LaCie Rikiki 500GB Portable USB Hard Drive Review

Testing
Since this drive is made to be used mainly with notebooks I decided to test it out on Dell XPS M1210. Interestingly enough LaCie provides what they call “USB Boost”, which is a proprietary driver that LaCie says will optimize the data transfer rate between your computer and your LaCie hard drive.

LaCie Rikiki 500GB Portable USB Hard Drive

So the first test I did was with HD Tune 3.5 without USB Boost installed…

hdtune1

An average of 29.2 MB/s isn’t bad for a USB connected hard drive. Now let’s install the USB Boost driver and run the test again.

hdtune2

As you can see that driver sure makes a difference. With it installed we had an average read speed of 37.4 MB/s that’s a 8.2 MB/s difference!

Final Thoughts
There are quite a few options when it comes to a large capacity portable hard drives so what is going to make you choose the Rikiki drive from LaCie? First the drive is extremely small and remember it only requires a USB connection to power it, not an external power adapter. Also the drive is made of all aluminum, which not only looks good but keeps the drive cool and protects it.

Transfer speeds on the drive were good and when we installed the USB Boost driver from LaCie the speeds increased even more. The backup software that comes with the drive is extremely easy to use and works great. You also get a 10GB 1-year membership to Wuala online storage.

The only real problem I had with this drive is that the USB cable is extremely short. If you have USB connections on the front of your case and you want to use this drive they probably will not reach with the included cable. Even the USB connections on your motherboard most likely will not reach. Getting another USB cable is an easy fix, but I wish LaCie would have provided a short and long cable with the Rikiki.

Right now you can get the Rikiki in 250GB, 500GB and 640GB capacities. The 500GB version, which we reviewed, can be found online for around $100. Overall ThinkComputers gives the LaCie Rikiki 500GB Portable USB Hard Drive a 9 out of 10 score.

rating9 10 small

Pros:
– Small
– Made of aluminum
– Included backup software
– 10GB 1-year membership to Wuala online storage

Cons:
– VERY short USB cable

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