I turned an old LaCie Rugged mini into a super-fast SSD beast
You see those speeds there? That's thanks to PNY's 240GB SSD which was on sale just the other day. I put that into an old LaCie Rugged mini with Thunderbolt/USB 3 that I had sitting around and now I have something in my hand that is worth several hundred dollars more than what I spent.
For reasons I cannot understand, LaCie sells the Rugged Thunderbolt/USB 3 drive with an excruciatingly slow 5400rpm drive. As the unit comes, it doesn't even give you speeds that can match USB 3 (which means Thunderbolt speeds aren't even touched).
And since the drive is relatively cheap after-market on eBay, I bought one there (a year ago) and only recently realized that I could just buy an SSD separately, void my LaCie warranty, and install it into this Thunderbolt/USB 3 Rugged enclosure. It boggles my mind that no company sells a Thunderbolt/USB 3 enclosure so this was my best bet. I'm pretty happy with it and now I know it is forever upgradeable.