LaCie vs. Western Digital

[roland.g]

I have always been a fan of buying bare drives (usually Seagate) and cases and building my own externals but I am in the market for something quick and easy in a 2 TB solution.

I have been looking at the LaCie by Neil Poulton 2TB as well as the Western Digital MyBook Essential 2TB. I can get the WD at Costco for $190. The LaCie run around $225-$250. The WD retails for about that as well. Costco doesn't carry the WD MyBook for Mac but it just needs to be reformatted.

Any opinions on either case manufacturer. I know drives are drives for the most part. Just never bought an external before where I didn't put it together.

Thanks.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

Go Lacie if you ask me. I've got a couple of each - and the Lacies are quieter, built like tanks (all aluminum enclosure) and play well with

The WD has a plastic case, poor thermal management (mine actually overheats) and is louder than the Lacie.

My internal drive is a WD (switched from Seagate after their epic fail last year).

 

[thegoldenmackid]

As much as I was happy buying a G-Tech, I bought my G-Raid was the assumption that one of my other drives would fail like I read about online, every drive I have owned has worked flawlessly, so for me the G-Tech was not really completely worth it.

But everyone has their own experiences, but I imagine that most of them are positive. Sure, there are these threads about how person x's drive failed and person y wouldn't buy anything but them. I own three drives that there are plenty of horror stories about.

For the most part no one is going to post "I Love My _____ Drive" unless two things occur. Either: A. They just purchased the drive – hard drives fail, if it worked out of the box, that's a good thing; but, to give a positive rating takes at a bare minimum six months, if not a year in my book. B. Someone said that _____ Drive is bad. Remember these companies ship millions of drives. Western Digital, Seagate and Hitatchi all make tons of drives internal and external; a couple of users are going to have some problems, but for the most part – most customers drives probably work.

The best advice is to find one that has a good warranty and excellent customer service. And then avoid reading these threads so you don't lose any sleep.

LaCie: Note: there is an entire thread dedicated to LaCie, I have summed up support from users below, but simply a tally
jrotunda85 & Kronie (d2 Quadra 1 TB); RedTomato, gatepc & eVolcre, Cousin Dirk {although eVolcre owns the one with eSata and Firewire 400}(Hard Disk, Design by Neil Poulton 1 TB); iGary (LaCie Rugged); Gymnut (F.A. Porsche, out of production); VanMac (BigDiskExtreme, out of production); Digital Skunk (2Big Triple, out of production)
Users expressing general support: cmcbridejr, dpaanlka, LethalWolfe, mpsrig, UltraNeo*, iPhoneNYC, chocolate632, Hellhammer, romanaz
Users not so happy with LaCie: surfmadison (not a big fan), accacc57, dave12345 (Little Disk), jaysmith, Jerkfish, auero, mperkins37, dfs & jessica.
cluthz has mixed reactions regarding the (d2 and Neil Poulton)

Western Digital: MacMini2009, xpress1, patrickdunn, iphonematt & MacDawg (MyBook Studio 1TB); Thiol notes purchasing an incredible seven Western Digital MyBook Studio drives all working flawlessly; pprior (MyBook Studio Edition 2TB) Acid303 also notes a positive experience with a non-Studio Edition Western Digital drive; terp2007, odinsride, Samuriajackon, cluthz & matthewscott661 recommend the Passport Series; munkees notes a failure with one of the drives purchased, but a positive experience overall; rikdiddy, RebornKillah & Jerkfish also recommend Western Digital. chrono1081 does not recommend Western Digital & romanaz was also not happy. NT1440 is also not a big fan.

Other Threads:​

1TB is prbly a good size to start at it, I would say most people looking for non-mobile externals start at that size, here is a (not-so) recent thread about that...
More literature found here.
Here, is another thread on 1TB Hard Drives
This one is about LaCie...
Here is another, there is some more discussion about LaCie in there...
Here is one on USB 1TB, I'd stick to Firewire...
Speaking of which, we had a thread about Firewire drives.
Just for kicks, we had a random thread.

And if all else fails, MRoogle
If you wish to have your name added to the list, PM Me.​

 

[studio¹³¹]

had a lacie for a couple years until it started making weird clicking sounds. got a new 1TB lacie from the apple store to replace and this new one is starting to act weird. so now i need a backup to back up my backups backup. all these drives fail eventually i guess...

 

[*LTD*]

If you can, go LaCie.

 

[Transporteur]

That is a quite simple question if you ask me.

I will never, never ever buy an external hard disk again from a vendor that does not produce it's own hard disks.

Two years ago I bought two Iomega Ultramax Raid enclosures for a little fortune. One month after guarantee the hard disks (Seagate btw.) broke.
Regularly these Seagate drives have three years of guarantee, but because of the fact that they were sold by Iomega they are OEM and don't get any support by Seagate. Tough!

Considering that Lacie does not produce it's own hard disks, I would not buy any drive from them.

The two options to get maximum guarantee with fewest trouble are:

Buying external drives from Western Digital (5 years), or better buy an external enclosure and choose the hard disk that is most suitable for you.
The latter is what I do from now on.
It's a little more expensive than ready made external hard disks, but you can get the hard disk you want and can fit it in an enclosure that fits your needs.
If the enclosure goes down, you still have your hard disk with your data and you don't have to send your data in for a replacement.

 

[MWPULSE]

I'd vote for lacie as well.. i have had 3/4 bad experiences with Western Digital drives, i have 3 externals that went AWOL about a year into usage- the first was partially my fault, but the other 2 just went bye byes, i also have a passport which i had to return cos the USB socket became loss thus sometimes losing connection with the drive.. I have a lacie DVD, its a solid machine, built like a tank, and reads everything on the planet- always use it instead of the internal of my computers.. admittedly this is a DVD drive, not HDD- but its a sign that they are a good company, who know how to make rugged pieces of kit, that actually work

PTP

 

[topmounter]

Definitely Lacie, I have a few of their drives and have been VERY impressed with them.