CES 2012: LaCie Hub Connects eSATA Drives to Thunderbolt Macs

[tonydickinson]

LacCie

So many issues with LaCie devices and the customer support or lack of it and of course their very inflated prices.

I will wait and see what Belkin come up with as although their prototype looked strange, they are usually of reasonable quality and with much better customer service that Lacie.

 

[SeanMcg]

If only their power bricks would hold up

I've had too many of their power bricks die on me. The hard drives themselves were mostly fine. I'm still recovering thousands (years) of digital images. I moved to Drobo, but I still need to have something else (maybe another Drobo) to back that up. I am paranoid now.

 

[admanimal]

I highly doubt that will happen. Since Apple doesn't want you to upgrade any hardware except the ram.

I don't think Apple is necessarily opposed to the idea of allowing you to upgrade whatever you want, as long as it's just a matter of plugging something into an existing port.

 

[InuNacho]

So many issues with LaCie devices and the customer support or lack of it and of course their very inflated prices.

I have a 1 TB external made by LaCie and I fear it's nearing death's door even though it's less than a year old. The Thailand flooding ruined any chances of me getting a more reliable drive so now I'm stuck with a drive that will most likely croak in a few months time.

 

[firestarter]

I've had too many of their power bricks die on me. The hard drives themselves were mostly fine. I'm still recovering thousands (years) of digital images. I moved to Drobo, but I still need to have something else (maybe another Drobo) to back that up. I am paranoid now.

Drobo isn't a backup. Keep extra copies (plural) on regular (not raid or drobo) formatted disks. Drobo splits your data up over several disks using a proprietary technology. If the controller box messes up its all gone.

IMO you're more at risk now than you were. Get backups (not another drobo!!).

----------

I have a 1 TB external made by LaCie and I fear it's nearing death's door even though it's less than a year old. The Thailand flooding ruined any chances of me getting a more reliable drive so now I'm stuck with a drive that will most likely croak in a few months time.

Wise up, people. All drives WILL die at some point. They're mechanical - they can't last forever.

Keep at least three copies of data. Nobody should be living in fear of a drive dying.

 

[kas23]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Thunderbolt has been the most botched tech launch I can think of in recent memory. A year out and we still dont have basic products like this on the market... And devices are way overpriced.

My esata hdd drives have been sitting unused since launch day of this thunderbolt mbp... Here's to hoping that finally changes soon..

Don't worry, in a few months (or possibly more!), you'll be able to buy a dongle/hub that is not only the size of an external HDD, it'll also be priced about the same too, just so you can use that TB port Apple convinced us we had to have. Excuse me now, I have to go clean out the cob webs that have built-up in my MBA's TB port so I can so I can use it to connect to a totally different, and slower, data transfer interface.

 

[grahamnp]

Why is it so big and why does the casing have to be so elaborate? I'm pretty sure all of that is costing money. I'd also have much preferred a USB 3.0 system. At least USB 3.0 drives will work at reduced capacity with the current Macs even if you take this adapter out of the equation.

 

[kas23]

I don't think Apple is necessarily opposed to the idea of allowing you to upgrade whatever you want, as long as it's just a matter of plugging something into an existing port.

Sure they are. Why would you buy a new Apple system when you keep upgrading your old one?

 

[KPOM]

I've already got a device like this. The Sonnet Echo. Been using it for a few days now and is fast and works like a champ. Welcome to the party Lacie...whose drives I'll never use again after having 5 out of 7 die on me in as many months.

That's the setup I've been using as well. I could see switching to a Thunderbolt HDD/SSD enclosure, however. OCZ has announced a TB SSD drive, but if someone releases a decently priced enclosure, that could gain some real traction.

 

[mrr]

Please someone in China jump on the Thunderbolt bandwagon - so that we won't have to play inflated LaCie prices!

I can get Chinese eSATA and USB 3.0 drive enclosures on sale for FREE after rebate at Frys!

Bring on the cheap Thunderbolt drive enclosures !

 

[imageWIS]

This sounds great. Sticker price will likely be a shock to those without a clue.

Oh, yeah.. I mean a TB cable costs $50!

 

[6749974]

I've already got a device like this. The Sonnet Echo. Been using it for a few days now and is fast and works like a champ. Welcome to the party Lacie...whose drives I'll never use again after having 5 out of 7 die on me in as many months.

Link for the lazy: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/

 

[george-brooks]

This is fantastic! My original plan was to get a thunderbolt Express Card adapter and use my eSATA card but this is much better, as the eSATA card is the only Express Card I have and I would prefer a dedicated system. This makes an iMac more attractive to me over a new Mac Pro.

