LaCie Rugged SSD Pro NVMe 1TB Review

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

The cost is high with the Rugged SSD Pro, but the reward is a high performance solution with one of the best warranty platforms on the market.

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The Rugged portfolio from LaCie has grown substantially year over year. The latest in this lineup offered several new models, including the solution in house today, the Rugged SSD Pro.

The Rugged SSD Pro came off the heels of its companion Rugged SSD from earlier in 2019. It features the Thunderbolt 3 interface to satisfy the needs of filmmakers and DITs that need a high-performance scratch disk capable of handling 8K high-res and slow-motion footage.

This leaves us with a very capable solution offered in 1TB and 2TB capacities taking advantage of the Thunderbolt 3 interface. Marketing performance is rated at 2800 MB/s with the enclosure being IP67 rated for dust and water. A five-year Seagate Data Recovery Plan is included with the drive.

The MSRP of the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro comes in at $419.99 for the 1TB model and $739.99 for the 2TB. Both carry a five-year warranty.

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Packaging follows the same design we have seen with many LaCie solutions in the past. We do have capacity listed top right, an image of the drive below, and mention of the Rescue service bottom left.

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Unboxing, we have a straight forward setup that includes the drive and Thunderbolt 3 cable.

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The enclosure features a silicon skin in black, branding on top.

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Along the bottom, you will find the Thunderbolt 3 connection using the Type-C interface.

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Testing was quick with this model, but we do need to note we were using a Lenovo Yoga in these tests, and the Thunderbolt interface is a x2 PCIe solution. This means we have roughly half the performance that the drive is capable of, leaving us with 1424 MB/s read and 1545 MB/s write.

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Price/Performance does take into account this drive's theoretical performance even though we could not test for it. That said, our chart includes Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2x2 devices like the WD P50. With this, the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro comes in at 90.2%.

At this point, it's almost given that LaCie solutions are going to bring everything needed to the table. The Rugged SSD Pro does that with ease with its fantastic build quality, small form factor design, and high-performance interface.

Performance, as I mentioned, was not tested to the peak of the drive's capability, but we were able to get 1425 MB/s read and 1525 MB/s write. LaCie does mention they use the FireCuda NVMe SSD and based on cost provisions, I assume it's the new FireCuda 510 with 96L Toshiba flash.

Pricing for the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro is a bit on the higher-end when it comes to Portable SSDs, at an MSRP of $419, but right in line with higher-end solutions like the G-Drive Mobile SSD Pro. That said, the LaCie does offer a class-leading five-year warranty along with Seagate Data Rescue services if you ever have an issue.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair VIII Formula X570 (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 2x8GB DDR4 3600 (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: Corsair Carbide 275R (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Corsair MP600 1TB (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair RM850x (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)