Making certain products rugged makes a lot of sense. Rugged laptops are a must for some careers, and rugged cellphones and flash drives are great because of how fragile those devices typically are. A media center however, may not need to stand up to the harshest of conditions, but that has not stopped Lacie from producing the LaCinema Rugged External Hard Drive complete with HDMI and Component video ports.

The device, which comes in 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB configurations, is capable of pushing full HD 1080p video. The LaCinema supports the MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (AVI, VOB, IFO, ISO), MPEG-4 (AVI, XviD) video codecs. It also supports audio with the MP3, WMA, AC3, Ogg Vorbis, and AAC formats. You can also use it for photos and fully captioned video as well. Combined with the included remote control, the LaCie LaCinima Rugged is a pretty mean media server. If you were in a situation where the elements pose a danger, or if you need a small but sturdy media server device, the Rugged fits the bill.

Depending on size configuration, the drive range from $170 to $230. They are available now directly from LaCie. The cost per GB is higher than similar drives, but the media features and the sturdy build are certainly a bonus.

Via Crunch Gear