Next, we plugged the Rikiki into a standard USB 2.0 port on the laptop and repeated the transfer of the same 3.65 GB block of files. It took 1 minute, 41 seconds - impressive, but not knock-your-socks-off impressive.

In our initial tests, we sent a block of large files totaling 3.65 GB from the laptopвЂ™s hard drive to the Rikiki, which was plugged into the USB 3.0 adapter. This takes less than a minute - once the device gets sufficient power.

The Rikiki, an impossibly tiny 500GB drive (5,400 RPM, 2.5-inch disk) requires formatting before you can use it. Small Business Storage in the Palm of Your Hand The adapter came with its own power cable, which allowed the drive to work, but made for a somewhat messy configuration with two additional cables now dangling from the laptop. Some ExpressCard adapters, like some USB devices, draw all the power they need from the host computer, but some вЂ“ as was the case here - canвЂ™t get enough power from some computers. We started with a two-and-a-half-year-old Dell XPS M1330 laptop (2 GHz dual core processor, 4GB of memory) and plugged in a two-port USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter that LaCie provided. This is how we tested the LaCie external storage drives. The LaCie Rikki and LaCie Minimus USB 3.0 external storage drives In the meantime, you can add USB 3.0 ports to an older computer and get at least some of the performance improvement - by plugging a card adapter into a laptop (about $60) or installing a PCI adapter (about $50) in a desktop. If you plug it into a USB 2.0 port, the device will work, but you wonвЂ™t get the performance boost.ДЇew computers, as yet, have built-in USB 3.0 ports, though more are coming. The first thing to note about the promised throughput improvements with USB 3.0 is that you only get them if you plug the device into a USB 3.0 port. Second the LaCie Minimus USB 3.0, a desktop drive in 1TB ($130) and 2TB ($195) capacities. First is the LaCie Rikiki USB 3.0, a mobile external storage drive that comes in two capacities, 500GB ($95) and 1TB ($150). We looked at two of LaCieвЂ™s elegantly designed new USB 3.0 drives to see if they live up to that promise. The first external storage drives based on the new USB 3.0 standard began to appear earlier this year, promising lightning fast file transfers and syncs - up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0, according to some over-hyped reports. Small Business Storage Review: LaCie USB 3.0 External Storage DrivesДЄn external USB storage drive is one of the most efficient, affordable and easy-to-use kinds of small business storage available.

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