LaCie announced the release of its new external Blu-ray capable DVD Burner. Named the “LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive,” it supports external connection via either USB or FireWire. LaCie made the announcement at CES 2007. The company is claiming that the d2 is one of the first of its kind.

The d2 is capable of writing 25GB of data to a normal Blu-ray disk and 50GB of data to a dual layer disk. There is also built in capabilities to burn DVD’s and CD’s. Burning speeds for Blu-ray are 2x, normal DVD at 8x, CD-R at 24x and CD-RW’s at 16x.

The unit is compatible with either Mac OS X or Windows XP. Support for Vista hasn’t been announced at this time.

The unit comes bundled with Easy Media Creator 8.2, Cineplayer 3.4 (HD playback) and Toast 7.1.1 Titanium (OS X).

LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive Manufacturer’s Page