At a glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Supports Thunderbolt 5
- Impressive performance for creative users
- Rugged design with IP68 rating
- Five-year warranty
Cons
- Expensive
- Requires Mac with M4 Pro or Max
- You might need to buy a spare TB5 cable
Our Verdict
It’s expensive, and you’ll need a new Mac with an M4 Pro or Max processor to get the full benefits of Thunderbolt 5, but the Rugged SSD Pro5 is the fastest back-up drive we’ve ever seen. Its rugged design is ideal for outdoor work, and makes it an ideal back-up solution for demanding creative users.
Price When Reviewed
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Best Prices Today: LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5
$329.99
Thunderbolt 5 was launched back in 2023 – and was rather overlooked, as it was launched on the same day as the iPhone 15 – but it’s taken quite a while for the technology to arrive in mainstream products such as LaCie’s new Rugged SSD Pro5.
Even Apple has taken its time here too, only introducing Thunderbolt 5 on the new M4 MacBook Pro and Mac mini that were launched at the end of 2024 – and even then, only on the models with the high-end M4 Pro and Max chips.
However, LaCie’s range of Rugged solid-state drives have supported Thunderbolt technology for many years, and their sturdy designs have made them popular with many Mac users and creative professionals.
At first glance the Pro5 looks almost identical to the previous-generation Rugged SSD Pro, which uses Thunderbolt 3 and has been sitting on our list of Best External SSD drives for the last three years. The names are almost identical too, so make sure you look for the Pro5 model if you want the latest Thunderbolt 5 performance for your new Mac.
LaCie
The drive is available with either 2TB or 4TB capacities, so you’ve got plenty of room for large video and graphics files, and while it’s not exactly cheap, the Pro5 is still competitively priced for a high-performance drive aimed at pro users. It’s also worth mentioning that LaCie is now owned by Seagate, so you’ll be directed to seagate.com for information about LaCie products.
In fact, the only visible difference between the two drives is the fact that the Pro5 is wrapped in a dark-blue rubber sleeve, rather than the somber black of its predecessor. That rubber sleeve is designed to provide extra protection for the drive, and the Pro5 is even sturdier than before, with an IP68 rating for water and dust-resistance. This means that the drive is completely sealed to prevent dust and other small particles from getting inside the unit, and LaCie claims that it can survive complete immersion in water up to a depth of 1.5 meters for a full 30 minutes.
LaCie also states that the drive can survive being dropped from a height of up to 3m (10ft) and can even cope with being run over by vehicles weighing up to two tonnes. And, to back up those claims, LaCie provides a five-year warranty for the drive, and offers a one-time use of its Data Recovery Service to try and rescue your data in the event that the drive does become damaged.
That rugged design makes the Pro5 a great option for creative users who need to work outdoors for photoshoots or filming. It’s also highly portable, measuring just 17mm thick, 98mm wide and 65mm deep. The tough design means that it’s a little heavier than many of its portable rivals, weighing 150g – compared to 100g for the older Rugged Pro with Thunderbolt 3 – but you can still pick it up and slip it into your pocket with no trouble at all.
LaCie includes a high-performance Thunderbolt 5 cable with the Pro5 drive, but we did notice that the standard USB-C cable we normally use for our Time Machine back-up drive didn’t provide enough power for the Pro5, so it might be worth investing in a spare Thunderbolt 5 cable in case of emergencies.
LaCie
And, of course, it’s the support for Thunderbolt 5 that will attract Mac users, and especially creative users who need a high-speed drive for working with large graphics and video files. LaCie is clearly targeting creative users with the Pro5, boasting that it’s “the fastest scratch disk for creative professionals”, and offers far greater performance than previous generations of Thunderbolt drives.
The Pro5 does use a standard USB-C connector, which means that it’s still backward-compatible with older Macs that have Thunderbolt 3 or 4, but if you want to get the full performance of the Thunderbolt 5 interface then you’ll need to use one of the recently launched MacBook Pro and Mac Mini models that have an M4 Pro or Max processor (and the previous Rugged SSD Pro with Thunderbolt 3 remains on sale for owners of older Macs).
LaCie
When used with a Thunderbolt 5 Mac, LaCie quotes read and write speeds of 6,700MB/s and 5,300MB/s respectively. Admittedly, the Pro5 didn’t quite hit those peaks when running the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test, but did still record impressive results of around 5,250MB/s for both read and write performance when used with a new Mac mini with M4 Pro.
It’s also more than twice as fast as the older Rugged SSD Pro with Thunderbolt 3, which scored read and write speeds of 2,480MB/s and 1,780MB/s respectively.
Should you buy the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5
That performance makes the Rugged SSD Pro5 clearly the fastest Thunderbolt drive we’ve tested so far, and along with its rugged, portable design makes it an excellent option for creative users who want to exploit the full speed of their new Thunderbolt 5 Macs.
