By Brady Betzel
While the cloud is where a lot of creators store their images and videos, others still want to keep their files local. And for those who are offloading camera footage while on set, this usually requires fast and accurate copying and deletion. So what type of backup plan do you use? Personally, I am a fan of multiple backups.
If you are on set, you will probably be hiring a DIT — or a production assistant if you have a tight budget — to handle media copy and verification. Usually that involves copying any media to two or more drives, running a checksum verification and possibly uploading to the cloud for immediate edit remotely. The bottleneck usually comes in the first link of that chain: the local drive input/output connection. These days, Thunderbolt 3 is the connection everyone wants. Not only can it supply power to a laptop, but it can also drive an external display, contain multiple memory card readers and have expansion for other drives or peripherals.
The LaCie 1big Dock SSD Pro is a perfect drive for this situation. It runs via Thunderbolt 3 and essentially acts as a docking station with a built-in NVMe SSD drive from Seagate, providing up to 2800MB/s read and 2100MB/s write speeds. It’s fast! And if you’ve never used an NVMe SSD drive to render or transfer files in and out, then you’re in for a treat. It will change your outlook on multimedia creation. You should immediately think about swapping out any internal spinning disk drives for NVMe drives. But I digress.
The 1big Dock SSD Pro comes in two storage sizes: 2TB for $1,349 and 4TB for $2,599. Both versions are identical other than the storage size. The speeds are blazingly fast. LaCie touts 2800MB/s read speeds and 2100 MB/s write speeds, but I will go over real-world speeds later in this review.
Externally, it connects through an included Thunderbolt 3 cable, but it also sports a separate, up-to-five-device-daisy-chainable (is that a word?) Thunderbolt 3 port on the backside; DisplayPort 1.4 connection; USB 3.0; SD card; CFast 2.0; and a CFexpress card slot on the front. The SSD drive itself is mounted in an interchangeable sled, so if something happens to the drive, it is easily replaceable. If you get to the point of replacing the sled/SSD, LaCie offers a five-year warranty that covers “…any defects in material and workmanship…” if the product was purchased from an authorized retailer or reseller.
Essentially, if LaCie deems the product failed because of its manufacturing, you’re covered. If you drop it and it breaks, or you fry it by dropping it in a pool, you will not be covered. You can read the details of the warranty here. It’s pretty standard, but one perk that is interesting is Rescue Data Recovery Services. With your purchase, you will receive a one-time data recovery attempt. If successful — they boast a 95% success rate — they will send you back an encrypted storage device with your data. If it works, that sounds awesome. Fortunately, I have never needed to use this service, but I would be interested in hearing anyone else’s experience with it.
The Nitty Gritty
Physically, the drive weighs about 2.8lbs by itself and about 4lbs with the included power brick. It is designed by LaCie’s resident modern designer, Neil Poulton, who is adept at designing “deceptively simple-looking mass-produced objects.” If you’re looking for a little creative inspiration, check out his site. He’s got some straight-lined objects on there.
While the 1big Dock SSD Pro is very light, the power brick is large and heavy. I wish they would have spent as much time integrating the power brick as they did designing the hard drive case, but that’s a small concern considering how fast the drive is.
Over the past few years, we’ve lost a lot of the built-in memory card readers in computers and drives. Even docking stations have eliminated a lot of readers in exchange for Thunderbolt and USB-C ports. So it’s a relief to see that LaCie added them back into the 1big Dock.
The Thunderbolt 3 charging does come with some caveats: When your laptop is charging via its power supply, the Thunderbolt 3 daisy-chain port will deliver 70W of power. But when you are charging your laptop through the 1big Dock SSD Pro, the Thunderbolt 3 daisy-chain port will deliver 45W of power. And if you have an Android phone that supports fast charging over USB-C, you can plug it in! I would have loved if it had included a wireless Qi-based charger, but that might be asking too much. Either way, there are plenty of ports, including the DisplayPort 1.4 to dock your laptop with.
Testing
When using the LaCie 1big Dock SSD Pro, I ran it through a few tests using an HP ZBook with Thunderbolt 3 ports. First up, I ran some disk speed tests in AJA’s System Test using a 16GB, ProRes HQ, UHD testing base. The read speed was 1268MB/s and write speed was 647MB/s. In the Blackmagic Disk Speed test using a 5GB testing base, the read speed was 2902.4MB/s and write speed was 2327MB/s.
Doing a simple Finder-level copy, I copied a 44GB folder full of Red R3D files, DSLR .mp4 files, BMD Raw files, and more. It took 1 minute and 57 seconds. Obviously, keep in mind that will be highly dependent on the source drive, OS, etc.
Final Thoughts
In the end, the LaCie 1big Dock SSD Pro is a great-looking external drive that comes at a cost. It is definitely not cheap, but if you are even looking at this drive, you are probably willing to pay a premium to transfer gigabytes worth of files per minute faster than another drive.
Besides the large power brick (which almost every drive has), the form factor and color of the LaCie 1big Dock SSD Pro is great. It feels like it is made to match Apple’s Space Gray. The memory card slots, Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort 1.4 and USB 3.0 ports really help eliminate an extra peripheral on my desk and can even help charge a laptop that is powered over Thunderbolt 3.
Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and Uninterrupted: The Shop . He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.
