I am considering buying a Lacie HD for my new iMac core duo, and in these forums I have noticed that there have been alot of comments obout how good or bad they are, and before I buy one I need an impirical answer, please.
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Lacie, good or bad
- Thread starter Jesus
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I've been using a 160GB D2 Triple Interface for a couple of years, I guess. Not whisper quiet, but not exactly annoyingly loud, either. Performance and reliability have been excellent.
I'd imagine those 500GB and 1TB drives get quite noisy, though.
I'd imagine those 500GB and 1TB drives get quite noisy, though.
I bought a 500GB Bigger Disk with two Firewire 800 ports a year and 3 months ago.
Their warranty lasts one year and both firewire 800 ports malfunctioned right at the one year mark--leaving me to edit dvcpro HD footage at firewire 400. GRRRR. Go with a hard drive that still has a four year warranty---i think seagate still has them.
I've heard about lots of random bad stuff happening to Lacie's....problems with the power supplies, disk errors, also that they're more fragile.
Their warranty lasts one year and both firewire 800 ports malfunctioned right at the one year mark--leaving me to edit dvcpro HD footage at firewire 400. GRRRR. Go with a hard drive that still has a four year warranty---i think seagate still has them.
I've heard about lots of random bad stuff happening to Lacie's....problems with the power supplies, disk errors, also that they're more fragile.
Lacie is a very good company there products are well designed and usually work well, I have had experience with there external DVD writers and they have been great unfortunatly I have never used a Lacie HD but i'm sure they are very good,
Shadow
Shadow
So the concensus is: complete and utter crap.
My Maxtor, of all things, is whisper silent. (200GB triple external).
My 1TB external Lacie sounds like a meatgrinder.
My Maxtor, of all things, is whisper silent. (200GB triple external).
My 1TB external Lacie sounds like a meatgrinder.
Well... I say good. I have little to compare with but the noise from my 200GB d2 is nothing to concern me.
I have a couple Porsche drives that are very quiet and haven't been a problem past getting them mounted. For some reason there's a very specific order in which things have to be powered and plugged for these drives to mount. Pain in the ass, but after that it works perfectly. So my vote would go towards "so-so" which doesn't exist in the poll.
I've purchased many LaCie products over the years for both myself and for work and I've never ever ever ever ever had problems with them.
That being said, for less money, you can get yourself a nice Seagate hard drive and an external enclosure that will function the same at a lower price.
That being said, for less money, you can get yourself a nice Seagate hard drive and an external enclosure that will function the same at a lower price.
There wan't an option for "Nah, they're so-so..." so I had to choose terrible... not becauce I think they necessarily are, but because there are better options out there. Maxtor has been mentioned, but my definitive favorites are Seagate Barracudas. Quick, silent and reliable. Nice combo drives available in many sizes... (The 300 GB was dirt cheap ($179.99 including rebate that expires 1/28/06) at one of the stores Seagate link to.)
For me, they used to be the best. Last year 2x500 HDs died on me. So I don't know what to buy next time. Right now my 500GB WiebeTech drives are running well.
I have heard good and bad. I was considering getting a triple interface when i was lookng for a backup solution. I wanted to be able to make bootable backups of both my machines and still have some space for random files.
What i ended up doing was finding some 160GB drives on sale/with rebate and then getting some external enclosures. All told after rebates it cost me about 200 plus tax for my two seperate drives that i use for bootable backups. I know that the price comes out to about the same but for me the setup is better. This way i have one for the iMac and one for the iBook.
Just look for a local deal on an internal like these from staples, bestbuy, circuitcity, circuitcity, or some other local shop. After you find the HD just look for an external enclosure (i like this one or if you like black this one). These only have firewire 400 on them but you can get ones with firewire 800.
They are REALY easy to put together. I was afraid i would screw something up putting them together but it was very straight forward.
What i ended up doing was finding some 160GB drives on sale/with rebate and then getting some external enclosures. All told after rebates it cost me about 200 plus tax for my two seperate drives that i use for bootable backups. I know that the price comes out to about the same but for me the setup is better. This way i have one for the iMac and one for the iBook.
Just look for a local deal on an internal like these from staples, bestbuy, circuitcity, circuitcity, or some other local shop. After you find the HD just look for an external enclosure (i like this one or if you like black this one). These only have firewire 400 on them but you can get ones with firewire 800.
They are REALY easy to put together. I was afraid i would screw something up putting them together but it was very straight forward.
I have not had many problems with LaCie products and when I have (a DAT tape drive), I found their customer support to be phenomenal. With that said, I usually buy Maxtor or Seagate hard drives. LaCie tend to be a little expensive and if I want to pay a litttle extra, I'll buy a Seagate, because their drives are awesome. If I want a bargain, Maxtor is good. And of course Seagate just bought Maxtor...
As for that other drive, I would never buy a generic hard drive. Hard Drives and RAM are two things never to skimp on. If your hard drive dies, thats it. Your data is gone (unless you back up). No warning, nothing, gone.
As for that other drive, I would never buy a generic hard drive. Hard Drives and RAM are two things never to skimp on. If your hard drive dies, thats it. Your data is gone (unless you back up). No warning, nothing, gone.
C
CompUser
Guest
I bought a LaCie 120GB HDD FW400 a while back and at start-up it was great, however the course of the year it started to give random disk errors and 13 months later from original purchase it decided to die and take all my back-up data with it. 
Called LaCie CS and they said they could do nothing about it as the One Year Warranty had expired, and even if it was under One Year they could do nothing about the data loss, WTF.
Will I be buying a LaCie again, No. I like they case design and I replaced the HDD with another one which is faster and more stable also much more silence.
It's a build it yourself option next time around, or maybe a Maxtor solution.
Called LaCie CS and they said they could do nothing about it as the One Year Warranty had expired, and even if it was under One Year they could do nothing about the data loss, WTF.
Will I be buying a LaCie again, No. I like they case design and I replaced the HDD with another one which is faster and more stable also much more silence.
It's a build it yourself option next time around, or maybe a Maxtor solution.
There are two LaCie on my desk and two in other places that I've bought over about 3 years time. All work well and I've no complaint. A friend had a noisy one that eventually failed.
Does anyone have statistics for external hard drives in general? I understand that LaCie uses different vendors for the drive itself.
Does anyone have statistics for external hard drives in general? I understand that LaCie uses different vendors for the drive itself.
When I opened up my Lacie D2 drive to chase down a problem both firewire connectors (allegedly soldered on) fell out
never making that mistake again...
never making that mistake again...
