Today LaCie announced that it has doubled the speed at which its high-performance LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive burns discs to eight times (8x) standard data writing rates.

The increased speed to burn files applies to both single- and dual-layer discs. LaCie also has upgraded the authoring and backup software that it ships standard with the product.

The quiet LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive comes bundled with the newly revised Easy Media Creator 10 and Toast 9 Titanium software.

Plus, users can work with three popular codexes?MPEG2, AVC and VC-1?when creating their Blu-ray content. And the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive supports a dozen Blu-ray, DVD and CD formats, including BD-ROM, BD-ROM AACS, BD-R, BD-RE, DVD±R, CD-R and others.

The LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive is available now and starts at $449.99. LaCie products are available through the LaCie Online Store or a LaCie Reseller.