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The d2 family of external drives are available with a variety of interfaces; the d2 Thunderbolt 2 (USB3.0 &Thunderbolt 2), d2 Quadra (Firewire 800, USB3.0 & eSATA) and the d2 USB 3.0 (USB 3.0). Now, with the d2 Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Gen.1 options are added to the list.
The Neil Poulton (multi-award winning designer) designed enclosure looks good and being constructed from a single sheet of aluminium also acts a heatsink, helping the tiny 25mm cooling fan keep the whole thing cool.
The d2 Thunderbolt 3 has three fast external connections in the shape of a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports and USB3.1 Gen.1 type C port, but its all a bit academic when the data comes streaming down the pipe only to hit the brick wall that is a conventional mechanical drive. Having said that, the performance is very good for an HDD-based external drive. LaCie quote a transfer rate of up to 240MB/s which we could confirm with the ATTO benchmark, the review drive producing a read figure of 241MB/s and 236MB/s for writes. It was also very quick when dealing with the large files of our 12GB Movie folder, writing the files to the drive in 56.9 seconds (221MB/s) and reading them back in 55.2 seconds (228MB/s).
While having 10TB of storage in a drive you can carry about (bearing in mind it weighs 2.2Kg) is very impressive we can't help feeling that if you need this much storage space just sitting on your desk, maybe it's time to look at getting some sort of NAS device.
We found the 10TB d2 Thunderbolt 3 drive for £579.60 (inc VAT) at Span.com HERE
Pros
- Huge capacity.
- Thunderbolt 3 & USB 3.1 connections.
- Warranty length.
- USB charging.
Cons
- Having an HDD drive doesn't make the most of the interfaces on offer.
- Pricey.
Kitguru says: Massive capacity for an external drive and despite the mechanical drive inside, reasonably fast too.
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