Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Regarding lack of bus power.

Remember, there are 2 SSD devices inside. I don't think Thunderbolt's 10w is enough for 2xSSD + controller + 4k DP video regeneration.

Another clue is the heavy duty heat sinks visible in the LaCie video and photos. If the power needs were small, I think the design would be more simple. SSDs do get warm, even hot when continuously written to.

So, speedy performance comes at a price.

Also, can't have daisy-chain with bus powered devices, as device must still deliver 10watts to next device in the chain. Could be another bus powered device or optical cable downstream. Yeah optical cable doesn't need 10w, but does need some power.

I would agree but we got and still continue to get just that with FW400 and FW800.

I can daisy-chain three FW800 devices that are all bus powered and dual HDDs or SSDs (SSDs actually take less power). Those dual bay drives also had controllers in them as well as processors.

It's either a Thunderbolt problem or a LaCie problem. I am leaning toward TBolt because it's make the most sense to at least give us a fully bus powered drive.

p.s. as a side note, I'd like to mention that LaCie makes some good drives. Their power supplies have always been their weak point. I have three LaCie mobile drives from 7 years ago that have given me no problems. Still use them now even at 120GBs.

All of the 12 desktop drives I've owned have had power supply issues within two years, and now, the TBolt to eSATA adaptor I bought just had it's power supply crap out. I'd really like to see this drive bus powered, I'd hate to be on the move and have the PS conk out.
 
Last edited:
Re: 3 FireWire bus powered devices

The problem is the guaranteed power.

There is no spec guaranteeing power on FireWire ports. For Macs, some only provide 6watts. Others, up to 15watts. No way to know unless you know specs for specific Mac (or for PC, Ir add on card)

For Thunderbolt, port on Mac or PC must supply 10w. The first device and cable can consume all that power. Then if daisy-chained, where does next device get its power which could be another 10w?

Devices must be certified to be sold on the market, so must comply with rigid, defined specs. FireWire did not have this restriction.

The Thunderbolt spec does not permit daisy-chained, bus-powered devices. Only self powered devices can be dual port. They can be battery powered or wall powered.

Dual HDD or dual SSD bus-powered devices are not trivial to design for Thunderbolt.

As for those wall wart power supplies for external storage and even laptops, yes, they sometimes fail. Thankfully, seems there are a lot of common designs with external storage that require +12v, so replacements are inexpensive and easy to find.
 
It might be time for you to learn a bit about physics and economics. NAND prices are at historic lows at the moment, and you're barely paying a premium over the price of the silicon itself when you buy an SSD right now.

The highest capacity MLC chips available in shipping devices are Micron's 20 nm, 128 Gb chips with a die size of 202 mm^2. Back of the envelope, they might yield 260 good die per 300 mm wafer with a tested wafer cost of $1700. That means each die costs in the neighborhood of $6.54 to produce. Those die currently have a spot price of $8.00, which makes for a pretty thin margin. However, a single 960 GB SSD requires 64 of these die, and connecting that many to a single controller is about the limit of what's reasonable in terms of parallelism for a consumer device these days. But first they need to have their backs lapped until they are paper thin before being stacked 8 high, wire bonded, bumped and packaged. The 8 finished packages then need to be paired with an 8-channel controller on a PCB to create an SSD. Now remember, just the NAND die alone cost Micron $418.46 to produce, yet right now you can pick up a 960GB Crucial M500 2.5" SSD from B&H for $449.99.

Why would Micron possibly do this? Because Samsung has 19 nm TLC NAND and will eat their lunch otherwise. By storing 3 bits per cell Sammy's 128 Gb TLC chips can pack the same number of bits onto a die that I'd wager is close to (but not smaller than) 170 mm^2. This means that from the same $1700 wafer they can yield 314 die at a cost of just $5.41 per die. So that Samsung EVO 1 TB 2.5" SSD that you can buy today for $509.00 is packing $346.50 worth of raw NAND silicon, but somehow Samsung and the channel might possibly still be making a couple bucks. Mind you, Samsung is the largest and most vertically integrated player in the space, making everything from the NAND to the controller to the finished product itself.



I think you'll find that LaCie is a rather different company now that they're owned by Seagate. While they're still not shy about taking a healthy margin, it seems as though they at least had actual engineers working on this design, as opposed to just iconic industrial designers. And there is simply no way that LaCie's release price for this device can match that of the cheapest commodity SSD ever produced from a high-volume, discount e-tailer like Newegg.

