Seagate has expanded its LaCie Rugged series with the Rugged SSD Pro5, a portable SSD featuring Thunderbolt 5 connectivity for high-speed data transfer and enhanced compatibility. As per our headline, this new device is claimed to be able to transfer data at up to 6,700 MB/s. The SSD Pro5, announced at CES 2025, is designed to meet the storage demands of professionals working with large data files, such as raw images, video, and high-resolution audio.
There are not a lot of external SSDs offering support for Thunderbolt speeds. For example, the Samsung X5 that we tested, supports Thunderbolt 3 and offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,800 MB/s and 2,300 MB/s respectively. Or if you want something faster, the OWC Express 1M2 is another Thunderbolt/USB 4.0 external SSD (with a removable M.2 drive) that can go beyond 3,000 MB/s. However, neither of the devices comes even close to the performance that Seagate is claiming for the new LaCie Rugged device.
