT compatible with Windows OS.
Use FAT 32 (MS-DOS) if... ...you will be using your drive with both Windows and Mac 10.3 or sharing the drive between Windows 2000 and Windows XP or Windows Vista. Maximum single file size is 4GB.
