LaCie is aiming to capitalise on the rapidly growing demand for external storage with the release of an aggressively priced new range of designer drives. The sleek P3 range of external products, designed by Porsche Design, have been manufactured with speed in mind, and are being priced to compete with internal hard drives.

The LaCie Hard Drives start at £69 excluding VAT for a 40GB USB 2.0 model, and capacities extend to 250GB.

The products support USB 2.0 and FireWire, and are aimed at users who want back-up and storage space for large multimedia files.

With the exception of the entry-level 40GB models, the range is built around fast, 7200rpm 3.5in disk drives. Data transfer speeds of 480Mbps and 400Mbps are supported by USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces respectively.

Sustained data transfer speeds of up to 34Mbps are possible with the USB 2.0 models, making them suitable for transferring large video files quickly.

The external hard-drive marketplace is getting crowded, with Seagate's entrance last September, hot on the heels of rivals Maxtor and Western Digital.