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External HD: MyBook or LaCie

monke

monke

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 30, 2005
1,437
3
I'm looking at buying a new 1TB for files and back up, the whole ordeal.

Currently my iMac's drive (160GB) is nearly maxed out. I've also got a 360GB MyBook Premium (from a few years back, when the meter and power button was still a circle). I tend not to use the MyBook because it is EXTREMELY loud. I cannot stress this enough, it vibrates and makes a crapload of noises.

Here's what I plan on doing:
I'm going to move the MyBook away from my workstation and store my iTunes Library on it (roughly 80-100GB right now, which is the main reason for little space left on my iMac).
Buying an 1TB External for back up, etc.

SO, here's my question:
I'm looking at either the MyBook Studio Edition 1TB drive or the LaCie Hard Disk by Neil Poulton 1TB, which would you recommend?

After the experience with my MyBook and reading reviews about it are really leaning me towards the LaCie BUT I'd really like the Firewire 800 port because I'll be purchasing a MacBook Pro sometime in the new year.

If you have any other 1TB drives with Firewire 800 suggestions, I'd like to look into them.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Never had a problem with MyBook Studios - the FW 800 port is a real advantage...
 
I have a Mybook 320GB external at home and a 1 TB Lacie drive at work. The Mybook has been flawless so far and I hope to use the eSATA some day with my Mac. Right now I only have a macbook, but will be updating to a MP soon.

The Lacie drive is the Quadra not the one you are looking at. I had trouble connecting to the drive and had to open a ticket with service. The tech knew right away that it was a bad power supply and sent out a replacement. Thank goodness it was still under warranty. So the drive has never been a problem, but the power supply has been an issue. Apparently this is a common issue with some types of Lacie power supply units.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

If you plan ok using it with an AEBS I would skip the mybook. Has problems with remote access and time machine with it.
 
After reading most of the reviews of the MyBook, I've pretty much sided away from it. I can't say I like mine, and it sounds like nothing has really improved. That coupled with the fact of what jackiecanev2 posted (about performance with time machine and remote access) have driven me away from it.

So now I ask this question:
How much faster is Firewire 800?
Judging from this it can be anywhere from 2-3 times faster, but how much does that really factor in?

I'm only asking this because I could pick up a 1TB LaCie drive (same as posted above) but it's USB 2.0 only.
 
Having a Lacie die on me I switched to the My Books and love them thus far. All drives will fail over time no doubt, but my Lacie failed 8 months after buying it.
 
I'd avoid the Lacie drives. I own 6 including an external DVD burner and they've all died.
 
I just ordered a G-Tech Mini 250GB 7200rpm that has firewire 800. I'll let you know how it is when its shipped in a few weeks.

I heard they are nice Hard Drives.
 
Go G-Tech and pay the premium for not that much better tech. Love the drive enclosures, but they are over priced.

As for LaCie, I've had more experience with them than most, and have never had one fail, even when dropped. FW800 is a plus, but if you are using the drive for backup it won't be much of a benefit after you do the initial backup.

The MyBooks that I have used (once again many) have actually failed more often than expected, and I mean right out of the box failures.

Personally speaking, it doesn't really matter since most drives are just a difference between cases, so make sure you know which drive is actually being used in that LaCie or Western Digital case.
 
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