The LaCie Rugged line of portable hard drives features a rugged design wrapped in an iconic orange shock-absorbing rubber sleeve.
They're great for road warriors and students, providing shock and drop protection so you can throw them in a bag to bring along for additional storage.
And we're not just talking a bit more storage -- the newer LaCie Rugged Mini model is available with an amazing 4 TB of storage, now down to $229, as well as 2 TB for $139, 1 TB for $99, and 500 GB for $79.
With this capacity, you would need only five small external drives to hold the estimated size of the entire book collection of the Library of Congress (20 million books in 20 TB).
The Mini model is 8.5 ounces, and 3.4 x 5.3 x 0.75 inches, compared to the original drive size of the LaCie Rugged Triple USB 3.0, at 9.2 ounces and 3.5 x 5.7 x 1 in. The Mini has a USB 3.0 interface, while the Triple adds two FireWire 800 ports. Both offer transfer rates up to 110 MB/s.
For additional performance or security, LaCie also offers the LaCie Rugged RAID, with 4 TB for $419. You can use RAID 1 (mirrored) mode to duplicate the data across the two drives, or RAID 0 (striped) mode to double the transfer rate to 240 MB/sec, over USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt.
Or if you really need the speed, the LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt (also with USB 3.0) is available with SSD storage to triple the transfer rate up to 387 MB/sec. The SSD model is available with up to 1 TB for $899.
The LaCie Rugged drives are bus powered, so you don't need a separate power cable. LaCie also offers password protection software with AES 256-bit software encryption software.
The LaCie Rugged Mini is particularly welcome -- It's smaller than the original size, with higher capacity and a lower price. And it provides more protection: water resistant, with shock protection for drops up to 4 feet (not while running!), and pressure resistant up to being run over by a 1-ton car.
Find the LaCie Rugged Mini External Drive on Amazon.com