Eric Savitz for Forbes:

Seagate this morning announced plans to acquire LaCie, a Paris-based producer of consumer data storage devices, for at least $186 million.

Seagate has already agreed to buy a controlling stake in the company. Once that transaction has been completed, Seagate said it plans to buy the rest of LaCie’s shares in cash.

LaCie has long been front and center for Mac users as a supplier of storage peripherals. The company has featured hard drive enclosures designed by Porsche and Phillipe Starck, and supports Thunderbolt, the high-speed I/O interface Apple introduced in 2011 with the redesigned MacBook Pro.