LaCie's Rugged SSD4 is the fastest 40Gbps USB4 drives I've tested to date

Price When Reviewed

1TB: $135 I 2TB: $250 I 4TB: $480

Best Prices Today: LaCie Rugged SSD4

I’ve all the time loved LaCie’s use of the pleasant colour orange in most of the firm’s exterior storage units. So I used to be completely happy to open the Rugged SSD4 field and spot the acquainted joyous hue adorning the machine. That it’s super-compatible 40Gbps USB4 and fast-as-all-get-out didn’t damage my temper both.

Read on to be taught extra, then see our roundup of the best external drives for comparability.

What are the LaCie Rugged SSD4’s options?

Beyond the USB4 I’ve already rattled on about, the Rugged SSD4 is a silver and white rectangle roughly 3.75-inches lengthy, 2.25-inches extensive, and half an inch thick with out its jacket. The orange silicone jacket extends that to round 4.15-inches lengthy, 2.65-inches extensive, and 0.75 inches thick. Weight is a bit of underneath 4 ounces.

There’s additionally an orange silicone plug that covers the Type-C port on the tip of the unit, however in my solely nit about this drive — it’s not captive. Not captive means simpler to lose — even when it’s brilliant orange. There’s additionally an influence/exercise gentle subsequent to the USB port and you’ll see it via the jacket.

Besides brightening up your day, the great factor concerning the orange colour is that it stands out. If you’re liable to misplacing issues, particularly exterior, orange is way simpler to identify than most colours.

The Rugged SSD4 is IP54 rated, which means that it could face up to mud in addition to water spray. However, having seen a whole bunch of IP-rated designs, I feel you’d be okay with even dropping the Rugged SSD4 in a bucket of water — assuming the tip cap is in place. Not that I’m recommending it, thoughts you. You’re by yourself for those who do.

As to such a state of affairs, LaCie (Seagate) warranties the drive for 3 years and likewise gives free information restoration. Make positive you dry the unit completely first, as water dripping out on the corporate’s take a look at station may void the assure — and the corporate’s good will.

How a lot does the LaCie Rugged SSD4 value?

Although not low cost, the Rugged SSD4 is reasonably priced given the efficiency, and loads lower than the 80Gbps competitors together with LaCie’s personal Thunderbolt 5 Rugged SSD Pro5. The 1TB model is $135, the 2TB is $250, and $480 for 4TB mannequin we examined.

How quick is the LaCie Rugged SSD4?

Pretty darn quick, I’m right here to let you know. The Rugged SSD4 is the speediest 40Gbps USB4 SSD I’ve examined total, although not by a ton. In the true world, it’s additionally aggressive with the 80Gbps drives we’ve examined underneath most circumstances.

I’ve included LaCie’s personal Rugged SSD Pro5 to baseline the Rugged sequence, nevertheless it’s an 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 SSD. Hence the large benefit in a few artificial benchmarks. Overall, nevertheless, the efficiency hole isn’t practically as extensive as you may assume.

Note that I now use FastCopy in switch exams because it’s far sooner than Windows Explorer at transferring information, although the benefit is extra obvious with inner PCIe 4.0/5.0 SSDs than with exterior ones. Note that optimum efficiency requires disabling actual time virus checking and setting your exterior SSD for optimum efficiency in Disk Management.

The Rugged SSD4 outstripped the Rugged SSD Pro5 in two of CrystalDiskMark 8’s 4K exams, falling quick in two others. Note that each one these outcomes are from retests on our new take a look at mattress, and will not match the numbers within the older critiques.

Yes, the Adata SE920 is aces at real-world transfers underneath Explorer, and the Rugged SSD4 managed to additionally outperform the Rugged SSD Pro5 in two exams in Explorer. We weren’t anticipating that. Then once more, it’s a more recent drive. The business strikes quick.

Again, the newer Rugged SSD4 truly beat the Pro5 in each Explorer and FastCopy when writing 450GB. Go determine.

Note that I banged on the Rugged SSD4 arduous attempting to get it to decelerate its write tempo, writing a number of 950GB information to it consecutively. It by no means dropped under 1.65GBps. Sweet, and nice for videographers. The overwhelming majority of SSDs will drop to 5,000- to 800MBps.

Overall, the Rugged SSD4 is a superb performer and in the true world outperformed its far pricier cousin.

Should you purchase the LaCie Rugged SSD4?

If you’re on the lookout for the most effective performing 40Gbps USB4 SSD in the marketplace — sure. If you’re on the lookout for a ruggedized SSD you could plug into absolutely anything — sure. If you want the colour orange — sure.

On the opposite hand, if efficiency is paramount, the soon-to-be-reviewed (Macworld) 80Gbps OWC 1M2 80G is the quickest exterior SSD I’ve examined. Albeit at a a lot, a lot increased value.

How we take a look at

Drive exams at present make the most of Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit working off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 feeding/fed by two Crucial 64GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (128GB of reminiscence whole). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are built-in and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. Internal PCIe 5.0 SSDs concerned in testing are mounted in a Asus ROG PCIe 5.0 M.2 adapter card and a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 4-port M.2 adapter card.

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8.04 (and 9), AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 artificial benchmarks (to maintain article size down, we solely report one) to search out the storage machine’s potential efficiency, then a sequence of 48GB and 450GB transfers exams utilizing Windows Explorer drag and drop to indicate what you’ll see underneath Window, in addition to the far sooner Xcopy and FastCopy to indicate what’s potential.

A 25GBps two-SSD RAID 0 array on the aforementioned Highpoint 7604A is used because the second drive in our switch exams. Formerly the 48GB exams have been completed with a RAM disk.

Each take a look at is carried out on a NTFS-formatted and newly TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Note that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency could lower as a consequence of much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different elements. This problem has abated somewher with the present crop of SSDs with extra mature controllers and much sooner late-generation NAND.

Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we have been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can fluctuate by capability as a consequence of extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND accessible for secondary caching. Vendors additionally sometimes swap parts. If you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.