LaCie Mobile 1TB USB-C Portable SSD Review

A large part of LaCie's portfolio revolves around portable storage solutions, with the most notable being the Rugged lineup. With the expansion into portable SSDs, LaCie has separated its mainstream devices into two platforms - the Mobile SSD and Portable SSD.

Having reviewed the Portable SSD back in November 2019, it was time to get my hands-on the Mobile SSD, which utilizes a more familiar form factor.

The LaCie Mobile SSD is the solid state counterpart to the Mobile Drive lineup. They share a similar design with aluminum enclosures and diamond-cut corners. The Mobile SSD relies on USB 3.2 Gen 1 for connectivity with USB-C as the port of choice. Performance is rated at 550 MB/s with a SATA drive at its heart.

Compatibility includes Windows and macOS. The MSRP of the Mobile SSD in the 1TB capacity comes in at $189.99 with a three-year warranty.

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As you could have guessed, the packaging for the Mobile SSD shares that familiar white box design. We have an image of the drive centered, capacity top right with performance below.

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The back goes into more detail with the features and performance of the drive.

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Unboxing, the Mobile SSD comes with USB-C and USB-A to C cable for legacy connections.

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CDM is a staple in performance testing for most vendors. With that, the Mobile SSD was able to produce 564 MB/s read and 520 MB/s write - top marks for 5Gbps USB 3.2.

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ATTO is yet another popular benchmark for storage performance that breaks down performance based on file size. The breakdown for the Mobile SSD is impressive, with both read and write staying right with each other. Peak performance hovered around 540 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write 64K through 64M.

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New to our testing is a 200GB data transfer that aims to weed out drives that lose performance during backup scenarios. In this test, the Mobile SSD did very well coming in just under 10 minutes at a rate of 395 MB/s.

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Price/Performance for the Mobile SSD was not very good, mainly due to its SATA interface and high MSRP. The 1TB capacity comes in at 63.9%.

The LaCie Mobile SSD turned out to be one of the best SATA-based portable drives we have tested. Build quality is fantastic with an aluminum enclosure to protect the components and add to the feel and aesthetic of the drive. That being said, the Mobile SSD is a niche item for users that want a drive to match their MacBook or XPS laptop.

Performance, as mentioned, was tops for SATA-based portable drives. We were able to reach 564 MB/s read and 520 MB/s write pretty quickly and switching to the 200GB file transfer only proved further. The build quality is on point with a Barracuda SSD at heart, offering a steady 395 MB/s sustained write.

The MSRP for the Mobile SSD at $189.99 for the 1TB does put this at the high-end of SATA-based portable solutions, but it is backed by one of the best warranties at three years.

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)