2 * $270 + $180 = $720 (i.e. the cheapest this thing could reasonably retail for)

Now if you figure that this product could end up retailing at a 30% discount in the not to distant future, then LaCie needs to pad the release price (just like Samsung did—the MSRP on that 500 GB EVO was originally $369.99).

$720 / 0.72 = $1000

When you build in the fact that these are more rarified, performant and expensive PCIe M.2 SSDs, and you get a Thunderbolt cable in the box, the "LaCie tax" doesn't seem so bad after all.

$1299 = totally reasonable.



Don't worry; things will keep shrinking. Going vertical will keep Moore's law chugging along for quite a while yet.


Why should I care? I'm a customer. I want the best and I want pay what I feel is a fair price.

----------

It seems to me that if that were the case, you'd find them for cheaper. LaCie isn't the only company selling them - look around, their prices are competitive.

If you know for a fact that they're overpriced, why don't you bring your own product to market to demonstrate that's the case? A 1 TB SSD at $250 would be a smash hit - I'd happily back you on Kickstarter as would other people.

$0.50 a gallon for gas would be a smash hit too....doesn't mean you're not being taken advantage of at $3 - 5 per gallon.

----------

Curious. It's a ripoff compared to what? You lobbed a grenade with your original comment and just walked away from it. Why do you think it's overpriced, and overpriced compared to what?

I'm not saying this was your intent but your original comment reminds me of the type of comments people throw out for up votes from a vocal minority who disparage everything without validity.

I find it ridiculous that SSD's are still so expensive, given the demand for them.

I don't believe any of the ludicrous lengthy explanations that attempt to justify it, as anything more than a sham. I believe this is something that is being held on to as long as possible before the illusion of scarcity and just-cost are struck down.
 

All true, but there were still bus powered, dual HDD/SSD drives that were powered off of FW800.

The transfer speeds fell after the second device, but even at 6w we could power two G-Tech GRAID minis.

At least they should give us the option of powering one device off the bus, then making it necessary for a wall wort for the second thru sixth.

Yeah, the wall wort issues from LaCie are a moot point, I am just glad that they are almost guaranteed to fail after a year or two, and that with $9.99 next day shipping I can get another one.
 
All true, but there were still bus powered, dual HDD/SSD drives that were powered off of FW800.

The transfer speeds fell after the second device, but even at 6w we could power two G-Tech GRAID minis.

The engineer in me says you were lucky. Not a shippable solution that could be guaranteed. From the 2.5" drives I know from any manufacturer, the 4 HDD mechanisms you mention would exceed the power available during worst case spin-up and/or writing.

You know what they say, your mileage may vary. :D

As for the option to not power the downstream port or have an optional AC adapter. Promise does something similar with the J2 - one performance spec when bus-powered. A faster performance spec when self-powered with AC adapter. Still not dual-port though. Still have to live with the 10w rule when bus powered.

Finally, the components to implement the faster Thunderbolt are more power hungry than the more simple FireWire controller chips.

I think the Thunderbolt specs leave little leeway for developers to make the overall ecosystem more predictable to have a better 80328872 experience. When aiming at the pros and semi-pros, there is less tolerance for "sort of works".
 
Why should I care? I'm a customer. I want the best and I want pay what I feel is a fair price.

----------

$0.50 a gallon for gas would be a smash hit too....doesn't mean you're not being taken advantage of at $3 - 5 per gallon.

----------

I find it ridiculous that SSD's are still so expensive, given the demand for them.

I don't believe any of the ludicrous lengthy explanations that attempt to justify it, as anything more than a sham. I believe this is something that is being held on to as long as possible before the illusion of scarcity and just-cost are struck down.

If you're being sarcastic, you should probably indicate that so people don't think you're just massively trolling.

Otherwise, I'm not sure why you'd be stupid enough to think that anyone would make "the best" products for you and then ask less than the manufacturing cost in exchange for the privilege.

Just the NAND die alone in a 1 TB SSD would cost at least $512 if you were to buy them on the open market, yet you can get a fully functioning retail-boxed SSD for less than that. After writing my last post, I kept running the numbers to see what the absolute lowest cost that amount of NAND could actually be produced for given the current processes, and I came up with $279.00 for Samsung and $332.18 for Micron. It's astonishing that these drives are so cheap given what is required to make them.
 
My first external SCSI HDD was $699 for 30MB, way back in the late 80s.

I dealt with it. Surprisingly, it still works today, but I don't use it much any more. :D

The complaints about pricing is simply due to the gap between a desirable product's price and the extra money in one's pocket.

