LaCie’s anticipated Thunderbolt-equipped Little Big Disk arrives at the Apple Store, along with Thunderbolt updates

Mark Gurman | Sep 20 2011 - 12:17 am PT

Since Apple and Intel’s joint announcement of the Thunderbolt high-speed I/O technology, one of the most anticipated products to make use of the technology has been the Thunderbolt-compatible Little Big Disk from LaCie. The drive – which comes in both HDD and SSD flavors – was announced all the way back in February for a “summer” launch, and is now finally arriving at Apple Stores in both the United States and internationally. LaCie’s description of Thunderbolt and why it is important for a product like the Little Big Disk:

This new high-speed cable technology connects computers and electronic devices together like never before. Thunderbolt technology supports two 10Gb/s bi-directional channels from a single port, the fastest data connection available on a personal computer. At 10Gb/s, a full-length HD movie can be transferred in less than 30 seconds.

Since the drive carries two ports, it can be daisy chained. The drives have already arrived at Apple Stores, which suggest immediate availability, and we are expecting an official announcement from LaCie in the coming days. The hard disk drive variant with 1TB of storage will reportedly cost $399.

Update: here they are.

Apple also announced Thunderbolt updates, another firmware update and a software update for Snow Leopard…

Thunderbolt Display Firmware Update:

This update improves the stability of the Apple Thunderbolt Display.

The updater application will be installed in the Utilities folder inside the Application folder and will be launched automatically when you close this installer.

Please follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the update process.

Thunderbolt Software Update (Snow Leopard):

This update provides support for the Apple Thunderbolt Display and bug fixes for Thunderbolt device compatibility.

The Snow Leopard Thunderbolt update requires Mac OS X 10.6.8.