The storage solution specialists at LaCie are shipping their new, Mac OS X compatible USB Hexa Media Drive, a compact, portable drive that lets users read from and write to a variety of memory cards.
The US$59 Hexa Media Drive is compatible with CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MemoryStick, SD card, MultiMedia card and MicroDrives (340MB and 1GB). This means you can use the drive to transfer data from digital cameras, digital audio (mp3) players and audio/video recorders as well as PDAs and mobile communication devices.
By taking advantage of the multi-LUN (logical unit number) support available with the Mac OS 10.1.2, LaCie’s new Hexa drive will also transfer data between memory cards, according to Olivier Mirloup, LaCie product manager. And when it’s connected to a Mac running OS X 10.1.2 and equipped with iPhoto, Apple’s digital photography app will launch itself automatically as soon as the media is inserted in the drive.
With a flash card and a Memory Stick loaded in the Hexa drive’s dual media slots at the same time, it becomes an efficient, hot-pluggable data shuttle, Mirloup said. The drive mounts automatically as soon as it’s connected and can be removed or swapped without having to shutdown or reboot the system. No adapter is required.
The LaCie Hexa Media Drive is compatible with Mac OS 8.6 and 9.x, as well as Mac OS 10.1.2.