If you can justify a purchase, it will made, especially if it makes you more efficient in the work or play you want to do. Even better if that productivity improvement puts more $$$ into your pocket.

I don't find it very useful to complain about product pricing. If there is no demand, the product will eventually disappear. If it is wildly successful, the price may actually come down if there is room to take advantage of manufacturing efficiency and development costs are covered.

With SSDs, there have been improvements, and they will continue. Just as they have done for HDDs.
 
I just bought one. Works very well and is faster than the internal pcie in my MacBook pro 15" late 2013.
Encryption brings it to its knees so I re-formatted.
Very small, dead quiet and well built.
 
If anyone cares, here is my review.

The look & feel is beautiful. Same color as Mac Pro. It is QUIET. Have not had the fan turn on a single time, and I've been abusing it and moving/copying files. The is much much better than the first version.

It is FAST!!

No weird issues, whatsoever. Works perfectly. No disconnects, wakes up with no issues. I'd have to say i'm crazy happy and feel worth the $1300 price-point. I have used the thunderbolt 1 version for a while, and this is a huge upgrade.

Also, works great with TB 1.0. I've tested on the iMac and it's perfect. Even with TB 1.0 it is actually faster than the internal SSD on the iMac
 
I just bought one. Works very well and is faster than the internal pcie in my MacBook pro 15" late 2013.
Encryption brings it to its knees so I re-formatted.
Very small, dead quiet and well built.

If anyone cares, here is my review.

The look & feel is beautiful. Same color as Mac Pro. It is QUIET. Have not had the fan turn on a single time, and I've been abusing it and moving/copying files. The is much much better than the first version.

It is FAST!!

No weird issues, whatsoever. Works perfectly. No disconnects, wakes up with no issues. I'd have to say i'm crazy happy and feel worth the $1300 price-point. I have used the thunderbolt 1 version for a while, and this is a huge upgrade.

Also, works great with TB 1.0. I've tested on the iMac and it's perfect. Even with TB 1.0 it is actually faster than the internal SSD on the iMac

Hi guys , Im in Bali without air conditioning ..., its hot and humid here ...,

Id really like to know about the fan noise ??? , as I,m guessing the fan would be running quite often here .

I am a songwriter , and I will be recording acoustic instruments, and also vocals - next to my computer ( NMP ) and Im after the quietest solutions possible

cheers:)
 
Hi guys , Im in Bali without air conditioning ..., its hot and humid here ...,

Id really like to know about the fan noise ??? , as I,m guessing the fan would be running quite often here .

I am a songwriter , and I will be recording acoustic instruments, and also vocals - next to my computer ( NMP ) and Im after the quietest solutions possible

cheers:)

Quite honestly there is no fan noise. I have yet to hear this thing turn on. I have done some really heavy processing on it. I was compressing 3 virtual machines at the same time (imagine 150gb copied in 2 mins). Was cool and no noise; even Mac Pro fans sped up. The only thing that warmed up was the TB connector Mac Pro. The drive felt cold.

I don't think these SSDs heat up at all. As for a hot ambient temperature, hottest I had my room was 82 and still no fan during heavy processing. You will hear your Mac Pro fans before you hear this thing.
 
If you look at some of the more detailed reviews, you'll see quite a few pics and illustrations of the internal construction, and the extensive effort by LaCie to do some serious thermal management:
- thermal pads between the PCIe SSD sticks and heat-sink
- heavy duty heat-sink internally, with solid connection to outside casing
- position of the fan internally with silicon-rubber isolation
- thermally controlled fan; only on if internal temperature gets very hot

I have one that I've used in an 80 degree office, connected to MBPr or MBAir. The fan noise of the laptops can be heard; nothing heard from the Little Big Disk; can't even tell if the LBD fan kicked on.
 
If you look at some of the more detailed reviews, you'll see quite a few pics and illustrations of the internal construction, and the extensive effort by LaCie to do some serious thermal management:
- thermal pads between the PCIe SSD sticks and heat-sink
- heavy duty heat-sink internally, with solid connection to outside casing
- position of the fan internally with silicon-rubber isolation
- thermally controlled fan; only on if internal temperature gets very hot

I have one that I've used in an 80 degree office, connected to MBPr or MBAir. The fan noise of the laptops can be heard; nothing heard from the Little Big Disk; can't even tell if the LBD fan kicked on.

Thanks aloshka , and g4cube ..., those reports sound really encouraging :cool:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.