I fell in love the moment I saw the LaCie Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive, gorgeously designed by industrial designer Neil Poulton. It has an orange shock-resistant rubber bumper and a protective aluminum shell for durability. It is a looker; besides that, it's fast and durable and I had to have it. It comes in three sizes: 80/100/120 GB with varying rpm depending on the model. I tested the 80-GB/ 7200 rpm/ 8 MB internal cache. The rear of the casing houses three-way interface plugs: USB 2.0, FW 400, and FW 800, as well as the power connection.

The speed of copying files is very fast when using FW 800 (60 MB/s). It also mounts very quickly on the desktop with FW 400 (40 MB/s) and with USB 2 (40 MB/s).

I demoed it at the August 2006 meeting of the Princeton Macintosh Users Group (PMUG). It is great for taking on the road to back up or to transfer files. The Princeton color is orange; what a coincidence. Everybody loved it. It works great with my Mac Book Pro and my dual 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5. I like the portability and ruggedness of this beautiful pocket drive. It is replacing my older 60-GB pocket drive, which recently died.

And don't forget that LaCie gives a free software application called Silverkeeper for automatic backup and file verification with Mac OS 9 & Mac OS X. It comes with four cables: FireWire 800 (9-to-9 pin), FireWire 400 (6-to-6 pin), Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (USB 1.1 compatible), and a USB 2.0 power-sharing cable for systems where the USB Bus power is not enough. The Quick Start Guide is very helpful, clearly written, and easy to understand. I used it to find the correct format to suit my needs. I have Windows Professional XP installed on my MacBook Pro but I opted not to partition the drive to read Windows and Mac. I spend 99.9 % of my time on the Mac side and have my most precious files there. Therefore I formatted the drive MacOS Extended (Journaled). Clear explanations for other possibilities are easy to follow in the Quick Start Guide.

It also includes a CD-ROM which contains a User's Manual and the following free software:

• LaCie 1-click Backup Software,
• SilverKeeper Backup Utilities (Mac OS 9, Mac OS X),
• Silverlining� 98 Drive Management Utilities (Windows 98SE), and
• Silverlining� Pro Drive Management Utilities (Mac OS 9.x).

The enclosure can be re-used if the drive inside fails out of warranty. Simply buy a new one and put it in your beautiful case. At this rate, you'll always have the case to admire. That's what I did with an old LaCie pocket drive. I bought a new 2.5-inch hard drive, 80 GB this time, 5400 rpm, from Other World Computing, and put it in the case. It's a great way to reuse LaCie's cases. I buy a lot of hardware from OWC because their tech support is superb. They helped me choose the correct replacement drive. LaCie's tech support is also very helpful. They helped me with my questions about removing the old hard drive and re-using the case.

I would have liked for LaCie to have included a drive activity light like its older models had: Green when on, and blinking amber when copying or transferring files or mounting on the desktop. The LaCie Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive has no indicator light.

I had to wait a long time for one to review because "It is a very Popular item," said the LaCie representative and I don't doubt it. If you're looking for a reliable and a good-looking hard drive, buy this one. You will be the envy of your user group friends.