LaCie d2 External Hard Drives Upgraded With Thunderbolt Ports

[wgnoyes]

Originally Posted by chuckles:)

They are. Linus Torvalds predicts they'll be going the way of the tape drive shortly.

The tape drive is alive and well, thank you very much, in IBM mainframe datacenters all over the world.

[mikeheenan]

Originally Posted by wonderspark

Well, considering I recently picked up a 4TB USB 3.0 external HDD (WD My Book) for $199, which is probably pretty close to the speed of the LaCie, I'd say it's NOT worth double the price.

I like LaCie, and I have two of their older FW800/eSATA models, but I don't like them *that* much.

Where'd you get this deal?

[The Bulge]

Originally Posted by termite

Yes, flash memory will overtake hard drives. Here's why: flash memory roughly follows Moore's Law. Disk drives don't. So while disk density is increasing, flash density is increasing *much* faster. Follow the math, and you will realize that at some point within ten years, flash will be cheaper, larger, and faster than spinning rust.

Not in his lifetime.

[wonderspark]

Originally Posted by mikeheenan

Where'd you get this deal?

My local Microcenter in Denver. They're online also...B&H has them for same price?

Google Shopping

[OriginalMacRat]

Originally Posted by wonderspark

Well, considering I recently picked up a 4TB USB 3.0 external HDD (WD My Book) for $199, which is probably pretty close to the speed of the LaCie, I'd say it's NOT worth double the price.

Costco has some 4TB Seagate "Backup Plus" drives with USB 3.0 for $179.

[wonderspark]

Originally Posted by OriginalMacRat

Costco has some 4TB Seagate "Backup Plus" drives with USB 3.0 for $179.

I saw that deal, too... but I prefer WD myself. If Costco had the WD for $179, it would be ideal!

[coolspot18]

[QUOTE=Lancer;16425529]I guess like any Mac you're paying for more than the basic specs, you pay for quality given the fact you can get USB3 drives from WD and Seagate at a fraction of the price and it will do just as good a job.
/QUOTE]

"quality"? I bet inside the Lacie drive is a Seagate, WD, Samsung, or Hitachi drive! Just because we own a Mac doesn't mean we enjoy getting gouged. Sigh...

[BRLawyer]

Definitely good news - I will get one of these when I have to replace my FW 800 LaCie drives someday in the future.

[rmwebs]

Originally Posted by termite

Yes, flash memory will overtake hard drives. Here's why: flash memory roughly follows Moore's Law. Disk drives don't. So while disk density is increasing, flash density is increasing *much* faster. Follow the math, and you will realize that at some point within ten years, flash will be cheaper, larger, and faster than spinning rust.

I dont even think you have to go 10 years. We've seen SSD prices cut in half over the last 12 months alone. Even SD cards are dirt cheap now - you can pick up a decent 32GB Class 10 for about £15 (~$23 US), and 64GB ones are already dropping fast.

Give it a year and 256GB SSD's will be under the $100 mark, and 512GB SSD's will be fairly commonplace. I'd guess it'll be another 2 and a half years before we see 1TB SSD's at a decent price (e.g $100-$200).

----------

Originally Posted by OriginalMacRat

Costco has some 4TB Seagate "Backup Plus" drives with USB 3.0 for $179.

I've got one of these and it's flawless. Avoid the Seagate 'Expansion' however as it's rather loud compared to their other drives.

[kas23]

It doesn't matter that the prices are coming down in TB-capable drives that contain HDDs. HDDs should not even be mentioned in sentences that contain the word Thunderbolt.

[Mr. Retrofire]

Empty enclosures, please! :-)

[ps45]

Originally Posted by termite

Yes, flash memory will overtake hard drives. Here's why: flash memory roughly follows Moore's Law. Disk drives don't. So while disk density is increasing, flash density is increasing *much* faster. Follow the math, and you will realize that at some point within ten years, flash will be cheaper, larger, and faster than spinning rust.

And at that point, we should call disk drives legacy hardware

[OriginalMacRat]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

I've got one of these and it's flawless. Avoid the Seagate 'Expansion' however as it's rather loud compared to their other drives.

You should look into getting Seagate to replace it because any noise would be coming from the hard drive..

The only components in the "Expansion" enclosure are the SATA hard drive and the SATA to USB 3.0 circuit board.

