LaCie Porsche any good?

[DeSnousa]

Hey im in the market for an external hardrive, i have read good things about lacie on MR, however most were recommending the D2 models. i would love one of these but the price and performance don't seem worth it. The Porsche seems like a better deal for the price because i have an iBook and would then not require firewire 800.

So basically what separates the porsche from the d2, is one louder than the other. Etc, Etc. (Im in the market for the 250gig porsche)

My needs for the drive are for photos, movies and nightly backups. Can i run iMovie projects of the drive or will there be a performance decrease and will daisy chaining the drive to my video camera import movies to the drive without a problem.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

[asif786]

hey,

i have one of the smaller unpowered porsche drives - a 40gig <dont laugh >. I've had no real problems with this drive. The porsche design is definitely more flimsy and less robust than the d2 drives, so make sure you think about that.

with regards to transferring dv footage to the drive - the footage does in fact go through the computer first, so it won't really be any quicker. i've never really noticed any particular 'slowdown' as such, but others may disagree..

 

[CanadaRAM]

The full-size D2 is better. The Porsche model can be loud, and it runs hotter.

 

[TyWahn]

Porche 160GB

I love my Porche 160GB. I have had no problems, and it is not noticably loud at all. By far the best option. I use it for iTunes storage, iMovie/iDVD projects.

 

[johnnowak]

Yes, they're good. Note that the new ones have an 8MB cache, not 2MB.

 

[Amani]

Just a 160gb Porsche. Very quiet and compact. Got it for $150 at CompUSA. I didn't look around for other prices, but it sounded like a good deal. I'll probably buy another one in a few months.

 

[e²Studios]

Just a 160gb Porsche. Very quiet and compact. Got it for $150 at CompUSA. I didn't look around for other prices, but it sounded like a good deal. I'll probably buy another one in a few months.

I have a 160 and a 250 GB on my Mac mini and i love them, they are quiet and they are great performance wise. I just ordered another 250 GB unit yay 760GB on my mini soon

Ed

 

[Sly]

I can give the 160GB FW400 model the full 10/10. I have had no problems at all over the last year. The HD is no loader than the internal drive in my imac.

 

[Melvin Furd]

I have both a Porche 160 gig and a D2 200 gig. Both are good, but I prefer the Porche model on the sole reason that it is more compact and it's not that noisy. I'll probably by a 250 gig Porche when I start running out of space.

 

[foxone]

One thing to keep in mind is if you're gonna be transporting the drive much. I have both an 80g D2 and a 160 porsche and while the porsche isn't as loud as the D2, it doesn't perform nearly as well. Also, the D2 is built like a TANK, I work at a major recording studio in Atlanta and we have dropped our D2s numerous times from heights as much as 5 feet onto a cement slab and they still work great, no fixing required. We also have played 60 track Pro Tools sessions off these drives (we did this by accident, but the drive responded so well, we didn't notice til we couldn't find the drive on our normal audio drives) without a hitch. I'd say the price difference is quite reasonable if you're looking for something that can get beaten to death.

 

[simplebeep]

Porsches look great, but are low in quality.

... Also, the D2 is built like a TANK ...

I'd have to agree with foxone on this one. I use my Porsche to archive old vinyl LPs—I Record directly on to the hard drive, process and split the file, then convert it to Lossless format to save space.

The hard drive has "died" twice, making all data on the drive unusable and unreliable. The Porsche is clearly not built for a high workload. This time, after it failed, it wouldn't even make its presence known to Disk Utility; it's a total loss. I'm just glad I backed that drive up!


--
Simple Beep

shift-option-k
makes  an  apple!

 

[Xavier]

Yes the porsche is a good drive, but I went with the D2 500gb.

What drew me was the different ports on the back, so I can change from usb to FW800 if i wanted. Im not locked down to one thing.

Only thing I dont like is that it takes awhile to spin up, but that is the case with a large sized HDD

 

[zflauaus]

I have an old LaCie Porsche 250GB USB 2.0 drive from 3 years ago and it is LOUD as hell. I hate hearing it spin up and writing to the drive. It left a sour taste in my mouth for LaCie.

 

[drfp25]

porsche 500 gb

I have the prsche 500gb and I love it. i use it as my TM backup drive and yes i can hear the drive spinning when I am at my desk, but I don't think it is particularly loud. It does get really got so I have to be careful not to put anything on it, but overall I love it.
And it looks sexy as hell

 

[Cougarcat]

I have a 250 gig Porsche. It's great, but one thing that I don't like about it is that the power connector is very weak--if you move the drive while it's plugged in your computer it can easily disconnect and loose power.

 

[coupdetat]

I also have a Porsche drive and I like it a lot. Drive noise is audible over my almost-silent G3 iMac though, but it's definitely not intrusive. And yeah, the power cable comes out of mine sometimes too.

 

[WardC]

I have a 250 gig Porsche. It's great, but one thing that I don't like about it is that the power connector is very weak--if you move the drive while it's plugged in your computer it can easily disconnect and loose power.

Yes -- I have the 250GB Porsche design LaCie USB 2.0 external drive. It was working very well for awhile and then I started having major problems with the driving cutting out, spinning down and spinning up, I found the problem to be the DIN-style connector in the back was losing connection and lossely connected. The more you plug/unplug your drive and move it, the weaker the connector gets on the drive. It's a major design flaw in the drive. I don't really need the drive anymore, I'm using a 500GB/500GB (1TB) Raid Array in my Mac Pro. I should be doing backup though but I have a newer 750GB Maxtor external now. The design isn't as nice as the Porsche LaCie but at least it uses a better power connector I've retired the LaCie drive for now...but it still works. I just have to be careful about setting the connector and not moving the drive or cable at all when I use it.