Don't Buy LaCie

[KeriJane]

No experience with OWC here....

But I do have a LaCie 2BigTriple which is similar to the current 2BigQuadra.
It's been a great drive so far.

The housing, power supply, cables and controller are very good. The RAID selector switch is recessed and intentionally hard to operate because changing the position will destroy all data. The selector switch seems weak but really only needs to be set once.

It has a thermostatically controlled fan that shuts off when not needed and varies speed as needed. The "Auto" feature allows the drive to shut down when you shut down or sleep the computer.

The only thing I dislike about the 2BigTriple (and my D2 Quadra) is the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives they came with. These drives were hot-running and very noisy. WD Green Power 1TB drives made things a lot cooler, quieter and bigger.

So, for comparison's sake you might want to find out:
Does OWC have auto fan control?
An "Auto" feature?
Appropriate, cool running and quiet drives? Or, are you allowed to specify which drives or no drives?
Any spare parts or Drive holders available?

LaCie isn't perfect but they make pretty good enclosures. I probably would have gone with G-tech if I had known about the hot and noisy 7200.10s.

Have Fun,
Keri

 

[DoFoT9]

hey all. seems to be alot of hate for LaCie, but i am sort of stuck atm.

i am looking at purchasing the LaCie 1TB D2 Network Drive for storage and first level backups. the LaCie will be connected to a switch which then connects to each computer.

i would like to know if Norton Ghost is able to connect to this drive and save a computer image, or if there are any problems that any knows?

thanks in advance ;D

 

[dfs]

Warning

Let me repeat something I said a long time ago on this thread. I bought a LaCie network h. d., and it worked great until we had a thunderstorm which corrupted the directory. Were this an ordinary h. d. I'd have all sort of diagnostic and repair tools, beginning with Apples Disk Utility, so I'd have been up and runningi no time at all. But none of these resourceswork with network disks. All I had was LaCie's own software utility, which was totally inadequate to fix the job, and their tech support was both unhelpful and very obviously uninterested in my problem. So be warned, it's not just a matter of choosing a piece of hardware, you have to evaluate the quality of the associated software, because if get in trouble that's all you're going to have to bail you out. Or not. Based on my own experience, I would recommend you NEVER entrust valuable data to a LaCie network h. d. and I'd certainly not use it as a backup device.

 

[DoFoT9]

Let me repeat something I said a long time ago on this thread. I bought a LaCie network h. d., and it worked great until we had a thunderstorm which corrupted the directory. Were this an ordinary h. d. I'd have all sort of diagnostic and repair tools, beginning with Apples Disk Utility, so I'd have been up and runningi no time at all. But none of these resourceswork with network disks. All I had was LaCie's own software utility, which was totally inadequate to fix the job, and their tech support was both unhelpful and very obviously uninterested in my problem. So be warned, it's not just a matter of choosing a piece of hardware, you have to evaluate the quality of the associated software, because if get in trouble that's all you're going to have to bail you out. Or not. Based on my own experience, I would recommend you NEVER entrust valuable data to a LaCie network h. d. and I'd certainly not use it as a backup device.

some very strong words in there. two things.
1. what would you say if the networked drive was the #1 backup device, which was constantly backed-up to another hard drive?

2. what do you recommend for a NAS? (especially one that will work with Norton etc).

 

[HBOC]

I've had a LaCie drive for about a year (500GB external with 2 FW 800, FW400, USB, ESATA) and it has been great for me. No HD is going to be perfect, I mean WD has horrible reviews, as does Maxtor, Seagate, etc...

 

[dfs]

Your question

Have a second disk that mirrors your primary backup device? That’s better, I guess, but your considering doing this suggests that you don’t really trust your primary backup drive. Having had my bad experience, if I needed a networked drive here’s what I’d do: buy a regular hard disk with USB connectivity and network it by attaching it to Apple’s Airport Express (which can be used as an ethernet router, if you prefer a hard-wired network). That way, if the disk ever needed to be repaired, I could attach it directly to my Mac and use my regular diagnostic and repair tools to fix it, which I couldn’t do with a specialized NAS disk. Note: almost all reviewers who write about NAS disks fail to consider the quality of the bundled software, they just can’t get it though their heads that this is crucial information for evaluating these disks. If you ignore this, sooner or later you may be in for a world of woe (and find yourself the owner of a very expensive paperweight, that’s my own sad story).

