Experienced professionals know that a reliable external hard drive is an investment in your future. The longer you work, the more horror stories you hear about colleagues who didn’t do their due diligence, neglected to save their work in multiple places and lost everything.
Case and point: I know a sound designer who dropped a drive containing his entire sound library off the side of a boat into the Pacific Ocean. That is a true story. What? How does that happen? It’s easy to hear these stories and think, well I would never dangle my most valuable possession over the sea. To those people, I say: you never know.
No one ever plans to lose their data. That’s why—whether you’re a new photographer or seasoned professional—you need reliable places to store it; the LaCie d2 Professional is a perfect example of a nearly fail-safe solution.
The Focus team took a look at the d2 Professional for you and found it to be a solid addition to the LaCie family. We recommend it if you’re looking for an upgrade to your current model, need more space, or want a stationary standing hard drive for your desk.
Storage & Speed
The LaCie d2 Professional external hard drive we tested holds 4 TB; it’s also available in 6 TB and 10 TB iterations. They all house the highest capacity desktop drive on the market: a Seagate® BarraCuda® Pro enterprise-class drive.
Its interface transfer rate (or host transfer rate) is up to 240MB/s. It also boasts 7200 RPM. For those wondering why that’s important, spinning drives like this one are usually either 5400 or 7200 RPMs. An RPM refers to “revolutions per minute” so the higher the RPM, the faster the hard drive. In short, this little guy zooms.
Compatibility
We hesitate to call any tech “future proof” but LaCie made a valiant effort with this model. It has USB-C to USB-C compatibility and a USB-C to USB-A adapter that can be used on any Mac or PC. This is a major asset in an age when specialized ports and cords are hugely prohibitive to what kind of gear you can own.
Materials
If you’re looking at the LaCie d2 Professional, there’s a good chance you’ve owned a standing external hard drive before. Thus, you probably know these devices can get very hot to the touch and noisy. I mean really, concerningly, this-drive-is-about-to-take-off-into-space loud.
LaCie addressed the noise and heat issues with two key changes to the d2 Professional. First, the body is made of a single sheet of aluminum; it doesn’t conduct heat and it’s rigid. Second, the built-in fan that pulls heat away from the hard disk drive (HDD) is incredibly quiet. Gone are the days when you could propel a fan boat with a drive fan.
All in all, we would recommend this drive to anyone who needs to store and/or transfer images and footage in bulk. It’s quick, quiet, reliable and comes with a 5-year limited warranty that includes Rescue Data Recovery Services so you can prepare for the unexpected.
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Regular price: $199.94
