LaCie 12big 96TB Review (Thunderbolt 3)

Rating: 8.5.

LaCie's 12big is the current flagship of the company's professional range of external drives and if you are in the market for huge amounts of capacity and very, very fast data transfer rates then the 12big might be just the thing you are looking for…..but beware, you will need deep pockets – the 96Tb version we review today costs close to £8,300.

Aimed at professionals who work on large format photo's or do a a lot of heavy video editing work, the 12big is a very apt name for this beast of a tower external drive. It has 12, yes 12, 3.5in drive bays, and it stands 447mm high. That's seventeen and a half inches in old money. It's 161mm wide and 237mm deep so it can be a little top heavy because of how much it weighs … which unsurprisingly considering its full of mechanical drives – is a lot. The 96TB version we are looking at weighs in a arm numbing 17.6kg.

The 12big currently is available in four capacities; 48TB, 72TB, 96TB and the flagship 120TB. The review 12big came with 12 8TB Seagate Enterprise NAS drives installed but the unit also supports Seagate's IronWolf Pro drives including the flagship 10TB model. The Seagate Enterprise NAS drive has a spin speed of 7,200rpm and a 256MB cache. Out of the box the 12big disks are arranged in a RAID 5 array but is also supports RAID 0/1/6/10/50/60.

The drive comes with a pair of Thunderbolt 3 40Gbps ports and single USB 3.1 Gen.1 type C port.

LaCie back the drive with a decent 5-year warranty.

Physical Specifications
Usable Capacities: 48TB, 72TB, 96TB, 120TB
Hard Drive: Seagate Enterprise NAS
Spin Speed: 7,200rpm
Interface (s): 2 x Thunderbolt 3, 1 x USB3.1
Form Factor:  External Tower
Dimensions: 161 × 447 × 237mm
Drive Weight: 17.6g

Firmware Version: 352R

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