Porsche Design builds a high speed external hard drive

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Italian automakers Ferrari and Lamborghini have both offered branded laptops but the folks at Porsche have taken a different route to entering the computer world – designing a set of low profile external hard drives for storage experts LaCie.

The Porsche Design external hard drives from LaCie are offered in both a compact Mobile form (P'9220, P’9221) and a larger, desktop option (P'9230, P’9231) with both a high speed USB 3.0 version and a USB 2.0 model design for use with Macs. LaCie boasts that not only are these Porsche external hard drives stylish but their USB 3.0 formatted units are 3 times faster than USB 2.0 units and compared to the rest of the industry, the Porsche Design/LaCie USB 3.0 hard drives are the fastest on the market today – a fitting claim for a unit designed by a company like Porsche. The brushed aluminum case looks great but it also allows for improved heat control with the scratch-resistant finish keeping it looking great for ages and when it does come time to move on to a new unit – the Porsche Design hard drive is 100% recyclable.

The mobile Porsche Design hard drives (P'9220, P’9221) offer 500GB and 1TB capacities with the 500 starting at $104.99 for USB 3.0 and just $99.99 for the USB 2.0 Mac models. LaCie also points out that Porsche Design Stores will soon be selling a unique 750GB version but no price has been announced thus far. LaCie offers a dramatic introduction video to these mobile units that you can check out below with the soundtrack of a Porsche speeding off into the sunset at the end.

The larger desktop Porsche Design/LaCie external hard drives (P'9230, P’9231) are available in 1TB and 2TB configurations, with the USB 3.0 model starting at $119.99 and going up to $159.99 for the top of the line model. The USB 2.0 desktop hard drives for those stuck using a Mac will set you back $109.99 and $149.99 for the two different units so Mac users get a slightly slower option but they also get to save $10 on the desktop models.

For those not into the world of external hard drives, I had a look around the Best Buy website and I found that a name brand desktop external hard drive with USB 3.0 technology and 1TB of memory will set you back between $80 and $110. Based on those prices, the cost of the Porsche Design/LaCie desktop 1TB unit of $119 really isn’t bad considering the price of the capabilities and the fact that while other folks have hard drives made by Toshiba or Western Digital – you could have one made by Porsche.

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