LaCie Slashes Price On On FireWire/USB Combo Drive

LaCie has announced a price cut on their 24x10x40 CD-RW FireWire/USB combo drive. The drive is compatible with Appleis iTunes and includes the BURN-Proof feature, greatly reducing the number of CD writing errors. According to LaCie:

Leveraging its 3-month lead as the first to ship a 24x10x40x CD-RW drive with both USB and FireWire connectivity, LaCie announced today that the volume of drives being sold has enabled the company to slash the price of the drive to an unprecedented $299 after the mail-in rebate. In addition to its blazing-fast write speed, LaCieis new CD-RW incorporates advanced "BURN-Proof (Buffer Under RuN) technology and provides users with the convenience of being able to easily transfer the drive between FireWire and USB-equipped computers. LaCie will feature the drive at Macworld, Booth 1913, next week in New York City.

With the ability to write CD-Rs at 3.6 MB/s (24X) the industryis highest CD recording speed-- the LaCie 24x10x40 CD-RW can burn a complete 650MB CD in about 3 minutes. The same drive can be used to rewrite CD-RW discs at 1.5 MB/s (10X)--the industryis fastest rewrite speed. The LaCie CD-RW drive also provides 40x playback and fast, 150ms access.

LaCie includes advanced BURN-Proof technology with the drive to eliminate the possibility of buffer overruns and ensure error-free recording at 24x speeds--even when lower-performance PCs are used. The advanced BURN-Proof technology also allows users to burn CDs in the background while working on other applications.

To achieve USB and IEEE 1394 (U&I) functionality, LaCie incorporates both a FireWire controller and a USB controller in the new 24x10x40x CD-RW drives. When the drive is connected to a FireWire interface, performance is more than 12 Mbytes/second. When the USB interface is used, the LaCie hard drives deliver a sustained performance of up to 750Kbytes/second. Designed with true plug-and-play capabilities, the FireWire and USB buses make the LaCie drives hot-pluggable--they can be removed or swapped without having to shutdown or reboot the system. The drives mount automatically as soon as they are connected, giving users the convenience of being able to add, remove or swap the drive without having to restart the computer.

The LaCie 24x10x40x CD-RW is now available for US$299. You can find more information at the LaCie Web site.