LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive 1 TB

Following Neil Poulton, it’s over to Philippe Starck to design a LaCie external hard drive. The Starck Desktop Hard Drive 1 TB is the result. As its name indicates, what we have is a 3.5 inch 1 TB capacity hard drive.

An impeccable finish!

While the Starck Desktop Hard Drive look will either appeal or not, it is incontestably well-made. No creaking or movement, a great finish. We also like the fact that the software suite (see inset) is in a separate partition. This means you won’t scrub it when formatting the drive. However we do deplore LaCie’s choice in opting for USB 2.0 connectivity. The absence of USB 3.0 is understandable. However, an eSATA entry would have given much better performance and would be appreciated for transfers over 10 GB. This costs it a star in our rating.

Speeds: good in both reads and writes

LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive WD My Book Studio Edition

Although we regret the absence of other connectivity, we do recognise what is a very decent USB 2.0 performance. On average you’ll need 50 seconds to write 1 GB of data and 20 seconds to retrieve it.

Energy consumption: average

Lastly, power consumption. To recap, 3.5 inch external hard drives need to be plugged in to the mains, in contrast to the smaller 1.8 and 2.5 inch formats that are powered straight from the USB port. On standby, it scores a low 0.1W but once its up and running this goes up to 7W and then 10W while writing. Nothing out of the ordinary then for this type of storage system.