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As demonstrated with the Western Digital MyBook 3.0 - reviewed here - USB 3.0 is of huge advantage over USB 2.0 and the figures prove once again that real-world speeds are indeed in line with LaCie’s claims of “up to 110MB/s.” There’s no challenging it, the Rugged 3.0 is fast.

A very fast portable hard drive

Fast, yes, but being a 2.5in disk it falls behind WD’s 3.5in MyBook 3.0 in all operations except the sequential write. Let's not forget though, that these are two different classes of hard disks, and both demonstrate the potential of USB 3.0 to a great extent.

It’s not just transfer rates that matter, though. Last time Reg Hardware reviewed a USB 3.0 disk, several readers came back and asked about CPU usage in comparison to USB 2.0. It’s well known that the USB standard has been greedy when it comes to processor cyles in past implementations.

So I'm pleased to report that throughout the benchmarking process in USB 3.0 mode, the LaCie Rugged drive peaked at around 10-12 per cent, but spent most time around 5-6 per cent CPU utilisation. In comparison, USB 2.0 taxed my poor Core 2 Duo E6850 up to around 30 per cent usage, with lows of 15-18 per cent.

Verdict

It’s not as fast as Western Digital’s offering, but that’s the cost of losing the power brick and gaining true portability. Unfortunately that’s not the only cost. At £134.99 for 500GB, it’s a bit pricey, considering other 2.5” 500GB disks can be had at half the price. This begs the question; is your data twice as valuable and does it need to be transferred more than twice as fast? ®

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