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LaCie Skwarim review: LaCie Skwarim

Jan. 29, 2007 12:01 a.m. PT

Editor's note: When we first received this drive for review, LaCie was offering a 30GB pink version and a 60GB blue version. In the interim, LaCie has discontinued the 30GB drive and now offers both the blue and pink drives in just one capacity--60GB. Capacity aside, all the information in the review below is still accurate. Some online vendors are still selling the remaining stock of 30GB pink Skwarims, so you may still be able to find them for a while.

If you love neon pink or blue, the 60GB LaCie Skwarim portable hard drive could be the perfect mobile hard drive for you. Its fashionable exterior and small, square design that could easily fit in your back pocket make it a great product for on-the-go data transfers.

7.5

LaCie Skwarim

Pricing Not Available

The Good

Fashionable exterior; compact and highly portable; includes backup software; comes with USB extension cable; quick at writing tasks.

The Bad

A little slow to read back data.

The Bottom Line

The LaCie Skwarim combines fashionable design and compact portability into a palm-size hard drive you'll want to flaunt.

The drive attaches to your PC or laptop easily with a small USB adapter that's attached to the drive itself but doesn't extend or stretch at all. LaCie also supplies a longer USB cable if you need it. As with most LaCie drives, the One-Click backup software is included with the package.

Drive type: mobile hard disk drive
Capacities: 60GB (4,200rpm)
Capacity of test unit: 30GB (please see Editor's note above)
Cache: 2MB
Dimensions: 3.3 x 3.3 x .5 inches (LHD); 3.5 ounces
Notable design features: Square, textured body; neon color
Connection options: USB 2.0/1.1
OSes supported: Windows 98SE; Windows 2000 Pro; Windows ME; Windows XP Pro; Windows XP Home; Mac OS 9.x; Mac OS X or greater
Software included: LaCie One-Click Backup Software, MacDrive
Service/support: One-year limited warranty; toll-based phone support (Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., PT); registered tech support only via Web; e-mail to tech support via online form; Web site includes FAQs, manuals, and drivers

On CNET Labs' test bench, the 30GB LaCie Skwarim (the name, incidentally, is a play on that of its designer, Karim Rashid) performed up to par with transfer speeds. It took a little more than 21 minutes to write our 10GB test folder to its disks. The read tests took slightly longer than most drives we've tested--around 11minutes copying our 10GB folder back to the test machine. These are good scores for a very small and very portable external drive.

The LaCie Skwarim is a fun little drive with both style and portability. It should provide you with all the on-the-go storage you need.

7.5

LaCie Skwarim

Pricing Not Available

Score Breakdown

Setup 9Features 7Performance 7Support 7

See full specs