LaCie has announced the first hard drives to utilize the next-gen Thunderbolt interface, the LaCie Little Big Disk, and they're available now.

Listen up new Mac owners, because you just might start using that Thunderbolt port after all. LaCie, maker of all manner of storage solutions, has announced the first hard drives to utilize the next-gen interface, the LaCie Little Big Disk. With Thunderbolt’s 10Gb/s transfer speeds and both 1TB and 2TB capacities available, the new desktop drive is available now through Apple’s Web site and retail stores.

The LaCie Little Big Disk features a dual-disk design that can be configured in either RAID 0 or RAID 1, and is available in two configurations: 1TB with 7200rpm speeds, or 2TB with 5400rpm disk speeds. The aluminum casing and dual 2.5-inch drives of the Little Big Disk makes it a portable storage solution that outpaces any existing desktop drives while still being fairly rugged. It’s also light, weighing only 1.4 pounds. The aluminum casing also functions as a heat-sink for the drive, which pairs with a quiet cooling fan to keep temperatures low without a lot of noise.

The bigger, faster data capabilities of Thunderbolt can be fully utilized by daisy-chaining multiple drives together. With transfer rates of up to 870MB/s, you can daisy-chain up to four drives together to achieve data rates once out of reach without rackmount storage, allowing users to backup their entire system in minutes, and transfer large files, such as uncompressed HD video, faster than anything previously available in a portable form factor.

The new drive can also be daisy-chained with other Thunderbolt peripherals, such as the , requiring only a single port for both peripherals. Developed in collaboration with Apple and Intel, the new drive is one of the first products on the market with full Thunderbolt compatibility. Future drives in the Little Big Disk line-up will include an SSD version, which LaCie expects to be available in October.

The LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Hard Drive is available for order through Apple.com and Apple Stores worldwide. The 1TB version is available for $399.95, while the 2TB sells for $499.95.