LaCie Review: Hands-On With the 4TB Rugged RAID Thunderbolt Hard Drive

[macs4nw]

.....The LaCie Rugged RAID ships with the 4TB hard drive itself, which includes a protective orange rubber cover, a spare port cover, a quick start guide, a USB cable, and a power adapter for use when the hard drive is plugged in via USB 3.0. There are also several plug adapters to accommodate travelers.

Article Link: LaCie Review: Hands-On With the 4TB Rugged RAID Thunderbolt Hard Drive

The LaCie website itself mentions two HDDs. They don't however mention whether those drives are of the 7200 or 5400 RPM variety. At the quoted transfer rates for striping, most likely 5400 or perhaps even 4500.

It's nice that the drive comes with the integrated TB cable, but hopefully that cable is of better quality than the included TB cable they shipped with previous TB drives. If you're out in the field, with no place to plug in the power adapter, that USB3 port is of little use if the TB cable fails.

 

[xSeaside]

These drives have poor USB and Thunderbolt port connectors. They very quickly "wear out" to the point that when using the drive if you even barely bump it the cable will come unplugged and of course your drive is forcibly ejected.

And it's not just one drive. I work for a school district and we purchased a lot of these and months later many (most? all?) of them are having problems with loose connections.

The Thunderbolt connection was particularly flaky with the drive ejecting for no apparent reason at all. This happened so often that I stopped using it in favor of the USB3 port.

Bottom line: I would never buy one of these personally.

Interesting I have the D2 with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt and I'm really happy with it except for the noise.

The LaCie rugged always seemed very robust to me and I've been close to buying one a few times. Now, I will definitely stay away from them, thanks for the heads-up.

I think it's kind of pathetic for LaCie to sell a rugged HDD where the ports have connectivity issues after some (ab)use.

 

[TechZeke]

Interesting I have the D2 with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt and I'm really happy with it except for the noise.

The LaCie rugged always seemed very robust to me and I've been close to buying one a few times. Now, I will definitely stay away from them, thanks for the heads-up.

I think it's kind of pathetic for LaCie to sell a rugged HDD where the ports have connectivity issues after some (ab)use.

Student handling is a great stress test for any drive. Since these are standard connectors, I'd be interested in your experiences with other drives which use similar USB or Thunderbolt connectors.

In my searches for suppliers, I've not seen any "ruggedized" connectors.

Common failures I've seen with students has been when students transport drives in their backpacks with the cables still plugged in and connected. Any stress on the protruding cable will likely damage any device.

I tell my students to disconnect cables before tossing into their backpacks.

Same thing would happen to their tablets and phones if they always kept cables plugged in. A little care goes a long way to prevent problems. And don't get me started on cameras...

I have the older version of the 1TB Thunderbolt Rugged drive that I got a for a great price from B&H after the new ones with the integrated cable came out. Haven't had any issues so far, and the enclosure is high quality. Not sure why everyone says they have problems with LaCie, as I was recommended to LaCie by my friend who has had a LaCie external sitting on his desk for probably 6-7 years now with no issues.

It was also a great addition to my hard drive arsenal since my 2011 doesn't have USB 3 but has a thunderbolt port, so now I can get maximum performance between both of my Macs. Hopefully no problems start up, this at least seems to be a nice drive.

 

[FoundAHalo]

I have the older version of the 1TB Thunderbolt Rugged drive that I got a for a great price from B&H after the new ones with the integrated cable came out. Haven't had any issues so far, and the enclosure is high quality. Not sure why everyone says they have problems with LaCie, as I was recommended to LaCie by my friend who has had a LaCie external sitting on his desk for probably 6-7 years now with no issues.

Likewise. I've been using LaCie drives almost exclusively for the past decade, and have only had one enclosure (and no drives) fail; and I still have a dozen of them in my office (rugged, d2, and Porsche). Conversely, every WD enclosure I've had over the years has failed, without exception.

 

[Rocketman]

I am wondering if the comments about the Thunderbolt plugs getting lose over time is on this brand of product or Thunderbolt generally? The male plug certainly seems long and boxy to me as compared to any USB cables I have seen.