[SeattleMoose]

The Thunderbolt "glacier" actually moved...

[nutmac]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

I'm not sure there are many $199 drives that are going to deliver the metal chassis, kensington lock, software and more that the D2 lineup has.

Sure you can buy a cheap plastic drive at Best Buy but the D2 lineup has been pretty solid for Lacie over the years.

If LaCie gets around to selling an empty enclosure that is also easy to add your own disk, I would agree with you.

[g4cube]

Seems pretty good for the guy or gal that needs to shuttle lots of huge files between different computers - USB 3.0 for most PCs or Macs that have USB 2.0 or 3.0 interface, a likely scenario, or Thunderbolt if the computer has it. It's one drive that can do a lot; a desktop version of LaCie's Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt drive.

Daisy-chain? NOT! But there are alternative drives that hold multiple drives that can benefit from the speed, and connect to other devices.

180MB/sec? Sure, I've seen this kind of performance from 3TB and 4TB drives when un-RAIDed inside the 2big Thunderbolt from LaCie that comes with 7200RPM drives. The Seagate and WD dual-drive enclosures come with slower 5400 RPM and green drives, so can't deliver that kind of speed from a single drive.

For USB performance, you'll be wanting to make sure that UAS is supported for the best possible performance when connected via USB 3.0. The LaCie drives in the Apple Store support this, so I suppose this one does too.

Don't have the dollars? Then pick up one of the less expensive USB3 drives from several vendors.

Good to see some improvements in the desktop drive space. Will have to see if the piggy bank can spring for this drive to add to the Thunderbolt collection. Nice to see that the Thunderbolt cable is included, too!

[Rocketman]

Can't these be an external "Fusion" drive with the latest OSX? If so these drive boards should include a SSD stick slot in addition to whatever hard drives they might use to get price and capacity figures that sell drives.

Apple does not disclose plans giving them a near year first mover advantage, which they typically also squander while they prevent their third party ecosystems from implementing. TB is the superior example and Lightning is a close second.

Rocketman

Did a 25 GB file transfer yesterday on what I presume was USB2 and it took 7 hours.

[OriginalMacRat]

Originally Posted by Mr. Retrofire

Empty enclosures, please! :-)

I'm waiting for Other World Computing to announce their Thunderbolt enclosures.

[phoenixsan]

more good makers and in general more makers of Thunderbolt hardware can mean lower and lower prices and maybe, faster adoption of the technology

Not a steal, but options in general are not hurtful

[jacek83]

Ohhhhh, d2, the worst external disc that I ever owned (loud, freezes the system all the time). I'm never buying Lacie again.

[bwhli]

No daisy chaining is a dealbreaker. Not too bummed out though. I've always preferred OWC stuff.

[The Bulge]

Originally Posted by bwhli

No daisy chaining is a dealbreaker. Not too bummed out though. I've always preferred OWC stuff.

If not exclusion of Thunderbolt cable i'd be all over this: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=630

[coolspot18]

Originally Posted by Rocketman

Did a 25 GB file transfer yesterday on what I presume was USB2 and it took 7 hours.

Something is wrong with your USB drive.

A USB 2.0 hard drive should be able to transfer at 20 - 30MB/s... 25GB should only take ~30 minutes.

Were you transferring a lot of small files? If so, Thunderbolt won't help since random I/O is a bottleneck for mechanical drives.

[Lancer]

Originally Posted by coolspot18

"quality"? I bet inside the Lacie drive is a Seagate, WD, Samsung, or Hitachi drive! Just because we own a Mac doesn't mean we enjoy getting gouged. Sigh...

I agree and I've recently learnt that any drive can fail at anytime, no matter the cost or the pretty box it comes in.

[madmin]

Originally Posted by jacek83

Ohhhhh, d2, the worst external disc that I ever owned (loud, freezes the system all the time). I'm never buying Lacie again.

That's probably because by default they go to sleep after 10 minutes. To increase that to 30 minutes you can enter the following command in Terminal:

sudo pmset -a disksleep 30

sudo commands usually require you have an administrator account and to enter you password. If it's the first time you run sudo you'll also see a warning message that you can ignore. That said entering commands prefaced with sudo can be dangerous to your system if you don't know what your doing.

The -a flag equates to all disks.

Enter:

man pmset

for help with other options.