LaCie says 2.5-inch Rikiki HDD is most compact

With the Rikiki, LaCie claims that it’s fit a 2.5-inch hard disc drive into the world’s most compact enclosure.

The aluminum-clad drive measures 4.32-by-2.95-by-0.53 inches. At the very least, that edges out Freecom’s XXS, which last year claimed to be the world’s smallest HDD at 4.32-by-3.13-by-0.53 inches (in millimeters it’s just a tad larger in length and height as well). This comparison, of course, does not include the wicked intense monkey in the marketing photo below.

At this point, monkey aside, you’re basically talking about the drive itself with a very tiny enclosure, so I don’t see any other manufacturer making significant gains. Then again, Seagate just trimmed its internal 160 GB and 250 GB drives down from 0.37 to 0.27 inches, so perhaps there’s more room to slim down the external HDD as well. We’ll have to see if other storage companies can duplicate Seagate’s level of slimness.

As for the Rikiki drive itself, available capacities are 250 GB, 500 GB and 640 GB for $75, $110 and $150, respectively. It’s Windows and Mac compatible, but Windows users get access to USB Boost software for increasing speeds up to 33 percent. As is, the Rikiki’s interface transfer rate is 60 MB per second.

LaCie doesn’t mention any other features you might hope to find in a portable hard disc drive, such as extreme durability, water resistance, always-on functionality, wireless connectivity or touch-sensitive activation. It’s a pretty straightforward and low-budget offering, save for the tiny figure.

And the feeling that you were just suckered into a tech product because of a monkey.