DailyTech - LaCie Announces Little Big Disk With Thunderbolt, Intel 510 Series 6Gbps SSDs

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Hardware LaCie Announces Little Big Disk With Thunderbolt, Intel 510 Series 6Gbps SSDs
Brandon Hill (Blog) - February 24, 2011 3:07 PM

32 comment(s) - last by bug77.. on Feb 27 at 7:32 AM

LaCie Little Big Disk (Source: LaCie)

LaCie's Little Big Disk brings a whole bunch of new technology in a tiny little package

Well, that didn't take long -- earlier today, Intel made its Thunderbolt I/O technology official and Apple launched new MacBook Pros that support the 10Gbps interface. Now, LaCie has announced its "Little Big Disk" which supports Thunderbolt.

LaCie has been working with Thunderbolt for the past year, and showcased a storage prototype with 700MB/sec transfer speeds (all while daisy-chained between a computer and monitor) at IDF 2010. Now, the production Little Big Disk is ready to go and supports two channels with 10Gb/sec of data flowing both ways per channel (all within a single cable).

"Thunderbolt technology is a breakthrough in I/O technology and represents the future of mobile computing. Soon you will be able to carry workstation-class power and functionality in compact devices," said Philippe Spruch, Chairman and General Manager, LaCie. "LaCie is excited to be one of the first to deliver Thunderbolt technology with the LaCie Little Big Disk."

The Little Big Disk weighs in a svelte 1.5 pounds and comes equipped with two 250GB Intel 510 Series solid state drives (which haven't even been officially announced yet).

According to VR Zone, the Intel 510 Series SSDs have maximum read speeds of 470MB/sec and maximum writes of 315MB/sec. Interestingly, the SSDs are still built in 34nm NAND flash technology. The drives will be available in 120GB ($280) and 250GB ($580) capacities when they are officially launched on March 1.

As for LaCie's Little Big Disk, it will be available later this summer at an undisclosed price.

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RE: Interesting.....

By Tony Swash on 2/25/2011 2:52:41 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
You may now collect that $50 dollar check from apple marketing. But as usual you don't know what you are talking about.

"The new MacBook Pros are a huge speed bump and the top models beat even recent MacPros."

The top model you could get is a 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7. The mac pros could be configured as 8 core since 2007 (yeah those did not have hyperthreading, but they also ran at 3ghz). Against the recent 6-12 cores forget it.

Another grouchy old techie staring fondly in the rear view mirror.

Yesterday is long gone dude :)

Check out this complete list of Mac benchmarks at Primate Labs here.

http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks...

Note that the new macBook scored 10164 which places it ahead of most macPros including some released as recently as 2009.

Pimate Labs said

quote:
The performance of the new MacBook Pros is amazing. The slowest MacBook Pro performs on par with the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro, and the fastest MacBook Pro is 80% faster than the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro.??In fact, if you look at our Mac Benchmark charts, you'll see that the fastest MacBook Pro is faster than a lot of Mac Pros (including the current generation of Mac Pros). The new MacBook Pros truly are portable workstations.

You said

quote:

Thunderbolt will probably never surpass the spread of even firewire 800... and how many devices do you know of that use that currently? Not that many!

Watch the Engadget Thunderbolt demo video and then tell me what Firewire 800 setup can do the same - or even close.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-thunderbo...

You said

quote:

It was Jobs that called it spectacular. Meanwhile apple admitted to firing a bunch of people from the final cut team at one point. Quite a few of the editors I know have already jumped ship to avid, and some are even thinking of switching to premiere.

Check out the Techcrunch article here
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/22/new-final-cut-pro...

A quote from techcrunch

quote:
According our very own people familiar with the matter, a small group of video editors were on the Apple campus recently in order to preview the new version of video editing software, which is in the same space as Avid and Adobe Premiere. Apparently Apple is still putting the finishing touches on “the biggest overhaul to Final Cut Pro since the original version was created over 10 years ago” and wanted pro user feedback. Emphasis on “pro.”
One source described the new release as encompassing everything from low level architectural changes to a complete redesign of the user interface. It’s safe to say the newest version will be 64 bit as that’s what users have clamored the most for.
Early reports from people who have demo’d the new Final Cut Pro (FCP 8?) say that the changes are “dramatic and ambitious” and should alleviate concerns that Apple has shifted its video editing focus from the professional to the consumer space, shutting down work on FCP . Apple plans on releasing the new product in Spring 2011 according to our source, in a launch possibly coinciding with the National Association of Broadcasters conference.