 

[DoFoT9]

Have a second disk that mirrors your primary backup device? That’s better, I guess, but your considering doing this suggests that you don’t really trust your primary backup drive. Having had my bad experience, if I needed a networked drive here’s what I’d do: buy a regular hard disk with USB connectivity and network it by attaching it to Apple’s Airport Express (which can be used as an ethernet router, if you prefer a hard-wired network). That way, if the disk ever needed to be repaired, I could attach it directly to my Mac and use my regular diagnostic and repair tools to fix it, which I couldn’t do with a specialized NAS disk. Note: almost all reviewers who write about NAS disks fail to consider the quality of the bundled software, they just can’t get it though their heads that this is crucial information for evaluating these disks. If you ignore this, sooner or later you may be in for a world of woe (and find yourself the owner of a very expensive paperweight, that’s my own sad story).

thanks for your nice reply dfs im sorry to hear about your bad experience

this network is for a PC environment, i would rather not implement a Mac solution (even though i would love to).

my plans are this:

attach LaCie D2 Network drive to switch via ethernet, which then goes to all computers. the drive will be used to house the files that are edited (as opposed to storing them on the local computers). every week (or night, depending on the chances of loss of data) an external USB HDD will be connected to the NAS and data will be copied over.

also, every month i will perform a clone backup of each drive - and save the image file to the LaCie D2 Network drive. this backup wont be as important as the weekly (or daily) backups as there wont really be any important data on these computers, as long as the programs can be retrieved to their prior settings (no settings change, the clone will cover all aspects of this) then its fine.

i think this is a pretty fail-proof method. provided that the weekly (or daily) backups are continued then i dont have a problem going with the LaCie D2.

 

[Jim Campbell]

Just had two LaCies die within a week of each other, one at least had the decency to start making chugging, clunking noises and mounting intermittently, so I was able to stop using it and I'm hopeful of getting the data off it. The other -- the storage drive for our media centre Mini -- just stopped. No warning, it went from seemingly fine to brick overnight. Luckily, I have the music library duplicated on another machine, but I'm not looking forward to re-ripping 150 DVDs, frankly.

So, no more LaCies for me.

Cheers

Jim

 

[Bezbozny]

Just had two LaCies die within a week of each other, one at least had the decency to start making chugging, clunking noises and mounting intermittently, so I was able to stop using it and I'm hopeful of getting the data off it. The other -- the storage drive for our media centre Mini -- just stopped. No warning, it went from seemingly fine to brick overnight. Luckily, I have the music library duplicated on another machine, but I'm not looking forward to re-ripping 150 DVDs, frankly.

So, no more LaCies for me.

Cheers

Jim

Hi Jim,

have a look at my post here if you want:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8914134#post8914134

the problem that you experience with the first drive looks identical to mine so i hope that reading the post will help.

Best regards,

Bezbozny.

 

[surfmadison]

Die thread Die

It is funny how this thread just won't die. As the starter to this thread I only have one thing to say. Never buy LaCie. I hate them, hate them, hate them.

I do still like my FirmTek by SeriTek enclosure. Still running great, and if I want to swap drives, no problem and no warranty issue.

Why buy a Raid enclosure if you can't swap drives with a drive you can buy anywhere. That is why I hate LaCie. They force you to buy overpriced off the rack cheap drives that they sell.

Never buy LaCie. And end this thread once and for all.

 

[eRondeau]

Hey gang, I just had to chime in... I've owned three Lacie external "d2" HD's in four years and two of them are toast. It's not the drive mechanisms, it's the interface electronics that fail. Use caution.

 

[anthemus]

I've owned 5 Lacie D2's, 3 OWC and 6 Acomdata. Over the few years I've had them. 1 Lacie died and 1 Acomdata, reason, heat. Best solution, buy one of the cheap $10 fans. If your editing for a long period or time or doing a massive transfer turn the fan on. The OWC's have been solid since they have a good fan for cooling.

Granted from time to time hard drive makers can make some lemons... luck of the draw....

 

[djkirsten]

I've owned 5 Lacie D2's, 3 OWC and 6 Acomdata. Over the few years I've had them. 1 Lacie died and 1 Acomdata, reason, heat. Best solution, buy one of the cheap $10 fans. If your editing for a long period or time or doing a massive transfer turn the fan on. The OWC's have been solid since they have a good fan for cooling.

