Lacie debuts small USB 3.0 drives

WE ARE ON a shrink to fit roll today. No sooner had HP announced its half sized server then Lacie launched two tiny USB 3.0 hard drives.

Lacie's USB 3.0 drives have been named Minimus for its desktop flavour and Rikiki for the pocket version. Minimus, we get. It might be an entirely made up PR-speak but it sure does sound small. We're still trying to word out where Rikiki comes from so answers on a postcard please.

Lacie usually accompanies its releases with some kind of marketing wishwash. Last week we had the Lacie flash drive that it compared to the size of a mosquito. The company has also previously dabbled with "truck resistant" and is one step away from Nathan Barley's "shark-proof" Wasp T12.

This time the Minimus and Rikiki are no less than the world's smallest mobile and desktop USB 3.0 hard drives, Lacie claims. Both units come in a brushed aluminium case, which the company reckoned offers better resilience, improved heat dissipation and is fully recyclable.

Both drives have a top transfer rate of 5Gb/s and 10GB of Wuala online backup storage bundled in so you can securely store and share files online. Lacie is also throwing in a software suite that includes backup support for the Mac or Windows PC.

"The Minimus and Rikiki USB 3.0 offer our customers easy and affordable options to access the super speeds of USB 3.0," said Philippe Rault, Lacie consumer product manager.

"Since these products offer backward compatibility with USB 2.0, they will work on any PC or Mac with no worry."

The pocket Rikiki is priced at £89.00 for the 500GB version and the desktop Minimus is priced at £99.00 for the 1TB model. µ