LaCie 250 GB Porsche HD...noisy/hot/shut-down?

[Frank (Atlanta)]

Just picked-up a 250 GB LaCie Porsche HD for the office. I have a couple of LaCie Extreme external HD's at home.

The LaCie Porsche drive behaves differently vs. the Extreme drives - the Porsche is noisier and becomes warm during operation. Two questions:

1. The LaCie Porsche HD sounds like it's constantly spinning/whirring around. I assume if I wait ~30 seconds after shutting-down my machine, that I can turn-off the HD (I'll be traveling for 2 weeks - no reason to leave it on, esp. since the office turns-off A/C on weekends). I ask, because the spinning sound never goes away (even unmounted HD before shutting-down machine and the HD continued to whir for a good 5 min after unmount/laptop power-down). In otherwords, is there some shut-down procedure I'm missing, or does this HD just constantly make a spin/whir sound?

2. Is there a fan inside the housing (I don't recall seeing any vents on it and it's currently at the office)? Anybody had problems w/heat build-up? Of course, a fan would explain the sound...

Thanks,
Frank

 

[Err]

Just picked-up a 250 GB LaCie Porsche HD for the office. I have a couple of LaCie Extreme external HD's at home.

The LaCie Porsche drive behaves differently vs. the Extreme drives - the Porsche is noisier and becomes warm during operation. Two questions:

1. The LaCie Porsche HD sounds like it's constantly spinning/whirring around. I assume if I wait ~30 seconds after shutting-down my machine, that I can turn-off the HD (I'll be traveling for 2 weeks - no reason to leave it on, esp. since the office turns-off A/C on weekends). I ask, because the spinning sound never goes away (even unmounted HD before shutting-down machine and the HD continued to whir for a good 5 min after unmount/laptop power-down). In otherwords, is there some shut-down procedure I'm missing, or does this HD just constantly make a spin/whir sound?

2. Is there a fan inside the housing (I don't recall seeing any vents on it and it's currently at the office)? Anybody had problems w/heat build-up? Of course, a fan would explain the sound...
Thanks,
Frank

I also use a Lacie porsche 250GB, Mine has always been loud as well, it also runs quite hot which doent make me to happy. I have been using it for about a year now with no problems. Yes, if you shutdown your computer and wait a few second, it is then fine to power off the Lacie drive as nothing will be accessing it you have zero risk of data corruption or anything else bad happening, you can just unmount the drive then power it down also. There is no fan inside this drive, the only air vents are on the bottom so make sure you place it on a hard surface, not carpet or anything that will limit air flow.

 

[Frank (Atlanta)]

Err,

Thanks for the response. Guess it's just a noisy drive!

thanks,
Frank

 

[DeSnousa]

I read somewhere that the design let's go of heat through the casing using the fan to better the flow of the heat. When de-powering the hardrive, you don't have to shut down the computer, just eject the external and de-power it. In fact thats what happens when you shut down the computer it ejects all devices, closes of apps and etc.

As for the noise its perfectly normal it just means the drive is spinning this occurs even when the drive is not being accessed.

Hope this helped

 

[Err]

I read somewhere that the design let's go of heat through the casing using the fan to better the flow of the heat. When de-powering the hardrive, you don't have to shut down the computer, just eject the external and de-power it. In fact thats what happens when you shut down the computer it ejects all devices, closes of apps and etc.

As for the noise its perfectly normal it just means the drive is spinning this occurs even when the drive is not being accessed.

Hope this helped

the lacie drive has no internal fan as stated above

 

[wumpux]

Maxtor hiding in LaCie Porsche died after only 18 months!

RE: Porsche is noisier and becomes warm during operation. Two questions:

The drive in my enclosure was a Maxtor Maxline II that was always very hot to the touch. This should've been my second warning. The first was the BIOS reporting that the LaCie I just bought contained a MAXTOR. (a Manufacturer with a known terrible service record)

RE: The LaCie Porsche HD sounds like it's constantly spinning/whirring

I noticed that only after trying to diagnose it's untimely demise. We observed that it does not 'friction-brake' like other drives do....

RE: it's currently at the office)? Anybody had problems w/heat build-up? Of

Heat is likely what killed mine. Perhaps the Maxtor was intolerant to the heat it was generating, or perhaps the _all-plastic_ Porsche-designed P.O.S enclosure created a perfect insulator. COmbined with having _no_ fan and little in teh way of venting (on the BOTTOM? doesn't heat still _rise_?)

A friend has run a sector scan on the dearly departed and found sectors at the head and tail of the drive to be unreadable. One theory is that thermal changes could have caused one of it's four heads to fold in on itself after a collision with the platter.. >click< <click> >click< ...

Do Not Buy these if you value your data. I lost mine at a ver inopportune time. I was not a complete fool, though. The knowledge that this was a Maxtor led me to constantly backup critical data from this drive. I wanted to have faith in maxtor and look where it got me. Now I have trouble trusting LaCie (who normally rock in every other way).

Now some keywords for future spiders: LaCie Porsche overheat heat problem trouble mean time between failure warranty bad bad bad dead dead dead Maxtor

That oughtta do it

w