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Firewire 400Mbps or 800Mbps Lacie Hard Drive?

M

mcmike100

macrumors member
Original poster
My new Powerbook is about to arrive (my first Mac!) and I want to get an external hard drive.

I can't decide between the 400Mbps Lacie Porsche drive and the 800Mbps Lacie d2 drive.

I've never used a laptop as my main computer before, so I'm not entirely sure how I'll be using this external drive, but I guess I'll store my music and video files and such on it, and maybe make a daily backup of my whole laptop...

Do you guys think it's worth it to spend $60 extra to get the 800Mbps?

Thanks!
 
mcmike100 said:
My new Powerbook is about to arrive (my first Mac!)
Do you guys think it's worth it to spend $60 extra to get the 800Mbps?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

others have posted here that the quailty of the d2 is much better than the porsche version. That might be worth the $60, although I don't think FW800 is unless you're really needing it for heavy video editing and such.
 
you probably wont need the FW800 for your uses, i would upgrade to the d2 as mentioned above because by all reports it is a much more reliable drive system than the porsche.....or get a bigger drive, more space the better right?
 
I've jus bought a Lacie Triple Interface 500GB and am very happy with it.

While my PC only has FireWire (Via 32Bit 33Mhz PCI so its much slower than a Mac's FireWire) i plumped for the more expensive model as i hoplefully buying a Dual PM G5 next year which does have FW 800.

You pays your money.
 
I have a FW400 250gb drive from LaCie (The Porsche Design one) and it works just fine for editing with FCP and backup.

I am in the lucky group that have never had problems with Lacie.
I would go with size over speed, at least for now. If you planned to do HD video editing, I might go with the FW800, as it is likely that HD cameras will soon be able to download with the FW800 protocol. Also, people that do HD editing are not likely to haggle over $60.
 
For storage and backup, a 400 FW will suit you well - IMHO the extra cost for 800 is only a consideration with video editing. I concur, I have a backup porsche Lacie, as well as a mobile porsche lacie, and am very happy with both of them.
 
Ok, thanks.

So what exactly do people say is superior about the d2 (other than the increasded speed)? What problems are reported with the Porsche?

Oh, and would getting the 800Mbps actually allow me to copy files to it double as fast for backups and stuff?

Thanks
 
I had bought a Lacie D2 drive in october and I love it. Very stable and works great. My mac doesnt support 800 but for future use you know eventually everythign will be 800 and usb2.0 so I think its just worth it.
 
Go 800!

Dude, get the FW800! Hard drives aren't getting any smaller -- you can now get a 100GB HD on a PowerBook -- and time is money, right? It takes a good 90-mins to backup my iBook's 60GB drive over FW400, which would be 2hrs with an 80GB and 2.5hrs with a 100GB. Cut that time basically in half for FW800, so you're saving about an hour per backup. If you do a daily backup, as you intend, you're saving at least 6-hrs per week. So if you make even minimum wage cooking fries at Wendy's, you'll have recovered your $60 in less than two weeks.

Your Lacie drive could outlast your next two computers, after this new one, and by then FW800 will be a minimum standard. Nobody ever regretted buuying the fastest computer technology, so go 800! (I've got a Lacie d2 Extreme w/ FW800 and it works great, even at FW400 speed.)
 
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