Rocketman

Recent buyer of USB3 sticks at Costco.

 

[cubbie5150]

FWIW, I've had the TB/USB3 Lacie D2 (4GB) since not long after it was released 2 years ago. It is doing just fine. I think any connectivity issues are just inherent to the quality (or lack thereof) of the TB connectors. I plug/unplug from my rMBP quite frequently, and no issues so far. I do use a non-Lacie TB cable (can't remember the brand).

 

[baryon]

Cool stuff! So it contains two 2TB drives, but where are the 4 TB 2.5" drives? Did they just max out at 2 TB three years ago and stay there?

 

[g4cube]

Cool stuff! So it contains two 2TB drives, but where are the 4 TB 2.5" drives? Did they just max out at 2 TB three years ago and stay there?

For now, stuck at 2 TB for a 9.5 mm high 2.5" HDD. This variation is a little over 12 months old.

Previous 2 TB drives were 12.5mm and 15mm high, but short lived as they could not fit into laptops and specialized servers, where most of the 9.5 mm drives reside.

I expect we'll see larger capacity 2.5" drives soon.

I'm waiting for the 2 TB SSDs.

 

[RedTomato]

id gladly give up my 2 thunderbolt ports for a single usb3 port. never will i buy those crazy overpriced thunderbolt devices. i hope apple will completely eradicate thunderbolt in all their future macs for usb 3.1.

I don't see that happening anytime soon.

the new macbook won´t have thunderbolt. and its coming in 4 days.

Zing! The burn, it hurts.

 

[g4cube]

Alas, it's missing a convenient, conventional USB 3.0 port too. Better keep your adapter cables handy!

 

[keysofanxiety]

Hugely unstable if ejected improperly. I had been using it for work but now it's caused more headaches than it's worth.

I didn't know that. Thank you for the FYI!

 

[Marx55]

A revolution in SSD is around the corner by the end of 2015 with 3D NAND flash chips: 3x capacity for half the price of current 1x capacity and 4x speed boost.

 

[whistlerdan]

Alas, it's missing a convenient, conventional USB 3.0 port too. Better keep your adapter cables handy!

Err, not it isn't..?

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So if you have this thing in RAID1 and the drive fails, what exactly happens?

Can you still plug the drive in and access your data?

I know it would void the warranty, but could you replace a drive and would it rebuild itself?

 

[g4cube]

Re: keep your adapter cables handy...

Err, not it isn't..?

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I was referring to the lack of a standard USB 3.0 port on the new Macbook Retina.

 

[redshifted]

It's been over a year since this review first appeared...

Does anyone have any longer term experience with this drive? I'm looking at getting one for a photo project I'm working on. I was thinking about getting this drive to use with my MBP for RAW file storage and photo file transfer. Also, I was wondering about the bus power draw using the thunderbolt connection.

Thanks for replies in advance.

 

[Cox Orange]

It's been over a year since this review first appeared...

Does anyone have any longer term experience with this drive? I'm looking at getting one for a photo project I'm working on. I was thinking about getting this drive to use with my MBP for RAW file storage and photo file transfer. Also, I was wondering about the bus power draw using the thunderbolt connection.

Thanks for replies in advance.

Now, it is even 1,5 year later than when yu asked, and I have the same question.

Does anyone have any longer term experience with this drive?

Well on the other hand, production quality can change over the years, so maybe, the info of people who bought the drive two years ago will not tell anything about today.

I was offered a lacie rugged 500GB SSD from September 2017, used with ThB and USB3. It has the aluminium case inside like the one in this review.
I see there are also some that seem to have a plastic case? inside the bumper, there was someone who put a Crucial MX300 512GB in his case (I guess it might have been a HDD version before the swap).

Isn't the version with integrated ThB-cable prone to being constantly pulled at, when unwound? I think I even read of people that said the connection gets flaky or plucked off till it has to be repaired or you have to use the USB3 cable.

Edit: oh, and I read that the speed of an SSD is faster over USB3 than thunderbolt, which sounds counterintuitive.