Neil Poulton succeeded in elevating the design of external drives two decades ago with the introduction of LaCie\u2019s Rugged line, which features a bright orange bumper to protect data from drops. Today, Seagate announced an updated version of the LaCie Rugged Mini SSD with a few small design tweaks and a big boost to transfer speeds.<\/p>\n
The drive is now called the LaCie Rugged SSD4 and is available starting today in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities (Seagate is dropping the 500MB option) for $134.99, $249.99, and $479.99, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Rugged SSD4 is exactly the same size as its predecessor but now features a brushed aluminum finish and a centered USB-C port. It now supports transfer speeds up to 40Gbps with 4,000MB\/s read speeds and 3,000MB\/s write speeds. Seagate\u2019s older Rugged Mini SSD had a USB-C port that was slightly off-center, a smoother aluminum finish, and read speeds that maxed out at 2,000MB\/s.<\/p>\n
The new drive isn\u2019t quite as fast as the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5<\/a> that was introduced earlier this year at CES with 6,700MB\/s read and 5,300MB\/s write speeds, but when it\u2019s connected to a USB-C iPhone, the Rugged SSD4 is fast enough to capture ProRes 4K footage at 120fps.<\/p>\n