Granted from time to time hard drive makers can make some lemons... luck of the draw....

Our lame Engineer gave us these as an archive solution. Something about them being cheap....I dont know.

 

[joaoferro37]

On what planet is that not legal? All manufacturers have different policies regarding what you can and cannot do to their product without voiding its warranty. Sure, Apple lets you install your own RAM in their machines, but they won't cover defects caused by the third-party RAM under AppleCare. In the case of LaCie, they don't consider the internal hard drives to be user-serviceable parts (as in dismantling the drives from their trays)...

You're acting as if LaCie is the only manufacturer that does this. CalDigit and G-Tech, just to name a couple, practice the same policy on their hard drive trays. If you don't like this, there's a handful of companies out there that sell bare RAID enclosures that you can add your own hard drives to.

The question is would you like to pay for someone just pop in 6 screws and rip you off like CalDigit. Their 2TB drive module $249 (1 year warranty) for the same drive you pay $135(5 year warranty) from newegg.
Or save the money for some other better products.
BTW, Hitachi owns G-Tech which I am sure they will honor the warranty and the company will be running after your warranty is gone.
CalDigit, anyone knows their real back ground?

 

[DoFoT9]

Our lame Engineer gave us these as an archive solution. Something about them being cheap....I dont know.

thats a bit silly!

 

[iMetalG5]

My experience? I still own a 2005 LaCie d2 160GB Triple that works flawless.

Last fall I bought a LaCie d2 1TB Quadra and it had issues from the start. It would not mount sometimes and it failed within 10 days. I exchanged it for another one. Again the new one failed to mount a bunch of times and this one had a very faint clicking/knock sound and I got paranoid and returned it. The mac genius at the time said a lot of people were returning the LaCie.

I bought a G-Tech 2TB G-Drive and i've been using it with Time Machine and all this other stuff (vid editing/photoshop/etc) and never a problem. I have a good friend who has 2 of the 500GB versions and has had them over a year without fail.

 

[joaoferro37]

I just noticed that Walmart is now selling LaCie drives. This will be the downfall of LaCie's quality. When you sell to Walmart you have to agree to an "open books" policy. What happens is that Walmart becomes your biggest account. You think everything is great, selling lots of stuff, and then they audit your books. They tell you that instead of making 15% on each item, you need to lower the price and only make 13%. (Or something to this effect). At first you bite the bullet, but it doesn't stop.

Walmarts slogan "Always rolling back prices". Soon they ask to lower it again. At this point you either have to stop selling to Walmart, or make your product cheaper. So first you source from a cheap Chinese factory, or you use lower quality materials. In the end, the product isn't as good was it was before. Sure the customer gets a product for less, but the quality isn't the same.

I don't know about you guys, but I need my RAID's not to fail. I have 100's of hours of video on hard drives that I am working on. I don't want a cheapo product. I want a good quality product at a fair price. I also don't want to get screwed by customer support or some crappy void warranty issue.

So, I still repeat myself. I will never buy a LaCie hard drive again. I will never recommend for anyone to buy a LaCie RAID or any other LaCie product. Not to mention I don't need to send my money to a foreign company. Maybe I will start with USA companies first next time.

I would not be surprised to see their product on Wal-Mart, or maybe Home Depot or at your local gas station.

A reliable RAID costs a little bit of money and my suggestion is using an ATTO card with multiple drives setup at RAID level 0+1 or if possible, 2 *- RAID 5 mirrored.

My experience with other RAID providers like High Point, CalDigit are as bad as LaCie.
Not only have these companies phased out products too fast they exaggerate their performance and reliability.

 

[Abraxsis]

For what it's worth, I've seen MANY Pro Photogs who religiously use the Lacie ruggedized triple interface portable hard drives for shooting in the field. Im actually planning on procuring one next week for just this reason.

As for the rest, Lacie can keep their stuff. The only thing I have ever have good performance out of was a 2TB NAS that I ordered/setup for my previous employer to backup our massive 355GB workplace file structure, along with an additional 275GB photo backup (it was a toy company). However, the only usable orifice that the NAS has was it's Gigabit connection which was, for some reason, faster than a direct FW800 connection.

Their LCDs, however, are very nice albeit overpriced.

 

[huddie]

What's the problem?

I have a D2 and a Triple interface BIG disk working nicely. Extremely sturdy metal cases, I can't imagine anything overheating in there. Been using them for years now.

