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Lacie, good or bad
- Thread starter Jesus
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My dad's office has purchased about a dozen LaCie external drives over the last five years or so, and no one has had a single problem with any of them yet after much daily use other than some glitches with one that was accidentally Windows formatted and worked fine once it was reformatted. In contrast, his office bought three Maxtor drives and all of them failed. It might have just been luck of the draw, but I still recommend LaCie strongly.
Lacie have a new portable all-terrain drive which looks great (pic) but all this talk of them being crap is worrying. It has Firewire 800, 400 and USB 2.0 which is great. Seagate only have USB 2.0 as far as I'm aware.
Can anyone recommend a good portable drive with Firewire 400 (at least) and/or USB 2?
Can anyone recommend a good portable drive with Firewire 400 (at least) and/or USB 2?
My experience has been okay...
Currently operate 1 D2 Lacie 250GB drive with the triple interface and 1 D2 160GB original without the triple interface. Both have been great drives. They are not the quietest drives but not so loud that they are bothersome.
I also own a Lacie CD writable drive which although is not used anymore was very reliable. In the past I have had a Lacie USB drive, crap and a Lacie Pocket Drive which ran for like 5 years and was constantly abused by me, great little drive
I have also worked with drives from Maxtor, had a horrible relationship with that drive.
I am currently considering purchasing another D2. I really like the drive and the fact that they power down when not in use. Overall I have been really happy with them but when it comes to external drives I am always cautious and back up as best I can.
Also... if it has not been said, Lacie does not make the drives just the cases.
Currently operate 1 D2 Lacie 250GB drive with the triple interface and 1 D2 160GB original without the triple interface. Both have been great drives. They are not the quietest drives but not so loud that they are bothersome.
I also own a Lacie CD writable drive which although is not used anymore was very reliable. In the past I have had a Lacie USB drive, crap and a Lacie Pocket Drive which ran for like 5 years and was constantly abused by me, great little drive
I have also worked with drives from Maxtor, had a horrible relationship with that drive.
I am currently considering purchasing another D2. I really like the drive and the fact that they power down when not in use. Overall I have been really happy with them but when it comes to external drives I am always cautious and back up as best I can.
Also... if it has not been said, Lacie does not make the drives just the cases.
Jesus said:
I have a Mercury Elite Pro USB/FW drive and have yet to have a problem with it. Very fast and very quiet.
No problems with LaCie
I own a 80 GB and a 250 GB hard drive by LaCie and had no problems whatsoever. But while reading this thread I start to worry.
I own a 80 GB and a 250 GB hard drive by LaCie and had no problems whatsoever.
But while reading this thread I start to worry. I've had a couple of Lacie drives (120Gb & 160Gb - both FireWire 400) for about 3 years now and not a peep from them, other than the 160Gb drive has started to get quite noisy on statup in the last 6 months or so. I also recently bought one of their Mac mini 250Gb companion drives, again excellent unit with my only slight concern being the temperature the drives runs at while busy but no issues so far...
LaCie is pretty darn good.
Over the last few years I've managed to collect a nice pile of LaCie hard disks. I started with a D2 Bigger disk (500GB) which I use to backup my network. Then I added a 250GB D2, then another one, then another one. Then I bought a Porsche Design drive because it was perfect size to fit in my safe deposit box. That worked so good, that I bought another one of those, too.
To sum it up, I have four D2s on my desktop and two Porsche Designs in my safe deposit box. I'm a digital photographer, so it's nice to have a complete backup in a safe place.
I won't say that every drive I've purchased from LaCie has been perfect (got one that failed on the second day), but their customer service is top notch. I've been buying hardware for over twenty years, and they handle probelms in a rarely seen way.
The warranty could definitely be longer. The prices could be a tad cheaper. They could be a little less noisy (though they're definitely not bad). (Keep in mind that noise that increases with time is usually caused by a fan getting dusty. I've had much noiser drives).
I also have that nice little rack which keeps the drives neatly stacked on my desk.
On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd give them a 7.
Whatever you do, don't buy a Maxtor. I've seen and heard about lots of problems. And Seagate is always a solid performer. I have two WD Raptors inside my box, and they're pretty sweet, too.
Over the last few years I've managed to collect a nice pile of LaCie hard disks. I started with a D2 Bigger disk (500GB) which I use to backup my network. Then I added a 250GB D2, then another one, then another one. Then I bought a Porsche Design drive because it was perfect size to fit in my safe deposit box. That worked so good, that I bought another one of those, too.
To sum it up, I have four D2s on my desktop and two Porsche Designs in my safe deposit box. I'm a digital photographer, so it's nice to have a complete backup in a safe place.
I won't say that every drive I've purchased from LaCie has been perfect (got one that failed on the second day), but their customer service is top notch. I've been buying hardware for over twenty years, and they handle probelms in a rarely seen way.
