LaCie 301825U d2 Quadra 500 GB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 External Hard Disk
by Lacie
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of LaCie 301825U d2 Quadra 500 GB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 External Hard Disk
Customer Review: Great Hard Drive
Summary: 4 Stars
I really like this drive. It's very well made and looks and feels like a lot of thought went into it's manufacture. It's very quite, and I really like the on/auto/off switch on the back. I use it to just backup files and leave it off when I'm not backing up files.
It's a true plug and play....just follow the directions. I'm running Windows XP for home, and the drive mounted right away. I told the LaCie software what OS I was running and it configured the drive for one partition in NTFS for me. Only took a couple of minutes. I used the software that came with it to back up my files, and this is where it went south and the reason why I didn't give it 5 stars.
First I would have prefered to format the drive into 2 partitions, but the LaCie doesn't give you that option, so I will use Windows to do it instead. The software allowed me to back up all my user docs with no problem, but that was it. Everything else is manual. Plus, the software imbedded itself in my startup scripts, and would cause the computer to halt when it booted becuase I had the drive turned off.
Overall I would recommend this drive. It's costs a little extra, but except for the software, I believe it's worth it.
Customer Review: Sturdy and great!
Summary: 5 Stars
The things I like about it are: industrial design, heavy (= sturdy to me), versatile - it can lie down or stand upright, depending on the space you have to give it. It is mostly quiet, although does ramp up at times. It stays cool. It only cost me $10 more than my Seagate, it was well worth the upgrade.
The Story:
I don't have a ton of experience with external hard drives or computers for that matter, but here is my review based on my limited experience:
I purchased a Seagate HD and had lots of files important to me stored on it. In a freak accident it fell over (not hard, not far) and stopped working. I called Seagate and they said the clicking noise I was hearing was erasing my info and that I could have them try to restore the info for a cost minimum of $300.
Luckily, the files were replaceable, so when needing a new hard drive I looked and searched and read and chose the LaCie because it can either lie flat or it can stand up. It's heavy and industrial feeling. I feel much more secure with this HD.
Overall, I am 100% satisfied with this hard drive. It also automatically configured to my mac. I probably won't even consider a Seagate again.
Customer Review: Finally, a Professional External HD
Summary: 5 Stars
This HD is worth every penny paid. The case is HEAVY, solid as a rock and really does stay very cool. This is what makes the drives last. I have a cheaper 500GB external HD in a typical cheap case, and you can fry eggs on it after an hour. The case on this LaCie feels like it's made of granite, and due to the thicker case, it's QUIET. I can't say enough about this drive. Then you add in all the different interfaces including eSata, and you've got a slightly more expensive drive that is totally versatile and will last a long time. I'm starting to realize that saving 20 bucks for the cheaper model isn't worth it at all, and this drive is a prime example.
***UPDATE: One year later
Still completely satisfied. I also purchased the 1TB model, same exact Quadra D2 just with the bigger hard drive. I use them both on eSata (ExpressCard adapter on my laptop) for video editing, Photoshop work and backups, and they are FAST, like an internal hard drive. In fact, they are fast enough for me to use as SCRATCH DISKS in Photoshop CS4! I've given away my cheaper drives, you get what you pay for and I have zero regrets with the LaCie line (and no, I don't work for them!).
Customer Review: Brilliant design and performance!
Summary: 4 Stars
I've owned different brands over the years and recently had my third Maxtor/Seagate fail beyond recovery. My choices narrowed down to Western Digital, LaCie and G-Tech. WD are great units but the My Book Studio edition has fewer connection ports and no power switch. G-Tech also makes great devices but cost more which made the LaCie an easy choice.
LaCie has a decent reputation among the creative community. The d2 is a great external HDD with 4 connectivity options, an all Aluminum enclosure (which is almost entirely a heat sink) and a three position power switch (on, off and auto). I use it with a couple of Macs and a neat feature of this device, which pops-up on the first mount, is an option to create a "swap partition" to allow Windows connectivity.
Connection speed is as expected. I use Firewire 800 and sSATA with excellent results. You can also daisy-chain multiple devices via dual Firewire 800 ports. The d2 is a very nice piece of industrial design and looks great on it's side or stacked with other d2 units.
I gave it 4 out of 5 stars since I haven't had it long enough to judge its long term reliability.
Customer Review: Poor Tech Support from LaCie
Summary: 2 Stars
I had previous experience with LaCie which was very good and their tech service quickly solved my problem plus the reviews here were good. So I bought this drive. This drive is formated for the mac and works great right out of the box with my mac. I did not notice in the description that this was formated for the mac but I wanted to format it in FAT32 so it could be used with both mac and windows. But the instructions provided by LaCie were not very clear --- I reformatted it for windows FAT32 on my intel mac but the drive was not recognized by windows machines. It seems that the drive needs special windows software installed on it after it is reformatted.
Its been about a month since I sent LaCie an email asking what I needed and where I could down load it --- to date, I have not heard anything from LaCie. It is a good drive but LaCie support sucks.
I needed more additional drives, so I bought 4 WesternDigital and am very happy with them. This long time LaCie customer (over the years I have bought at least 5 LaCie drives) is now a happy WD customer.