Why Lacie Rikiki ?
Lacie Rikiki is a USB external disk that can be pretty useful for mobile computing because:- it has a small size and can be easily carried even in your packet.
- it allows to store either 500 GB or 1TB and there are USB2 or USB 3 versions
- the cost is affordable
- it can be useful to make backup, to add some extra storage to your main disk and to carry data to different machines.
I have recently bought a Lacie Rikiki with 500 GB and I have installed on my Linux machine with the OpenSuSE Linux O.S, even if the company's documentation discusses only the installation on Windows or ;Mac machines.
You will find below a review of the Lacie Rikiki USB disk according to my experiences.
The Lacie Rikiki USB Disk
When it comes to internal disks I have no doubt, that SSDs are an investment that pays for itself in every moment of the day working on the computer, but, if we just use them to store data is really that necessary to save a few seconds? I have many more data to store than the 256GB of the internal SSD, and I can rely on normal economic USB2.0 disks.
The Lacie 500GB Rikiki is a product that has existed for several months but in this area continues to be one of my favorites for several reasons.
- The first is the solid metal chassis that makes it pleasant to the touch and sight, but, above all, is very durable and easy to use, without having to worry if the contact with nearby objects can damage it in the bag.. The position of the USB port is a little unusual, on the right side, next to the LED operation (that little rectangle on the side which lights up during use)
- The other feature I like is the size of the Rikikiwhich is very compact and thin and which makes it really easy to carry, even in his pants pocket.. It is thick as an iPhone 4, slightly shorter and paunchy but compared with an ordinary USB or Firewire disk, the difference is noticeable.
- The performances are what you would expect from USB2.0 (unless you use the more expensive USB3.0), nothing miraculous, but with an average of 38MB in read mode and 31MB in write mode, moving a file of 350MB takes about ten seconds, and for a file of 4GB it takes 2 minutes.
The Lacie Rikiki Linux Installation
The The Lacie Rikiki USB Disk is delivered with some software that can be used for the setup on Windows or Mac machines, but I needed to use it with my OpenSuSE Linux machine.
What I did was:
- I booted first with a Windows to run the setup which installs some useful utilities and allows you to resize the partitions. I left about 100 GB for an NTFS partition that I could use with Windows
- Them I rebooted into Linux and I used the Linux partitioner to add some new Linux native partitions for a total of 400 GB. I created an EXT3 smaller partition and a larger Reiderfs partition.
Without any problem I was able to mount the Linux partition into /media and to use it.
Conclusions
The Lacie Rikiki is a compact and very well built disc , with a burnished metal finish. Small size, good capacity and quiet operation complete the picture for this excellent Lacie external HDD. The Rikiki does not disappoint as disk storage. Certainly there are faster solutions than the USB2.0, but for general purposes is more than enough and pays for itself in strength, elegance and space saving. Initially the very short cable was a bit uncomfortable, but, by using it only on laptops I found that it could be an advantage to keep it i my pocket, cable included, without hassles. No doubt a successful product, which is also available in the fastest USB3.0 version (which is perfectly backwards compatible).
The Lacie Rikiki can be easily purchased online and you will find good offers at Amazon.
Click here for the Lacie Rikiki offers at Amazon UK
Click here for the Lacie Rikiki offers at Amazon US
Click here for the Lacie Rikiki offers at Amazon IT
References
Lacie Rikiki Review in the Saggiamente blog
Lacie Tikiki Review by Digital Trends
The article was originally published in the GoMobileMission blog
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