The warranty could definitely be longer. The prices could be a tad cheaper. They could be a little less noisy (though they're definitely not bad). (Keep in mind that noise that increases with time is usually caused by a fan getting dusty. I've had much noiser drives).
I also have that nice little rack which keeps the drives neatly stacked on my desk.
On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd give them a 7.
Whatever you do, don't buy a Maxtor. I've seen and heard about lots of problems. And Seagate is always a solid performer. I have two WD Raptors inside my box, and they're pretty sweet, too.
Lacie drives are fine
apart from the tape backup that failed a while ago. . . .
. . . . just before the D2 went. . . .
and the 500GB ethernet NAS disk that bit the dust last week but that was a whole year old. I was just about to back it up . . . . bugger!
ok then, they're not so fine
customer support seems ok, will see what happens when I try to send the ethernet disk back. And yes, it contains Maxtor drives according to the BIOS.
apart from the tape backup that failed a while ago. . . .
. . . . just before the D2 went. . . .
and the 500GB ethernet NAS disk that bit the dust last week but that was a whole year old. I was just about to back it up . . . . bugger!
ok then, they're not so fine
customer support seems ok, will see what happens when I try to send the ethernet disk back. And yes, it contains Maxtor drives according to the BIOS.
not terrible, just mediocre. and my lacie drive makes more noise than all my other external devices combined (three external hard drives, two external dvd burners)
i recommend getting seagate/WD internal drive + good external enclosure. newegg has a nice selection - they only have one SATA enclosure with eSATA and USB2.0 last time I checked, but (if it's the all black venus ds3) i got one and it's a damn good enclosure - love it, totally worth the money.
i recommend getting seagate/WD internal drive + good external enclosure. newegg has a nice selection - they only have one SATA enclosure with eSATA and USB2.0 last time I checked, but (if it's the all black venus ds3) i got one and it's a damn good enclosure - love it, totally worth the money.
They are great. For my iMac I decided to buy a Firecube Gen II which is a beautiful hard drive in the flesh. I will have 160GB for a bootable backup and 40GB for windows if it ever works on mac.
maya said:Oddly enough my LaCie had a Maxtor drive in it.
Short of opening the enclosure, is there any easy way of determining the make of the drive within the LaCie?
Like others here, I have the La Cie 1TB drive and it should be avoided. It is unbearably noisy - and I mean, really, really noisy! I had it swapped, but the replacement was the same.
OTOH I have 2 La Cie 2.5" bus powered portable drives - a 40GB and an 80GB - and they are both fine, work fine and I'd have no hesitation recommending them.
Also, La Cie don't make hard drives themselves. They sell the enclosures and etc. as a package. So posts about avoid Maxtor but La Cie are ok don't make sense. The hard drive inside a La Cie enclosure can be a Maxtor (or other brands).
OTOH I have 2 La Cie 2.5" bus powered portable drives - a 40GB and an 80GB - and they are both fine, work fine and I'd have no hesitation recommending them.
Also, La Cie don't make hard drives themselves. They sell the enclosures and etc. as a package. So posts about avoid Maxtor but La Cie are ok don't make sense. The hard drive inside a La Cie enclosure can be a Maxtor (or other brands).
Seagate are not only USB. I've had my Seagate 200GB for well over a year and it's still going strong!
I originally had had a LaCie. It was soooo loud and kept sounding like it was breaking so I switched to the Seagate.
I originally had had a LaCie. It was soooo loud and kept sounding like it was breaking so I switched to the Seagate.
Western Digital is da' bomb!
If fact -- Lacie stuffs four 500gb western digital "caviar" platters in their 2tb triple interface bigger drive extreme!
If fact -- Lacie stuffs four 500gb western digital "caviar" platters in their 2tb triple interface bigger drive extreme!
So far my Lacie L2 300gig has been a dream
I have my entire 140 gig iTunes library on it, so it better stay that way....
Of course I've got it all backed up in triplicate, but still.....
I love mine...had it for about a year now..
I have my entire 140 gig iTunes library on it, so it better stay that way....
Of course I've got it all backed up in triplicate, but still.....
I love mine...had it for about a year now..
Requiem for a Lacie
My Lacie 200 Gigger is dead. I think its having powersupply issues, cause it won't turn on. Once every blue moon it does decide to turn on, however it doesnt like to mount. Anyone know how to get an external hard drive to mount?
I just bought a Western Digital. Hopefully its better. Invest in blank Dvds.
My Lacie 200 Gigger is dead. I think its having powersupply issues, cause it won't turn on. Once every blue moon it does decide to turn on, however it doesnt like to mount. Anyone know how to get an external hard drive to mount?
I just bought a Western Digital. Hopefully its better. Invest in blank Dvds.