While this is a refreshed series that does not mean LaCie has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, they have indeed kept what works and simply… refreshed what has not. That is why the shipping container is pretty much a dead-wringer for the previous gen’s. What that means is that on first inspection you will see a white box with a nice ‘n’ large full color photo of the LaCie Mobile Drive housed inside on the front, and all the details one needs in order to make an informed decision on what it is and is not liberally spread-out over all four sides of it. This box even neatly sidesteps one of the main gripes we have with most external storage solution’s boxes: knowing what capacity you have in your hands. With the rather large and high contrast blue text there is a near zero chance of you mistaking this 2TB for say the 5TB… and a zero point zero chance that if you do buy the ‘wrong’ capacity that anyone will have any sympathy for you.
Interestingly, while the exterior is the same as its predecessor LaCie has upgraded the internals. Gone is the plastic clamshell protection configuration and in its stead is a nice two-piece cardboard inner container. This inner box is thick, slightly ‘spongey’, and all but ensures that the LaCie Mobile Drive it protects will make it to its final destination no matter what happens in-transit. Color us impressed for LaCie listening to critics on the previous generation’s (minor) shortcomings in the protection department.
The included accessories are a bit of a hybrid approach of new vs. old. Like the old one can expect to find a warranty and installation pamphlet, a free month the Adobe’s Creative Cloud plan, a nice Type-C to Type-C USB cable, and access to Seagate’s Data Recovery Service (good for one free claim). What you will not find is a secondary USB cable (Type-A to Type-C) like the last generation. On the positive side you get the Data Recovery Service for the full three years of the warranty. All in all, a pretty great list of accessories.
On first glance, one could be forgiven for not thinking ‘storage device’ and instead thinking ‘Next… Next Unit of Computing” or “a new Raspberry Pi” as gone is the aggressive (if extremely pretty) angular looks machined into a big hunk of aluminum. In its stead you really do get a design more reminiscent of passive high end mini-computing cases than mere external storage devices. Make no mistake, this is not just a pretty face-lift as the change from thick (arguably overly thick due to 3-axis CNC machining limitations) aluminum to two thick “topper” sheets of aluminum with a thick radiator sandwiched in between means a major increase in surface area. Put bluntly, this new design may sacrifice mass but in return you get efficiency. In other words, instead of the case acting as a heat spreader it is now more of a heat sink. One that is much, much better at passively radiating heat from the HDD housed inside to the surrounding air. All the while not sacrificing much in the way of durability. We tested it and just like its predecessor it can be dropped, it can be bumped, it handle life’s bumps and bruises without breaking just as good as previous models. It just can do all that why looking better and being better at keeping the internal drive cool.
Sadly, LaCie has once again not taken the time to certify the LaCie Mobile Drive with Ingress Protection/International Protection ratings. We would be highly doubtful if it did not meet IP5x standards… and if LaCie had included a USB port cap and a silicon gasket between the top and bottom layers… it probably could also have had a decent water ingress protection rating as well. They have not, so while it is durable and more robust than any ‘pretty’ device has any right being… there is still room for improvement.
On the positive side, this new breed of LaCie Mobile Drive series is as small as it is pretty. Surprisingly small considering how robust it is.
As such the Mobile Drive is much, much easier to carry than most robust external storage solutions. So much so it is better to think of this new generation as an oversized SSD based unit rather than a bulky HDD one. Obviously… just without the speed NAND offers.
Also on the positive side, shucking this generation is a lot easier than the predecessor which relied on way, way too much double-sided tape for our liking. As you can see it uses a polymer ‘snap’ locking configuration that takes a surprising amount of force to release.
Of course, like any polymer locks… expect at least one to break during the shucking process. On the positive side, if you do (in more than 3 years’ time) shuck and replace the internal drive… a line of silicon on both the top and bottom of the center radiator portion can indeed net you both increased robustness and increased dust/water protection. Food for thought if nothing else.
In keeping with a fresh refresh, the internals are also an excellent blend of ‘old’ and ‘new’. For example, the internal configuration is basically the same with foil EMI tape over a layer of protective tape keeping the daughter card safe and securely in place. The controller is also basically the same an ASMedia ASM2xx series controller (ASM225). We have no issues with either of these ‘carry overs’. The ASMedia 200-series is a proven series with mature firmware that is more than enough to handle any single HDD bandwidth’s demands. The tape over tape mounting method is a proven one that may not be as secure as a screw… but it is more than ‘good enough’ outside of a warzone.
Also nice to see, the hard drive has been changed. The last generation LaCie Mobile made use of probably the best – for its time – 2.5-inch 5400rpm drive. That however was a couple years ago. Bit density (and thus performance) has massively improved since then. As such it is not surprising to see the new LaCie Mobile Drive generation use one of the better 5400RPM drives available: a Seagate Mobile HDD. Quite honestly, if this was not a SMR (Shingle Magnetic Recording) drive it would be a perfect upgrade. Since it is SMR… it is merely good bordering on great.
Also like the LaCie Mobile SSD series, the LaCie Mobile Drive series comes with the LaCie toolkit that is worth the install to say the least. With it you can backup specific files, folders, even drives automatically. Better still is you can configure it to auto-copy any or all of the above via mirroring, which uses MS or Apple’s Shadow Copy (aka ‘VSS’) technology that can backup files even when they are in use. While this free application will never replace Acronis, for a freebie it is a nice little bonus feature that does help offset some of the asking price.
Overall, the LaCie Mobile HDD 2022 series is a very good refresh to an already great series. Now lets see how it performs