 

[faroZ06]

I've had bad experiences with LaCie drives.

Also, what's the point of Thunderbolt is faster than eSATA? To connect multiple eSATA things into one port? There has to be a new standard for internal drives that is Thunderbolt-speed.

 

[mariusaz]

$$$

Yep. And as soon as this drops down to a reasonable price (same price as everything else) I'll buy it.

 

[bergert]

SONNET - test please

I've already got a device like this. The Sonnet Echo. Been using it for a few days now and is fast and works like a champ. Welcome to the party Lacie...whose drives I'll never use again after having 5 out of 7 die on me in as many months.

Can you do a real test with a port-multiplier enclosure (one which has one eSATA cable and 4 or 5 disks inside).

Today, I got several of those connected to my MacPro's eSATA cards ...

 

[Battlefield Fan]

So many issues with LaCie devices and the customer support or lack of it and of course their very inflated prices.

I will wait and see what Belkin come up with as although their prototype looked strange, they are usually of reasonable quality and with much better customer service that Lacie.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Their products are so buggy but they do still somehow seem to be of better quality than most.

 

[tirerim]

Also, what's the point of Thunderbolt is faster than eSATA? To connect multiple eSATA things into one port? There has to be a new standard for internal drives that is Thunderbolt-speed.

There isn't. At this time, you cannot get anything faster than eSATA for any kind of drive. And that's true of Thunderbolt drives, too -- inside the enclosure the drive is still using SATA, so that's going to be the bottleneck (unless there's an even smaller one somewhere else), not Thunderbolt. But you can connect multiple eSATA drives and/or daisy-chain the Thunderbolt to something else, like a monitor. Given that SATA is still nearly an order of magnitude faster than Firewire, it's still pretty useful.

The price is probably still going to be prohibitive, though. I think I'm unlikely to be getting that external SSD for a while yet...

 

[nagromme]

Sure they are. Why would you buy a new Apple system when you keep upgrading your old one?

Many hardware makers have a business model of making their customers unhappy with the product, so that they return to buy another, better product! And, strangely, this works.

But that has never been Apple’s profit strategy. Apple’s business model is to make customers happy with their product—and you’ll buy another even if not right away, or you’ll buy some other companion product. The extent to which Apple has moved away from tons of different ports and slots is about simplicity benefitting a lot of people, while upgradability benefits only a few. Apple’s goal is not “disposable Macs.”

 

[Marx55]

Hopefully, Thunderbolt also on LaCie d2 Quadra and LaCie Rugged drives. Soon.

 

[adder7712]

I suspect you mean Thunderbolt to USB 3.0? (Connect USB 3.0 devices to TB Macs?)

B

Probably the 2012 Macs will have USB 3.0 and TB ports.

 

[mijail]

Please someone in China jump on the Thunderbolt bandwagon - so that we won't have to play inflated LaCie prices!

I can get Chinese eSATA and USB 3.0 drive enclosures on sale for FREE after rebate at Frys!

Bring on the cheap Thunderbolt drive enclosures !

Last time I tried "cheap USB enclosures" (USB 2 + FW, about 4 years ago) I decided it was not worth the hacking time and effort. Barely capable power brick (I had to diagnose that by myself and buy a new one), failing firmware, flashy metallic heavy box with nasty guts. A firmware update (wow!) which fixed one USB problem but halved FW speed.

Have things changed lately?

 

[57004]

My Apple rumors for 2012: Thunderbolt was not developed for just a faster hard drive connection and not just so Apple could create a new display with network connectivity built in. It is much bigger than that. I think they are making an add on device that will connect to any Thunderbolt enabled computer to make it Mac Pro capable. It will have awesome graphics capabilities, much more disk expansion, and additional processors, say up to 12 more. This will provide pro level options for all of their computers. They will not have to sell a pro model anymore.

Thunderbolt isn't fast enough for extra processors. The memory bus, for one, is many times faster than Thunderbolt.

Besides, if you're going to have an add-on device with processors, memory, drives, graphics, you have enough hardware for a stand-alone computer. What's the point then of making it purely an expansion box?

 

[mijail]

My Apple rumors for 2012: Thunderbolt [...] will have awesome graphics capabilities, much more disk expansion, and additional processors, say up to 12 more.

And why stop at 12 and not, say, 12345?

 

[iDemiurge]

Look on the bright side. since this thing doesn't have a HD inside it may not sound like a jumbo jet taking off like most of LaCie external drives.

As to the Belkin dock, I could really use it right now. And I'm glad it doesn't look like a taco after all.