LaCie Fuel Lets You Beam & Hold Your Data

Even though you might be familiar with LaCie’s famous orange Rugged hard drive, the company has recently expanded its products range to offer a clean wireless drive that is not anymore addressed to professionals but mainly to individuals.

The Lacie Fuel’s name well represents both its design and its functionalities. With its “Surf and Stream” function, the jerrycan-shaped drive enables users to have access to the files present in the Fuel from anywhere. It serves as a hotspot, on the same principle as a home router. Indeed, it does not require any internet connection, which can be extremely useful in a hotel or in a plane. The 10-hour battery will also be sufficient, as it more or less corresponds to the same battery life as an iPad or a MacBook.

Exclusively in 1TB, the device can contain up to 500 movies, 160,000 music tracks or 190,000 photos, which can be shared between 5 different devices at the same time (3 for streaming HD videos). This can save you from watching your little sister’s favorite cartoon if you’re not in the mood for it. Connected to a computer, The Fuel simply works as a hard drive via an USB 3.0. Last but not least, the connection to a Dropbox account is also possible and the synchronization will be automatic.

Mainly focused to Apple users, the Fuel drive is also AirPlay compatible, which will enable its users to broadcast movies on a TV via Apple TV. Still, the device is also Android and Windows compatible. The files will be accessible via an Android app and as well via a Kindle app. However, as LaCie’s products are largely distributed in Apple stores, we can assume the company will follow the Apple segment.

All these functionalities make The Fuel a perfect companion for any person who’s willing to keep he’s important data on-the-go, but who also wants to enjoy multimedia contents wherever possible, and whenever a free time shows up. Slightly heavier than LaCie’s rugged hard drive (0.3kg against 0.26kg), the Fuel stands out as a better alternative as its price is cheaper for the same amount of storage.

For a price of $199.99, LaCie’s Fuel remains however more expensive to its main competitor, The Seagate Satellite ($149.99) which has less battery life, but enables 8 devices to stream media at the same time. Interestingly, Seagate is the company that owns LaCie.

Written by Hugo Beniada at Fueled. We develop iPhone and Android apps.