LaCie 12big Thunderbolt 3 Delivers 96TB Of RAID 5 Spinning Storage At 2400MB/sec

When it comes to storage excess, there are few companies that regularly come out with outrageous “museum ready” external hard drives like the folks from LaCie. Look no further than the company’s Sphre, Mirror and Chromé. The company does, however, also have plenty of professional-level storage solutions, which is the topic of discussion today. The company today announced its 12big Thunderbolt 3, which is a 12-bay RAID enclosure the supports up to 96TB of data.

While most business and enterprise customers are moving to SSDs for the best balance of performance and power savings, the 12big makes use of twelve, enterprise-class 7200rpm Seagate hard drives with 256MB of cache each. In a RAID 5 configuration, the Big12 is capable of maximum transfers speeds of 2400MB/sec. The Big12’s hardware RAID controller, however, maxes out at 2600MB/sec.

LaCie is targeting the Big12 at video professionals who require a boatload of storage to handle 4K, 5K and even 6K video streams. And with a Thunderbolt 3 connection conducting operations, there is no chance of storage interface getting bogged down with mission critical data. And if the blazing fast transfer speeds weren’t good enough, the Big12 can daisy chain two 4K displays or a single 5K display, further improving productivity.

“The combination of higher spatial resolution and 3D imagery, as well as higher dynamic range and frame rates, is driving the need for high-capacity and high-speed digital storage systems,” explained Tim Bucher, SVP of Seagate and LaCie Branded Solutions We purpose-built the LaCie 12big to have the speed, capacity and reliability to efficiently download and edit even the most demanding content—so our customers can focus on making their creative vision a reality.”

LaCie hasn’t yet announced pricing for its Big12 family, but it will be available in 48TB, 72TB and 96TB capacities starting this summer.