Seagate’s premium sub-brand costs more but hardly justifies the extra outlay.
The LaCie Portable SSD is a nice looking 2TB portable solid state drive that comes with a free data recovery service from Seagate, a generous 3-year warranty but also a rather steep price tag for what it offers, which is USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds and nothing more. As such it is a tough sell against the likes of the Kingston XS2000 or the SanDisk 2TB Extreme portable SSD, both being significantly cheaper without any performance penalties. That said, some might argue that the data recovery service alone is worth it, something that’s unique amongst mainstream solid state drive vendors (although other less stylish Seagate products – like the OneTouch have the same feature). Which brings us to the real question; are we paying a premium for the LaCie name? The model tested (STKS2000400) has a suggested retail price of £339.99 but it is available from Amazon UK for £269 and from Amazon US for $330 respectively. Two smaller models are available, a 500GB and a 1TB one, on sale respectively for $100 and $170 at Amazon US and £90 and £185 at Amazon UK. As expected, the largest model has the lowest cost per Terabyte. We’d expect a larger 4TB model at some point as well. Note that this drive range occupies the entry-level segment in LaCie’s portfolio. Compared to some of its predecessors like the 2019 edition ( LaCie Portable SSD 2TB), it is more compact although we’re not sure about the thought process that convinced the designers to choose the parallelogram as the inspiration. It’s worth – at this stage – mentioning the French origins of LaCie or La Compagnie and how aesthetics was at the core of its mission. Before its acquisition by Seagate in 2014, the company had carved itself a lucrative niche amongst like-minded designers (and creative professionals) looking for creatively-inspired peripherals that could perform, regardless of the price.
