LaCie Brings USB 3.0 Hard Drive Support to Mac Pros and MacBook Pros

130538 lacie usb3 drives 500

Just as rumors of Intel pushing forward on its Light Peak connectivity standard surface, LaCie has announced support for USB 3.0 on Mac OS X with the release of a free driver to support the company's USB 3.0 hard drives.

LaCie announced today a major breakthrough, introducing industry-leading performance to Mac users with the availability of a USB 3.0 driver for Mac OS. The driver brings the fast speeds of LaCie's USB 3.0 hard drives to Mac computers and laptops - delivering transfer rates that are more than two times faster than FireWire 800!

With Apple yet to support USB 3.0 hardware and CEO Steve Jobs suggesting that such support is not likely to appear anytime soon, users will need to purchase either a PCI Express Card ($49.99) or ExpressCard/34 ($59.99) to add two USB 3.0 ports to their Mac. Consequently, LaCie's USB 3.0 solutions are only compatible with Mac Pros offering a PCI Express slot and MacBook Pros offering an ExpressCard/34 slot.

130538 lacie usb3 cards

USB 3.0 offers a theoretical maximum of 5 Gb/s, topping the 3 Gb/s available through eSATA. Real world burst performance on LaCie USB 3.0 hard drives is on the order of 130 MB/s for single hard drives and 220 MB/s for dual hard drives.

Update: For clarification purposes, LaCie is not the first manufacturer to deliver USB 3.0 drivers to Mac, as CalDigit released a Mac-compatible SuperSpeed PCI Express Card and SuperSpeed ExpressCard, to support the company's line of AV Drive external hard drives, in early September.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Neutral)
Related Forums: MacBook Pro, Mac Pro

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

RT2020 Avatar
184 months ago
Obviously Lacie didn't get the memo from Steve Jobs. If he doesn't see the potential, then there is none at all and nobody will ever need anything faster than USB 2 and FireWire 800.
:apple:
Steve Job thinks USB 3 is too complicated for your gradma. Obviously your grandma should be the benchmark for everyone else
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bruinsrme Avatar
175 months ago
Who cares? Light Peak is around the corner. USB 3.0 will be dead like Blu Ray soon.

yep still waiting for that corner
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Luis Ortega Avatar
175 months ago
Steve Job thinks USB 3 is too complicated for your gradma. Obviously your grandma should be the benchmark for everyone else

My little Asus netbook already comes with two USB3 ports, and the transfer rate is very noticeably faster when using my Lacie 7200rpm USB3 external drive than when using any of my USB2 external drives.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dukebound85 Avatar
184 months ago
Nothing important; just another STILLBORN technology like Blu-Ray. Nice move by LaCie, but ineffective nevertheless.

Move along, citizens... :rolleyes:

I assume once apple adopts it, you will be praising the move. Until then, it is "stupid" tech right?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
deviant Avatar
184 months ago
Hold on let me grab my Kleenex box. But in all seriousness, I have watched more movies on Amazon on Demand and Netflix streaming versus popping a BD in my PS3 or dedicated BD player.
That's ok for "just watching". But there are some odd and strange people around who like to "have" their favorite movies (and music). Yes , we are strange. But hey..
And, should we talk about QUALITY ? I hope not. I'm pretty sure you know the difference between blu ray and netflix streaming. But maybe you don't need all that quality. I can understand that.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Goldfinger Avatar
184 months ago
I am not an expert in this field so can somebody enlighten me:

Will these super-fast USB interfaces improve real-world usage? Will hard drives, flash drives, video cameras, etc. be able to take advantage of these speeds if my computer's hard drive cannot keep up with it? Or will it simply buffer somehow?
USB2 maxes out at (theoretically) 480Mbps, or 60MB/sec. But it generally doesn't get there. Modern hard drives push out 110-130MB/sec. USB3 gets way more than that. So, yes external hard drive speeds will be 2x higher or more.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)