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For those lucky enough to have one of the new Thunderbolt 5-equipped Macs, including the latest MacBook Pro and redesigned Mac mini, there are very few Thunderbolt 5 external SSDs to take full advantage of the new speed. LaCie’s new Rugged SSD Pro5 aims to address that problem. But does it do so effectively?
The Lacie Rugged Pro5 SSD comes in two sizes, 2TB and 4TB, and is priced at $399.99 and $599.99.
Design and Usability
The LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5 SSD may be novel in terms of interface technology, but its design doesn’t break new ground. If you’ve seen other Rugged SSD models, you’ve seen this one — but it’s blue! I want to add that LaCie puts the designer’s name, Neil Poulton, on the bottom of the device, and I think that’s cool. Let’s celebrate product designers more.
The external SSD lives up to its name; it’s rugged. The rubberized exterior, which makes the drive look and feel a bit like a toy, also makes it a total tank. The drive features IP68 protection against water and dust, is rated to survive nearly 10-foot drops, and can even be run over by a small vehicle. The IP68 rating means the drive can survive submersion in shallow water and safely be cleaned if it gets dirty in the field.
By the way, while the new drive looks like the old one, the IP68 rating is new. The prior Rugged SSD Pro was IP67-rated, which is still great but offers slightly less protection than IP68.
It’s also a pretty compact SSD despite the thick rubber casing. The Rugged SSD Pro5 weighs 150 grams (5.3 ounces) and is 98 by 65 by 17 millimeters (3.9 by 2.6 by 0.7 inches). It’s not the tiniest SSD I’ve ever seen, not by a long shot, but it strikes a nice balance between portability and durability and is small enough to slip into a pocket.
It wouldn’t be an external drive review without me commenting about the included cable. The Rugged SSD Pro5 ships with a Thunderbolt 5-certified cable, which is excellent, if not entirely expected. However, although the cable’s material feels fine, it is painfully short. It is a 0.3-meter cable (about a foot long). Some people prefer a super-short cable, so they should be pleased with this one even if I’m not.
The SSD ships with a pretty short cable, which is not to my liking.We’ll get to this more in the next section, but it is worth noting that external SSD design often informs performance in some key ways, especially regarding heat. Making an external SSD durable and weather-resistant ensures that heat has a more challenging path to escape. It’s a tradeoff. As we shall see, the LaCie Rugged Pro5 SSD performs well, so it generally delivers the best of both worlds for many fairly standard use cases.
Performance
LaCie promises up to 6,700 MB/s read and 5,300 MB/s write speeds for its new Thunderbolt 5 SSD, provided the user is actually on Thunderbolt 5 — the drive is, of course, backward compatible with prior Thunderbolt specs, like the near-ubiquitous Thunderbolt 4 featured on Apple Silicon Macs. As is often the case, these manufacturer-provided specs, formed in a lab well outside real-world scenarios, are impossible to meet.
However, the LaCie Thunderbolt 5 SSD delivers impressive speed in the industry-standard Blackmagic Disk Speed Test and real-world file transfers.
All testing was performed on the M4 Pro Mac mini, which features three rear Thunderbolt 5 ports. I used the cable that ships with the SSD.
Starting with Blackmagic Disk Speed testing, the Rugged Pro5 SSD delivered 4,120.4 MB/s write speed and 4,864 MB/s read speed fresh out of the box. These are excellent numbers.
After filling up the 2TB drive, leaving just enough room to run the test, the drive showed some slight slowing but nothing crazy. The write speed dipped just below 4,000 MB/s, while the read speed fell slightly to 4,746.8 MB/s.
After deleting everything off the drive for good measure, I reran the tests, and speeds fell a bit more to 4,007.2 MB/s write and 4,617.9 MB/s read.
All this is super fast, and much quicker than Thunderbolt 4 SSDs. Speaking of Thunderbolt 4, what happens when you use the LaCie Rugged Pro5 on a Thunderbolt 4 machine? At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s slower. However, it remains fast, delivering 1,700.1 MB/s write and 2,893.8 MB/s read speed, basically the same as LaCie’s Rugged-series Thunderbolt 4 SSD.
The LaCie Rugged Pro5 SSD as tested on a Thunderbolt 4-equipped MacBook Pro.However, there is something somewhat unusual to mention concerning the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test results. Occasionally, the write speed fell off a cliff during testing, dropping by a few hundred to even thousands of MB/s. This would typically work itself out during subsequent test runs, but it is worth noting, as this could impact users doing large file transfers — speeds may shift a fair bit during a big data move. This only impacted write speeds during my testing, as read speeds remained solid 100% of the time.
These were aberrations, but still worth noting. Occasionally during testing, the SSD dipped well below its peak performance.
Sometimes way, way below.What about doing big file transfers, which can stress the thermals of any SSD, especially weather-sealed ones?
I moved about 31GB of files from the Mac mini’s internal SSD to the external SSD, and it was swift for the first 10-15 seconds and then slowed down a bit. Overall, the write speeds worked out to about 3,300 MB/s and 3,170 MB/s for two test runs. Once caching took effect, the speed jumped to 5,000 MB/s.
Another test run with a much larger 260GB folder showed strong performance. The macOS Finder estimated it would take about six minutes because it started so fast, but it ultimately took just over eight minutes to transfer the entire batch of files. That’s still an impressive speed of 4,307 MB/s, faster than the drive’s performance in Blackmagic Disk Speed Test.
During all testing, and especially during the big file transfers, the SSD got warm to the touch. I wouldn’t describe it as hot, and it was never uncomfortable to hold, but it is worth noting that when connected to your computer, the SSD will be warm.
Overall, the Lacie Rugged Pro5 SSD delivers excellent performance. We have not tested any other Thunderbolt 5-equipped SSDs yet, but it will be interesting to see how they hold up compared to LaCie’s first attempt. The drive is not the steadiest drive I’ve seen, but it is fast nearly all of the time and is absolutely up to the task of real-time 8K video editing.
Are There Alternatives?
In the realm of Thunderbolt 5 external SSDs? Not many. OWC’s Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 SSD, which like the LaCie comes in 2TB and 4TB capacities for $399.99 and $599.99, missed its original launch window but is slated to begin shipping next month. We’re very keen to review it, but it’s a safe bet that it’ll be a great SSD, like OWC’s other offerings. It also promises to be rugged and weather-resistant.
If someone doesn’t explicitly need Thunderbolt 5, the options increase considerably. There are many great options in our “Best Portable SSD” guide, including the last-generation LaCie Rugged.
The LaCie Rugged Pro5 SSD is a great Thunderbolt 5-equipped companion to the latest Mac mini.Should You Buy It?
Yes, with a slight caveat. The LaCie Rugged Pro5 SSD is good, but I think it’s worth waiting a bit longer to see how the OWC Envoy Ultra compares in terms of maximum speed and sustained performance. The Thunderbolt 5 SSDs are direct competitors, so I want to see who wins the race. But if someone cannot wait and needs a Thunderbolt 5 SSD right now, you can’t go wrong with the Rugged Pro5. It’s a very good performer and built to last.
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