LaCie announces new rugged portable hard drive
Photographers are always in need of more and more storage when they are out of their offices and studios, but portable hard drives are notoriously fragile devices. Â If it should get stolen or lost, anyone could plug it in and get access to all of your work, so you also need to be concerned when it comes to security.
Luckily LaCie is addressing both of these issues.
The newest portable hard drive from LaCie has covered a lot of bases to make sure to keep your data safe not only from data thieves, but also from the rugged lifestyle of someone who is always on the go for their work.  The outer body of the new hard drives, which come in 500 GB and 1 TB versions, features a military-grade shock-proof enclosure.  While no dimensions were provided by LaCie, it is sure to have made it slightly larger than most portable hard drives on the market, but nothing outrageous.
As for the protection of your data, the drive features both government-grade 128-bit AES hardware encryption (considered “unbreakable”) and biometric authentication technology.  The biometrics will allow you to plug the drive into any computer via either USB or FireWire, and without a need for installing any software, you merely swipe your finger on the biometric reader and the device will be activated for plug-and-play use.  You can register up to ten users on the device so you can pass it around your office or with clients easily.
The suggested retail price is £169 ($243 USD) in the U.K., and no release date in the United States has been announced as of yet.
