LaCie Rugged SSD4 Review

The LaCie Rugged SSD4 may be little more than a variation on a now familiar theme, but that theme is one of quality and speed.

The LaCie Rugged SSD4 combines performance, solid capacity, and a robust, recognizable design into an external SSD tailored for creative professionals on the go.

You have to give it to LaCie and Seagate: few peripherals are more recognizable than the LaCie Rugged series. We would almost call the design with an aluminum drive, protected by a bright orange silicone bumper, iconic.

The LaCie Rugged SSD4 (299.99 euros incl. VAT – 2 TB) therefore doesn’t look innovative, but it is recognizable. The device is light and compact (1.7 x 6.7 x 10.5 cm, 108 grams), but not compact enough to fit comfortably in your pocket. If you’re looking for small, smaller, and smallest, Samsung’s T7 series might be more interesting.

Safe to Throw Around

The LaCie Rugged SSD4 relies on its appearance, good reputation, and speed. The device is obviously robust. We threw it through the air several times without visible damage. LaCie claims you can drop it from a height of three meters. The IP54 rating implies dust and splash water resistance.

Therefore, an orange silicone cap covers the USB-C/Thunderbolt port to protect it, but it’s not attached to the rest of the bumper in any way. If you drop the SSD, the cap might pop out of the port. We believe that anyone who has the SSD4 for a long time will inevitably lose this cap. Then the USB port is no longer protected against beach vacations.

LaCie Rugged Mini SSD 4 Bumper Connected

The port that the cap protects is the strength of the LaCie Rugged SSD4. The USB-4 connection is Thunderbolt 4 compatible and supports sequential read and write speeds of 4,000 MB/s and 3,800 MB/s respectively on paper. You connect the SSD with a short included cable, which is also very orange: a nice cosmetic touch.

High Transfer Speed

Our test model has a capacity of 2 TB and never quite reaches the maximum write speed. We measure about 3,000 MB/s during various tests with write tasks of files between eight and 64 GB in size. That’s still very fast, of course. We also suspect that the bottleneck here is not the SSD but our test system (an HP Dragonfly Gen 4).

Reading is even faster. During our tests, the read speed comfortably reaches 3,800 MB/s and regularly exceeds 3,900 MB/s. That’s very close to the maximum that Seagate advertises.

LaCie positions itself as a Seagate brand for professional photographers and videographers. In that sector, Apple computers are used above average. The SSD is therefore exFat formatted, making it compatible with both Windows and Mac OS right out of the box. You can also connect the drive to a tablet or mobile phone.

Included Services

On the LaCie Rugged SSD4, we find a Start here file. Click on it to be taken to a web page where you can register the SSD. You can also download backup software and claim two months of Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for free.

We also note that Seagate has a specialized lab where experts can recover data from damaged drives. This service is called Rescue Data Recovery Services. The LaCie SSD comes with a warranty that includes such an attempt at data recovery if needed.

Not Too Complex

The LaCie Rugged SSD4 is not a surprising device. Seagate’s portable SSD offers exactly what we expect after years of LaCie Rugged devices, and that’s a good thing. At 299.99 euros for the 2 TB model, the drive is not the cheapest on the market, but you get high performance in a sturdy package.

The SSD is interesting for creatives who regularly work on the go and want to immediately copy recordings to an external drive.

One or more LaCie Rugged SSD4’s are a handy solution in that case, which is certainly much more practical than the much more expensive, complex, and over-developed Pro-Blade solution from SanDisk. Yet that targets the same audience. Simple is better here, and LaCie and Seagate have understood that.

Looking for a cheaper solution? It’s not hard to find. We already referred to the Samsung T7 (160 euros incl. VAT), or the equally robust T7 Shield (233 euros incl. VAT). However, for a more limited budget, you don’t get the same: the SSD4 from LaCie is comfortably three to four times faster.

Good Choice

For 299.99 euros incl. VAT, you buy a recognizable, sturdy, and above all very fast external SSD. If transfer speed is a priority, you’ll find little better. We therefore wholeheartedly recommend this drive for professionals who want to transfer large amounts of data on the go, and expect not only speed but also the guarantee that the drive will survive the journey home.