LaCie Launches Designer USB Type-C Hard Drives at CES 2016

If cutting edge designer hardware that is as stylish as it is useful sounds good to you, then you'll want to see LaCie's new Porsche Design and artist collaboration hard drives, which feature the new USB Type-C connection.

LaCie is Seagate's premium brand, and its launches are typically design focused, though you can expect to see more and more devices jumping on to the USB Type-C bandwagon as it becomes more of a standard.

There are desktop and mobile editions of the new Porsche Design hard drive, with the smaller portable models drawing power from the USB, available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models, starting from $110 (approximately Rs. 7,300), while the larger desktop models are available in 4TB, 5TB, and 8TB models, starting from $210 (approximately Rs. 14,000).

The Desktop Edition, which draws power from the wall socket, also offers a passthrough and can be used to charge your MacBook or other laptop with a USB Type-C charger. With the desktop edition, you can simultaneously transfer files and charge the laptop. The Porsche Design models unveiled support the USB 3.1 specification with USB Type-C ports.

LaCie also partnered with artist Neil Poulton to create the Chrome edition hard drive, which also uses USB Type-C and supports USB 3.0.

The Chrome edition drive features a striking design, with a polished chrome finish standing on a corner instead of lying flat on a side. The Chrome has two 500GB SSDs inside, and can transfer data at up to 940MB/s. This means that you could transfer 2 hours of 4K GoPro footage in a little more than a minute, according to LaCie. Launching this quarter, the Chrome will cost a whopping $1,100 (approximately Rs. 73,000).

Earlier design-oriented LaCie products included the 2014 LaCie Sphere, and the 2015 LaCie Mirror. The Sphere was, as the name suggests, a spherical hard drive that had a shiny chrome finish. The Mirror was a very sleek slate that came with an ebony wood stand, roughly the size of an iPhone, with a mirrored surface covered with Gorilla Glass 3.