LaCie, WD Debut Storage at Apple Expo

LaCie and WD introduced new storage products at the Apple Expo in Paris, including a two-drive RAID and a new Mac-friendly My Book Studio Edition.

Iomega isn’t the only company trotting out Mac-friendly storage products at this week’s Apple Expo in Paris: competitors LaCie and WD also want Apple fans to check out their new storage products: a two-disk RAID array and a Mac-formatted My Book Studio Edition, respectively.

For the expo, LaCie announced it is shipping its 2big Triple, a two-disk raid device available in 1, 1.5 and 2 TB capacities which features three different connect interfaces: FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0. The array targets graphic design and media production professionals who need a combination of high capacity with high reliability: the drive offers safe RAID 1 mode, Big of Fast RAID 0 modes, and a JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) which treats each drive as a separate volume. The drives are pre-formatted for use with Mac OS X, but the driver-free device can also be used with Windows systems, and the drive ships with EMC’s well-respected Retrospect backup program. Expect to see it in October for $399.

WD is courting Mac users with a new My Book Studio Edition, which is pre-formatted with the HFS+ Journaled file system for use with Mac OS X computers and sports four interfaces: USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA. The external drive is available in capacities from 320 GB to 1 TB, a quiet fanless design, and an "elegant silver finish" designed to complement today’s Mac designs. The drives are available now at prices ranging from $199.99 to $399.99 depending on capacity.