Ever noticed how many pros (pro photographers, film editors and directors, pro graphic designers, journalists, professors) use a Mac? Ever wondered why?

You are just pissed because Apple have exclusive use of Thunderbolt technology until 2012 and you don't like a world where Apple is the top dog :) Here is some advice - get used to it.

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RE: Interesting.....

By maven81 on 2/25/2011 3:48:48 PM , Rating: 2

"Another grouchy old techie staring fondly in the rear view mirror."

I'm 30, and I haven't worked as a techie in... 5 years, though when I did I was a (gasp) mac tech. These days I work as a designer. I'm forced to use a mac at least 8 hours a day every day.

"Note that the new macBook scored 10164 which places it ahead of most macPros including some released as recently as 2009."

barefeats actually has much more up to date tests http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp34.html But even with their score of 10993 the top of the line macbook pro does well against older quad pros and even older 8 cores, but doesn't beat anything I would describe as recent.

"Watch the Engadget Thunderbolt demo video and then tell me what Firewire 800 setup can do the same - or even close."

I said SPREAD not SPEED. Notice the difference? Years after it was introduced firewire 800 is still not very popular.

"Check out the Techcrunch article here"

That article doesn't prove your point. Apple is playing catchup in this space. Notice that it's just now becoming 64 bit! Literally several years after adobe and avid. It also has horrendous support of multicore systems. So of course once they fix this the new version is going to be far ahead of the old one, but not the competition.

"Ever noticed how many pros (pro photographers, film editors and directors, pro graphic designers, journalists, professors) use a Mac? Ever wondered why?"

I wonder this every day. A lot are just old fogeys that haven't touched windows since 3.1 and have no clue that in many cases the Adobe Creative suite works better on a PC. (In fact photoshop became 64 bit on the PC one version before the mac). Some are locked into the mac platform because of shady deals. (After apple bought logic, all logic users had to switch to mac). For others it's compatibility (until everyone switches to opentype fonts you can't use mac fonts on a PC). Mainly it's just arrogance and cluelessness.

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RE: Interesting.....

By Tony Swash on 2/25/2011 5:33:57 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
"Ever noticed how many pros (pro photographers, film editors and directors, pro graphic designers, journalists, professors) use a Mac? Ever wondered why?"

I wonder this every day. A lot are just old fogeys that haven't touched windows since 3.1 and have no clue that in many cases the Adobe Creative suite works better on a PC. (In fact photoshop became 64 bit on the PC one version before the mac). Some are locked into the mac platform because of shady deals. (After apple bought logic, all logic users had to switch to mac). For others it's compatibility (until everyone switches to opentype fonts you can't use mac fonts on a PC). Mainly it's just arrogance and cluelessness.

Perhaps - gasp - it's just a case of professionals making sensible decision about what the best kit is for maximising their productivity - or is that just too far fetched :)

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RE: Interesting.....

By maven81 on 2/25/2011 5:52:53 PM , Rating: 2

If that was true then the world's biggest production companies, ILM, Weta Digital, Digital Domain etc. Would be predominantly Mac based. Even Pixar isn't, and Jobs is the head of pixar. What does that tell you?

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RE: Interesting.....

By Tony Swash on 2/26/2011 5:49:32 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
If that was true then the world's biggest production companies, ILM, Weta Digital, Digital Domain etc. Would be predominantly Mac based. Even Pixar isn't, and Jobs is the head of pixar. What does that tell you?

It tells that corporate IT depts are timid, afraid of end user empowerment and only comfortable with what they know. It also tells me that Microsoft is and has always been very good at marketing to and supporting corporate IT. It tells me that when end users gain any sort of individual control of the technology that empowers them as an individuals they choose Macs and Apple products.

The iPad impact and take up in enterprise also tells me the corporate shit might be changing ;)

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RE: Interesting.....

By maven81 on 2/26/2011 4:20:33 PM , Rating: 2

It's really better for you to not say anything and make people think you're clueless then to remove all doubt.

Those companies aren't running their render farms on windows Tony, they are running them on Linux. I'm looking forward to hearing about your thoughts on the vast conspiracy that makes that happen. And while you're at it you might consider why companies that could afford X-serves did not bother with them. In fact so few people were buying them apple is now out of the blade business altogether.
You obviously know nothing about production. Production companies choose technology that allows them to work faster, and saves them money. That's all they care about, not some whimsical sense of empowerment.

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