LaCie Mobile SSD Secure Review

SSD’s have changed the way we work; the solid-state make-up means these drives are far more robust than the older optical solutions. That means that there are far more drive failures and the drives themselves will last for years even if regularly carted around in a kit bag.

What’s more, while this isn’t one of the latest NVMe type SSDs it is fast, really fast with a maximum transfer speed of up to 1050MB/s.

Inside the small metal casing, is a compact SSD that makes this one of the smallest and lightest 1TB drives available. The sleek hardware is supported by the LaCie Toolkit which enables access to the additional security and backup features.

Ultimately the drive works well as a working or backup drive and has the added bonus that the access can be locked down securely if needed.

The size of the drive is instantly impressive; it’s considerably smaller than most other portable hard drives. It’s smaller than the palm of your hand and measures 50x80x10.6mm, with a weight of 74g. When I picked up the box I initially thought they’d forgotten to include the drive.

Data connection is through a single USB Type-C port and a short type-c to type-c cable is included in the box. Otherwise, the sleek metal case is simple with the LaCie logo on top, some info text on the bottom and a small white status light on the side.

Alongside the drive is the software, LaCie Toolkit, which offers the ability to secure the drive. Initial set-up takes a couple of minutes and requires a SID code from the packaging to be entered. It’s all relatively straightforward and once codes and options are entered and selected the drive is ready and secured.

Through the set-up process, you are asked to provide a password to access the drive. Once applied, every time you plug the drive in a prompt appears asking you to enter the password.

This password entry obviously keeps the drive secure in case of loss but can be a bit of a bind if you are the only one using the drive. This is where the Trusted Computer option comes into play.

Once activated, which requires a couple of disconnects and box ticks, the drive is automatically unlocked on trusted machines, while still requiring a password on others.

Another nice feature of Toolkit is the ability to mirror certain folders on your computer hard drive. So if you’ve finished a shoot and then need to back up those files rather than do that manually, you can create a folder mirror, and that backup will happen automatically.

Setting up the drive doesn’t take long, although you do have to decide on how you want to use the drive. The drive comes ExFat formatted, so one of the first steps I took after running through the initial steps was to reformat into a mac file system.

Through macOS Disk Utility I found that there were only four format options two mac and two windows. This is likely due to the hardware security built into the drive and doesn’t enable the latest APFS format to be used.

Reformatting as macOS Extended (Journaled) was easy enough, and after the format, Lacie Toolkit recognised the drive as before. The only difference is that the drive will no longer be recognised on PC machines without specialist software.

Once formatted the security kicks in every time the drive is connected. To access it’s a case of entering a password each time. However, activate the Trusted Computer option and on trusted machines with the LaCie Toolkit installed the drive is instantly recognised and unlocked.

Another feature that I like is the Mirror option; this enables you to select a choice of mirrored folders on the drive. This is useful for backup; for example, download images from a shoot to your laptops images folder, and then the drive will automatically back those up to a mirror folder on the drive. It’s very slick and easy to use.

Using the drive as a backup works well, and the speed makes transfers for this capacity nice and quick. My only feeling is that this is a very expensive drive, and while it works exceptionally well as a backup solution, it is costly for that type of use.

The other option that makes full use of the SSD technology and USB 3.1 Type-C speed is for the Lacie to be used as a working drive.

Editing a few HD videos from a Canon C100 MKII with Final Cut Pro X worked seamlessly. Read and Write speeds were more than sufficient to keep up with what was required.

Switching to 4K footage from a Sony FS7, the small drive ploughed through the content, edits and grading without issue.

The drive might be small in size but proved powerful in speed and reliability when in use. Checking the transfer speeds with Black Magic Disk Speed Test and proved the capabilities of the drive.

Read: 845MB/s
Write: 928MB/s

At first, this compact LaCie drive seems expensive, and it is, but then it offers more than many other SSD drives of its type. The LaCie Mobile SSD Secure offers ultra-fast transfer speeds that are close to those of NVMe drives, it offers security and a very secure backup.

The LaCie Mobile SSD Secure is a great looking, if small piece of kit, the all-metal case is simple and sleek and does the job intended. The integral security hardware and software gives the drive something unique for a drive of this size and helps give you peace of mind.

That peace of mind is especially relevant for jobs where video or image content might be sensitive or you simply want to keep your work secure in case you lose the drive.

Adding to that peace of mind is the data rescue service; this covers the drive for the warranty period, which at present is three years.

Security and compact size aside, the drives speed and reliability are also exceptional. In use, there were no dips in performance; it was just consistent.

While the connection may only be USB Type-C rather than Thunderbolt 3/4, it’s still fast enough for most video editing and all photography.

At the end of this test, I was impressed with what this small drive has to offer. What has especially warmed me to this small portable hard drive is the balance of features. It’s fast, compact and secure, and for those features, it’s worth the price tag even though I wish it were cheaper.