Last Updated November 1, 2009   Product Rating   Stylish & sleek design Retractable USB cable   Very heavy aluminum body Included backup software is 32-bit Windows only Large transfers are slow

External hard drives are always nice to have, especially since they are so useful for transporting data, making backups, and adding more storage capacity to your computer. LaCie, a storage solution company, has released the LaCie Starck Mobile external hard drive with a modest capacity of 320GB. It has a sleek design with a retractable USB cable, but it has some shortcomings, like the transfer speeds and other aspects.

The LaCie Starck Mobile (320GB) is one of the cleanest looking external hard drives we've seen thanks to LaCie's design efforts. The aluminum design was the brainchild of French product designer Philippe Starck (hence the name), but because of this aluminum case, it weighs a lot (and we mean...a lot!). If definitely isn't meant for portability or frequent transportation, which is disappointing for such a nice looking device. The one thing we do really like about the design is the embedded USB cable that retracts into the device's body for easy storage. But we just can't get past its weight at almost 1 pound, which is more than twice the weight of similar external drives on the market.

When you first plug in the device into a computer (either Windows or Mac OS) it launches the built-in LaCie Setup Tool and lets you choose how to format and partition the drive. The utility lets you setup as many partitions that you need and format in either FAT32, NTFS, and HFS+. Included in software that comes with the Starck Mobile is a copy of Genie Backup Assistant, which is a pretty simple backup utility for folder-level backup. This backup program only works with 32-bit versions of Windows, so 64-bit Windows and Mac OS users are left out.

As we mentioned before, the LaCie Starck Mobile that this review pertains to is the 320GB version, but there is an identical 500GB version for an extra $50 or so, which is probably the one to get if you want to spend the extra money. 320GB is, however, probably good enough for many users, but more advanced users will want more space if possible.

In terms of file transfer speeds, we felt that reading data off the drive was much more slower than writing, and at times, too slow. Small file transfers of under ~1GB worked just fine and were quick, but large transfers (and especially while performing a large backup) worked slower.

The LaCie Starck Mobile (320GB) is a good choice for an external hard drive if you want something stylish on your desk, but also if you don't have a need to transport it around because of its weight. Because of that, this one is better off just staying next to your computer on your desk. Its price is under $100 for 320GB, which is a pretty reasonable price and it comes with a two-year warranty from LaCie that covers both parts and labor.

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