LaCie Minimus USB3 1TB review

LaCie’s Minimus USB3 is one of the smallest desktop hard disks around and its brushed-metal casing is barely any larger than the 3.5in hard disk inside it. With 1TB of storage space inside and a USB3 interface, this external hard drive is the next best thing to opening up your PC and slotting in an internal disk.

Performance was limited somewhat by the disk’s 5,400RPM spindle speed, but the Minimus still managed to achieve some very respectable large file transfer speeds thanks to the bandwidth provided by USB3. Its 92.1MB/s writes and 99.1MB/s reads were above average, although small file speeds were slower, managing 21.6MB/s writes and 43.7MB/s reads.

Copies of LaCie’s Wuala online backup and Genie Backup Assistant are included on the disk. Wuala includes 10GB of online storage and data is encrypted before being uploaded to prevent any malicious users (or anyone at the hosting company) from accessing your files. Genie Backup has actually been superseded by the new Timeline program, which is freely available from the LaCie website – both are easy to use and can back up according to a schedule, so you can set it going and then rest assured that your files will always be stored in multiple locations.

If you’re pushed for space, it’s difficult to understand why you wouldn’t buy a portable hard disk rather than a desktop model, but the Minimus is at least well priced at 9p per gigabyte. If you’re on a budget it’s a good choice, but if you can stretch a bit further you can get 2TB more storage with the excellent Seagate Backup Plus desktop 3TB.