1TB LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Disk eSATA 3Gbits USB Firewire 400 & 800
Posted by Notcot on May 28, 2010 in Portable Sound & Vision |
Product Description
Brand New – Ships same day, delivery 2-5 working days. 7 Day Money Back Guarantee. 10th Year online! – PicStop is an established retailer of Camera and Computer Accessories and Hardware.
- Capacity: 1TB
- Interface: 1 x eSATA 3Gbits port, 2 x FireWire 800 ports (9-pin), 1 x FireWire 400 port (6-pin), 1 x Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port (USB 1.1-compatible)
- Aluminum heat sink design for safe, fanless, quieter operation
- Rotational Speed (rpm): 7200 rpm
- Shortcut Button: Launch any application with one push
1TB LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Disk eSATA 3Gbits USB Firewire 400 & 800
No problems with the hard drive at all, Im using a G5 Powermac on OSX 10.5.7 Leopard and have the external hard drive connected using firewire 800. Very easy to install and backs-up using Time Machine every hour. Would defiantly recommend as its really quiet too.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have several LaCie hard disks but on occasions I have been seduced by low prices and bought other makes and have then regretted it. The main difference between the Lacie drives and the other drives is that I can depend on them for video editing, other drives may be perfectly OK for basic storage but when it comes to downloading large clips I have had problems with other drives, whereas the Lacie drives are dependable; they do the job efficiently and reliably.
The Lacie drives are solidly built and this one, in particular, has a solid metal construction, which must disperse heat very efficiently as the drive remains cool even after many hours of use.
The drive comes with a solid metal “foot”, which can be attached to the drive so that it can be used vertically and thus save space. The drives can also be stacked.
Rating: 5 / 5
I’ve had the La Cie drive for a couple of weeks now and it has been simplicity its self to set up. I particularly like the fact that it can be easily configured for a FAT32 basis which suits my need for a backup facility that can both used for Mac and Windows.
It is silent running thanks to its fanless design and does not appear even warm to the touch thanks to its ribbed surface.
Highly recommended!
Rating: 5 / 5
The drive is very sturdy but also very heavy. I originally decided to go for this drive based on performance and the firewire 800 port was necessary.
I wanted a 500GB backup drive and was weighing up buying a 500GB portable 2.5″ drive and this.
The portable has the advantage of being bus-powered. I wanted a drive with an on/off switch as I leave it plugged in and portable drives tend not to have one.
The price of a portable firewire 800 enclosure with a switch and a 500GB 2.5″ 5400 rpm drive was £140 (£60 for the enclosure) and this one was £120.
I initially benchmarked the drive at 70MB/s and I was happy with this as a USB drive will get about 30MB/s and this one does too over the USB port.
However, after filling it above 400GB, the performance drops to 50MB/s. I have another USB drive that maintains 30MB/s even when close to full.
This drive is also fairly noisy and the light on the front is pretty big.
For a working drive e.g a scratch drive, this would be a good high performance drive if you make sure not to fill it too full. For a backup drive, I’d recommend just going for a bus-powered USB or firewire drive.
My bus-powered drives are about 1/8th the size of this drive and close to silent and once it’s filled up, you hardly notice the performance difference at all.
I think once 2.5″ drives reach 1TB in early 2010 (possibly even later this year when they reach 750GB), I will transition my drives over and free up some power sockets.
Rating: 4 / 5
… I can only imagine the people who have commented to report nightmare scenarios above are running Windows software… no offence implied to Windows users but these things work great on a Mac, always have.
I’m on my 8th drive, still running an old 250GB original Lacie unit for backups and running all kinds of RAID arrays and Time Machine configs for high end video and general use, I also have 6 of the 1TB Lacies such as this and one of the BIG 2TB units.
I’m travelling a lot so they fly around in well-packed flight cases, but (touch wood) I’ve never had a real problem with reliability and data security.
Even better, when my power supply failed (after five years!) one brief phone call to the London office and the guy sent me a new one, no questions asked, and it arrived within 48 hours. Maybe I got lucky.
I think if there’s an issue with the power supplies, buy two, it’s worth ordering two PSUs to be able to run these drives, nothing else can handle the data like these bricks can. Sure, they are heavy, but they’re built for serious business.
If you want simple ethernet backup or dainty USB photo storage, buy from WD or some other plastic company.
If you want military specification drives that really do look after your data then invest in the proper stuff.
Just make sure when you buy one, you have the direct line of the official distributor, just in case you have trouble with the power supply unit, though it seems to be a DC Output 5V (2.2A) / 12V (2.2A) 38W standard positive-pin supply that many other 12v UK peripherals require.
They’re a bit noisy compared to some, but nothing you’d notice if it’s under the desk.
In fact the clickety-click of your data being saved in chunks is actually quite reassuring.
I’ve seen a lot of precious data disappear on other brands of drive, including G-Drives.
I will admit I won’t run these in a horizontal configuration, because they were designed to stand upright, but that’s only because I never gamble with my precious data!
I rate these things 5 stars, and I’m usually the first to pick faults in computer peripherals.
I just can’t fault them. They’re swift and they work great on a Mac working with HD video. That’s all I need them for.
I hope this review was helpful and I don’t get flamed to hell for implying that PC machines might not be as compatible with these drives, I just don’t know of any serious failure stories in the world of Mac with these.
Rating: 5 / 5