Could the speed of Thunderbolt 5 allow creatives to work on files on an external drive without lag? Seagate says it's possible with the new LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5, which the company claims is the “industry’s fastest scratch disk for creative professionals.”
The LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5 has maximum read speeds of up to 6700 MB/s, and write speeds of 5,300MB/s. The company says that those speeds are fast enough for real-time editing of 8K footage, or 6K RAW footage.
The drive’s speed comes partly from Thunderbolt 5. While Thunderbolt 5 uses the same USB-C port as previous technology, it offers 80 GB per second of bandwidth in both directions, according to Intel. That, coupled with the SSD technology, allows the drive to offer fast read and write speeds.
To reach those speeds, however, creatives will need a device with a Thunderbolt 5 port, such as the M4 Pro variant of the MacBookPro. The drive is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 4 (with a 10/20/40Gbps USB-C and at least 15W port on Windows, MacOS and iPad Pro devices), but those older devices won’t reach the top advertised speeds.
Seagate’s Lance Ohara, a vice president in the Endpoint Marketing division, says the speed can help meet the rising storage demands for the creative industry. “Storage demands of creative professionals have spiked, especially for those incorporating generative AI in their routine. The LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5 is equipped to handle those demanding workloads and data-intensive applications. This makes it an invaluable tool for experts seeking the unmatched transfer speeds and editing power.”
The Rugged SSD Pro5 carries an IP68 rating to seal out dust and moisture, making it a drive that’s designed for creatives on the go. The drive can resist drops up to three meters or about 9.8 feet, the company said. The drive is also built with at least 45 percent in recycled materials.
Those fast speeds and that relatively nascent Thunderbolt 5 technology comes at a cost – the 2TB version has a list price of about $400 / £359.99 with the 4TB for about $600 / £579.99.
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