External Hard Drives

Overview:

Pros:

• Tiny Structure
• Sleek, durable, anodised black finishing
• Speedy transfer rates
• Plug and play
• Excellent value
• Included backup software
• 10GB 1-year membership to Wuala online storage

Cons:

• Sharp corners
• Inconvenient short chord

Review:

Having reviewed a few of previous generation portable hard drives of LaCie, we had a feeling that LaCie seems to give more importance to the design and look of the device rather than enhancing its insides for productivity. They were quite chunky and were not able to keep up with the competition when it comes to both data transfer speeds and cost per Giga byte. However, luckily, LaCie seems to have redeemed itself with its Rikiki external hard drive. Being one of the tiniest portable hard drives in the market, it looks great and a solid performer too. Read on to find out if this is the external hard drive you have been looking for.

Tiny form factor:

As we had mentioned in the introduction, LaCie has never had any issues when it comes to giving an attractive look to its products. For instance, the LaCie LanaKey USB flash drive and the Classic Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive were absolute rippers when it comes to design, and the Rikiki USB3.0 is no different. The Rikiki is, as its name indicates, which is a French colloquial for tiny, is one of the tiniest external hard drives we have ever tested, measuring just (H x W x D) 4.6” x 2.9” x 0.52”. It is thinner than My Passport Elite of WD, about an inch less than Iomega eGo, and even Seagate Free Agent Go. You will not be able to get anything smaller than this, except if you are looking at any solid state device. LaCie seems to have learned its lesson from its previous models and has dropped the weight of the Rikiki to a very manageable 176grams.

Sleek and Sharp:

You will not find any flashy design graphics or rubber wings to protect the drive. Instead, LaCie seems to have opted for the minimalistic path by encasing the 2.5” hard drive with a dent resistant brushed aluminium casing, which is not only stylish, but also protects it from hazards of everyday transportation. The design is fairly simple but a refined Network Space 2, the Rikiki elevates the “black box” to a form of art. The sharp edges and brushed grains give the drive more character than anything you will be able to mould out of plastic.

Even though Rikiki USB 3.0 External Hard Drive will fit in your pocket, you would not want to do so because of its angular design. Its corners are very sharp and might easily damage your denim as time goes by. We recommend any bag that you carry around for the Rikki. The drive is otherwise bare except for a USB 3.0 port and a small LED on top of the drive when the drive is powered, besides the subtle LaCie embossing on each plastic end cap. On the bottom of the drive there are 4 axel screws, we were unable to remove them because they have a small ball inside them that prevents you from getting a screwdriver in them.

Package:

The Rikiki 2.5″ Portable Hard drive comes in a retail clamshell package that is open on the front so you can take a look at the drive. Also there are ruler diagrams on the top and side of the drive to let you know just how small it is. On the back of the drive there is a list of features and package contents. You will find a 6” USB chord in the box that works perfect on laptops with accessible USB ports, however, we feel that the desktop PC users might need to look for a longer cable. Mini USB-to-USB cable connects the LaCie Rikiki external drive to the system. While testing, we found ourselves wishing for the integrated USB cables that happen to have disappeared from the LaCie drives after the Stark mobile.

Capacities and Compatibility:

The drive is available in two flavours of capacities such as 500GB and 1TB. It is compatible with the latest version of Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7 / Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6.

Set-up:

The Rikiki Hard drive (500GB, 1TB) automatically launches the LaCie setup assistant when it is plugged into the system for the first time. This will give you some brief overview information about the different partitions and formatting types such as NTFS, HFS+, and FAT32. Once that is done, it formats the drive as per your requirements.  The LaCie Rikiki drive is not geared towards either Windows or Mac OS when you first use it, you can format it for one or the other or both.  First you name the backup and select the backup location. Next you select the files / folders you want to backup and finally set the backup schedule and you are done, it’s that simple!

Software:

As far as the software in concerned, inside the drive you will find a copy of the LaCie Genie Backup Assistant, a simple backup tool that makes use of a folder based backup and incremental restoration points in order to keep all your valuable data safe. You can schedule whole system backups, or update your most important files more regularly through the friendly interface. Like most bundled backup programs, you need the software to restore your files. The Rikiki also comes with 10GB of free online storage, which is a useful addition. Many of the online storage services provide just two GB space for free; so we feel that they have been quite generous in this regard. Since the Wuala file transfer application offered if based on Java, make sure you have it installed in your system.

Performance:

Rikki’s performance with its USB3 was quite good in our challenging tests of file transfer. It managed to write the small files at a quick 79mbps and its read was even faster at 34mbps. Though the smaller files rate is a little slower, the rates of 48mbps for write and 45mbps for read is still much better than even the fastest USB2 drives around. These results are very impressive for a disk with spindle speed of 5400rpm.

Noise and Heat:

When attached to a laptop, we found we were conscious of the drive vibrating, though we did not notice any operational noise. Since the drive is made out of aluminium, it not only makes the drive look good, but keeps the drive cool all along too.

Warranty:

LaCie Rikiki USB3.0 portable hard drive comes with two years warranty for parts and labour.

LaCie Rikiki USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	LaCie
Model Name	LaCie Rikiki USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive
Model Numbers	500GB: 301949 1TB: 301952
Drive Type	Portable Hard Drive
Dimensions (H x W x D)	75 x 118.5 x 18.8 mm / 2.9 x 4.6 x 0.74 in.
Weight	190 g / 6.7 oz.
Casing	Anodized aluminium
Capacities available	500GB and 1TB
Interface	USB 3.0 (USB 2.0-compatible)
Read/Write Speed	USB 3.0: up to 5Gb/s (600MB/s) USB 2.0: up to 480Mb/s (60MB/s)
Power Source	USB 3.0
Software included	LaCie Setup Assistant; LaCie Backup Assistant (PC and Mac®), 10GB Wuala Secure Online Storage (1 year included)
System requirements	Computer with a USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 port High-speed internet for online storage Latest version of Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7 / Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6 Minimum free disk space: 600 MB recommended For USB 3.0 Mac Compatibility: Mac Pro with LaCie USB 3.0 PCI Express Card (requires available PCI Express slot) MacBook® Pro with LaCie USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34 (requires available ExpressCard/34 slot)
Mac Compatible	Yes
Package contents	LaCie Rikiki USB 3.0 USB 3.0 cable (USB 2.0 compatible) Quick Install Guide
Warranty	2-Year Limited Warranty