littlebigdiskLaCie's first Thunderbolt hard drives are finally available, more than 6 months after Apple put its first Thunderbolt-enabled Macs on sale.

The Apple Online Store is offering 1TB and 2TB Little Big Disks for $399.95 and $499.95 respectively, both shipping in 1-2 weeks. 9to5Mac reports that these drives are already available at some Apple Retail Stores.

In June, LaCie promised SSD drives with Thunderbolt this summer ("a question of weeks"), but those have yet to be released. (Update: LaCie now says the SSD drives will be available in October.)

The hard drives are available on Apple's website and will be available soon through LaCie directly.

Update 2: Apple has removed the 1 TB and 2 TB drives from its online store for unknown reasons. The company has also added listings for the 250 GB ($899.95) and 500 GB ($1499.95) solid-state drive versions, with shipping estimates set at 1-2 weeks.

Update 3: The 1 TB and 2 TB models have now returned to Apple's online store with a shipping estimate of one week on both models. Shipping estimates for the two SSD models have been pushed out to 1-2 months.

Top Rated Comments

CrAkD Avatar
CrAkD
174 months ago
Rip off. Just sell me the enclosure for $150.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
OllyW Avatar
OllyW
174 months ago
No cable in the box so don't forget to add on another $50.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
shaunb83 Avatar
shaunb83
174 months ago
Ouch. Kinda (really, really) spendy. And I don't think the little big disks are particularly user upgradeable to put in larger hard drives?

I'd love to have one - hopefully independent thunderbolt enclosures aren't that far away.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Sneakz Avatar
Sneakz
174 months ago
Yes.

A standard mechanical hard drive these days can push data at well over 100MB/s. This LaCie design places two in parallel, doubling the throughput.

In the real world, FW800 maxes out at 65MB/s.

So expect these to be 3 or more times faster than FW800.

FW800 maxes out at 100MB/s for real world transfer rates of just short of 90MB/s. 65 is not even close.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Battlefield Fan Avatar
Battlefield Fan
174 months ago
$400 for two 500GB drives and a thunderbolt connection? Ouch

Edit: FYI two drives are available for $60 each on newegg. $340 for TB?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
firestarter Avatar
firestarter
174 months ago
You guys have to remember this is a raid enclosure, which means they will be using raid compatible drives. This is important. No 50$ 1TB jobbers, think 120$+ 1TB drives. Plus markup. Plus the enclosure / raid controller / thunderbolt adapter / support / r&d / etc.
Unfortunately I have my doubts.

LaCie isn't a high end brand... it's a 'designer' brand making pretty products. Sure, they make some well performing gear, but I think you're going to be very disappointed if you expect anything other than consumer level mechanisms in that box.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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