REVIEW: LaCie Little Big Disk
Thunderbolt 2.0

Originally posted Friday, April 18th, 2014 by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist

LaCie is shipping their Thunderbolt 2.0 version of the Little Big Disk. It's completely new inside the familiar 'finned' enclosure with dual PCIe solid state blades. We jumped at the opportunity to benchmark not just one, not just two, but THREE of them in a RAID 0 set. Check out the progression in transfer speed as we added a second and third drive -- each connected to a different Thunderbolt 2.0 bus.

GRAPH LEGEND
LBD TB1 = LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 1 (two internal 6Gbps SATA 256G SSDs striped)
LBD TB2 = LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 (two internal 512G PCIe flash blades striped)
LBD TB2*2 = Two LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2.0 (four internal 512G PCIe flash blades striped on two different Thunderbolt ports -- Bus 1 and 2)
LBD TB2*3 = Three LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2.0 (six internal 512G PCIe flash blades striped on three different Thunderbolt ports -- Bus 0, 1 and 2)
All LBDs were connected to a 2013 Mac Pro MD878LL/A Desktop.

SIMULATED 4K VIDEO CAPTURE and PLAYBACK
We used AJA System Test to test file level sequential transfer speed of a 16GB test document. It also simulates capture and playback of a 4096x2160 10-bit RGB video. (HIGHEST number means FASTEST in Megabytes per Second.)

DIRECT I/O SEQUENTIAL TRANSFER
We used the Custom Sequential test in QuickBench to measure the 10 sustained 1GB transfers with 5 iterations. (HIGHEST number means FASTEST in Megabytes per Second.)

PERFORMANCE INSIGHTS
The newest version of the Little Big Disk demonstrates the full speed potential of Thunderbolt 2.0 when you bridge the three separate busses on the 2013 Mac Pro. Even one LBD TB2 blows way the previous LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 1 with dual SSDs and exceeds the transfer speed of the Mac Pro's internal flash storage.

(diagram from Apple support showing the layout of the six Thunderbolt ports on three busses.)

Feedback or comments? Contact me , mad scientist.
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WHERE TO BUY THE LACIE LITTLE BIG DISK THUNDERBOLT 2
Order direct from LaCie. (At the time of this posting, they were in scarce supply so there was no 'click to buy.')

Eventually it will be available from Other World Computing and other resellers. Amazon still has the LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 1 (dual striped 256G SSDs) we tested.

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Help support Bare Feats by clicking our Apple display ads or THIS Apple USA link when ordering any Apple product.

(Pssst. Amazon has the 2013 Mac Pro 4-core and 2013 Mac Pro 6-core in stock.)

PowerMax not only sells new and used Macs, but will give you a generous trade-in offer on your old Mac.

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copyright 2014 Rob Art Morgan
"BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS"
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