Their pricing seems ok to me too. I want to buy a network attached drive now, and find the Network Space 2 (2TB version) to be one of the cheapest out there.

The only thing that's bothering me is the noise the D2 and BIG make.

 

[niuniu]

Just to add that my La Cie 1TB HD is still going really well after being dropped twice recently, once was minor the other was one of those heart wrenching oh *** moments.

I pretty much leave it on 24/7 for months because I simply forget about it and then turn it off for a day or so until I want to use it again. I've had it since Sept 2008, so it'll be nearing it's 2 year mark of heavy use.. not bad for the price.

Just wish it was wireless. I might look at the Apple solution, though the reviews on those are Really mixed and the 1TB is expensive to just 'take a punt'.

 

[reel2reel]

All drives fail. Doesn't help when the world is full of people who plug firewire 400 ports in upside-down (which fries the board) then blame the drive.

Ah, humans...

 

[DoFoT9]

All drives fail. Doesn't help when the world is full of people who plug firewire 400 ports in upside-down (which fries the board) then blame the drive.

Ah, humans...

Is that even possible physically lol?

 

[max.osxpert]

LaCie Drives fail

I run a little mac support business and in the last year i've had three customer ask me to fix there broken external HDDs, all of which where laCies. iv'e had two of my own fail on me. Thing is of the 7 total drives that iv'e seen fail only two of them were definitely the LaCie hardware that failed. the others all had WD HDDs that were the problem. plus the last two internal HDDs I recovered data from were both WDs.

www.osxpert.co.uk

 

[qbit9]

LaCie does it for me

My LaCie 2big Quadra 1.5 TB just failed after 3 years of continuous hourly back up use. I had it set up as a dual 1.5 TB drive raid 1, and one of the drives was ticking horribly. Of course the unit wouldn't mount. Heart in mouth, I popped the good drive out, unscrewed the tray (the unit is way out of warranty so I wasn't voiding anything) plugged it into my handy NewerTech Voyager Q and mounted it on Mac OS X Mavericks. Voila, all my data was there, completely intact -- backups going all the way back to Jan 2011. I then went out and bought two new Seagate Barracuda 3TBs (I've had an average failure rate of about 1 seagate every 3 or 4 years which isn't bad, considering that every WD drive I've ever bought has gone out within 6 months, so you do the math). There's very little documentation on replacing the drives in LaCie enclosures, so I thought I'd have to pre-format the drives. Unfortunately, my Voyager Q is a bit old and didn't recognize them. Darn, I thought I'd either have to get a new Voyager, or maybe crack open one of my older towers (no guarantee that they would be able to mount them either, though), or maybe return the drives in exchange for smaller ones. Just for laughs, I decided to pop the unformatted drives into the LaCie enclosure, power it up, and plug it in. Gasp. It mounted. I opened Disk Utility, and created a partition. Gasp. 2 minutes later I had a mint 3Tb Raid 1 drive mounted on my desktop.

I dunno what everyone else is doing to have such bad luck with LaCie drives. I have had several of them for many years and this is the first time one has gone out. I suffered no loss of data, and it took me all of half an hour to run to Best Buy to pick up a couple of drives, swap them out and now I have a new raid unit with twice the capacity as before.

Advice to OP: if you're too cheap to pay for quality and assurance, then don't get LaCie. I had a Promise RAID fry both drives at once. 2 Tb of backups poof. I've had a Hitachi G go out on me. 1.5 Tb of data poof. WD? Forget it. Wouldn't trust that junk to prop open a door. What's the point of getting a LaCie and then popping in drives you picked up at a swap-meet? If you absolutely HAVE to have LaCie, use what they give you until the warranty is over, then get quality 3rd party replacements when it won't matter if you pull off that warranty sticker. If you go for cheap off the bat, cheap is what you'll get.

 

[Georgio]

I've only ever bought one LaCie drive and that was the black monolith jobbie. It was my first external drive and it failed completely after three months with a god-awful grinding crash then silence.

Since being plugged in the drive hadn't been moved or touched in any way and it's only function was for TM back-up to my daily work/photos/music/videos.

It is still sitting in the cupboard so I may dig it out one day and rip out the offending HD, but considering the amount of grief it's demise caused me because it's failure occurred between Mac upgrades and my old machine had already been shipped out I doubt it.

Live and learn though, and now I hang onto the old Mac until I'm 110% sure everything has transferred perfectly.