LaCie Hard Disk 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive designed by Neil Poulton 301304U
by Lacie
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Our Price: $198.70 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $85.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of LaCie Hard Disk 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive designed by Neil Poulton 301304U
Customer Review: My fleet of LaCies is Awesome......Support Is Quite Another Matter
Summary: 4 Stars
I am taken aback at the number of reviews reporting failure of LaCie drives for one reason or another. But my experience has been quite different, excepting once. Of the LaCie drives I have, 2 are the FA Porsche designed 500GB each which I bought in 2008; 3 are the Neil Poulton 1TB (1 of which I bought in May 2008, 1 in 2009, and 1 in April 2010). My sixth LaCie drive is the LaCinema Classic 1TB which is a multimedia player which I bought in August 2009. With the exception of my first Neil Poulton 1TB which had a power failure straight up, the others have all gone without a glitch. But LaCie was kind enough to send me a brand new replacement and I have not had any problems with it (touch wood). Two weeks ago I also purchased their Rikiki 640GB portable external drive, and I know now I will NEVER need another USB stick. And the price is amazing check it out and compare it to any 16GB or 32GB USB drive stick and you will know what I am talking about. To go back to what I was saying, I have not had ANY problems with the other LaCies I have. But their USB cable, about 4-5 inches is a real joke. I use it for everything excepting the hard drives :-)
In the context of the LaCinema classic it was disappointing that it took LaCie about six weeks to clearly explain what was wrong (the LaCinema defaults to Beta rather than NTSC, and I needed to switch it to NTSC, but the menu was scrolling so setting defaults was impossible until LaCie's second level support got into the act. They were excellent, and they straight out knew what was wrong. The first level support I am sorry to say was quite frustrating, they just didn't get it.
In terms of performance I find the drives quieter than the two Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB I have. And any one of the LaCie's is even faster than my internal hard drive which is also a Western Digital. The most surprising spec which has impressed me wholesale is the fact that all of my non-LaCie drives (internal or external) have a 16MB cache, and the LaCie has only 8MB. But in terms of speed the LaCie goes at a blistering pace. Most impressive!! And yes the drives do get relatively hot. However, I have solved this problem by buying a small plastic encased thick wire dish rack from Walmart, and it holds five of my LaCies. Perhaps because the rack is open on all sides, it helps dissipate the heat more efficiently in my opinion.
For some reason I consistently recommend LaCie drives to everyone I know. And I hope none of my drives go the way some reviewers have described their LaCies have gone. I am MOST impressed with the LaCies I have, and I can only hope I have not spoken too soon. I have no hesitation in recommending LaCie hard drives to anyone, they are pretty amazing. Given some of the other reviews here, I say "pretty amazing" with some trepidation!!
Customer Review: Confusing
Summary: 2 Stars
I've had the thing for a month, now. I still don't know how make it
work right or, perhaps, better said, it may be working just fine but
I can't tell. Two problems...
First problem...very, very, scant written instructions. Less than
a page. The only thing it was clear on is that if, somehow, your
computer doesn't load the software that's not on a disc but somewhere
in the machine itself on the first try, you're in trouble. Then
you have to go to the LaCie website and download it. Which leads to
Second problem...My computer was working just fine so I figured the
only way the software would fail to load is if I did something stupid...and I must admit, I have done some very stupid things with
computers. So, I followed the instructions and started the download
and jumped out of my chair so I wouldn't be near the damn thing as it
loaded. As one might expect, halfway through the download, for reasons only the gods know, my computer decides that its had enough,
flashes an error message so quickly that about the only thing I could
read was that the download had stopped and I would have to restart
the computer and try again. Well, of course I, I'd already read
the part that said if the download stops, for any reason, the software in the machine can't be used again. So, I go to the
LaCie website which has many, many downloads. I examine each
of them, read the descriptions, and when I'm done, I have no idea
which one(s) I need to down load...part of that is because they
didn't seem to mention exactly what program(s) the drive, itself,
was supposed to install.
So, I downloaded two or three that were described as having a
relationship to a machine that maybe was like mine or maybe not.
I'll be the first to admit...I am an old man with little aptitude
for computers. Reading the boxed directions and descriptions on
the website may be perfectly clear to someone who is up on this
stuff...but that ain't me.
So, the machine works ...sort of. But it works without my conscious
direction and has actually backed up some stuff. I have yet to
try customer support, although I may get around to it after awhile...
I've just finished a week of dealing with trying to replace a lost
cell phone and am in the midst of a 9 month problem with our cable
tv (where "customer support" is, truly, just two words with no
meaning. Anyway, the hard drive box is unobstrusive and looks ok
and it hasn't crashed my computer...yet.
s
Customer Review: Excellent backup drive. Small, quiet, reliable, affordable. Buy 3!
Summary: 5 Stars
How things have changed. 10 years ago, when I first computerized my music collection, the biggest drive I could get was 160 GB, and it was quite pricey. I need big drives, because all my music is in full length WAV files, which are about 500 MB per CD. So I wound up with a bunch of small drives, and spent a lot of money.
Now, here we are. One TB of storage, for under $70. Wow.
I have a bunch of LaCie D2 drives, and I like them, but these Poulton drives are so much nicer. You can't rack mount them directly, need to put them on a shelf, but that's minor. They're sleek, slender, stylish, quiet and they work.
My earlier drives are Firewire, because I wanted speed to record and process the original files. But I decided to go with USB for these, because they're used for archival backup. The speed is decent, certainly fast enough for backup. For primaries, I'm now switching to a fast RAID array. I love the Poultons for backup, though.
LaCie customer service is excellent in my experience. I had a few of the D2 drives conk out on me, two of them within the first week. I called LaCie and they were great. Replaced them without hesitation. I don't understand how other folks say they had a problem, I found service to be a definite cut above the usual, very polite and responsive.
And look at that price! I'm about to add 3 more of these -- and they're already 40 bucks less than the first six I got.
I buy disks in threes: one for primary, 2 for backup. Murphy's Law dictates that if your primary drive fails, and you've backed up your data and go to replace it, there will be a time when your backup drive fails at exactly the same time. And it will happen at the worst possible time, when your most cherished music and photos are lost. It's already happened to me, and I can tell you it's a pret-ty hairy experience. I took a lonnggg breath, and reached for that third copy in the closet. If it weren't for that extra drive, I'd be on Zoloft or Thorazine to this day. Put it this way: If you lost years of photos and music from a toasted disk, how much would you pay, to anyone, to get it back? Would it be the cost of an extra drive? You bet.
My advice to any and all: DO MULTIPLE BACKUPS! I say, buy 3.
Bottom line, this LaCie external drive is a terrific purchase. Quality made, small with large capacity, and reliable. I have no hesitation getting more, and you needn't either in getting some.
Tom B
Customer Review: A geeks review of a backup drive
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought two of these for my rotating backups at a sale price of $120.
I wasn't impressed by the case, but I was impressed by the 2 year limited warranty. La Cie has been around for a while, so this long a warranty suggests they expect the drive to last. That's all I care about. For the purposes of storage attached to my backup server performance is irrelevant.
Some quick observations:
1. You could cut an artery on the case. Really, it's a bit silly even without LED glow. I prefer a sturdier case with softer edges.
2. Vents are in back and the base, so you can stack on atop another. I would still recommend not stacking though, these things should stay cool.
3. I believe it's fanless.
4. On XP SP 2 it doesn't spin down. I don't know if it would spin down on a Mac. Too bad, spin down preserves life in these cases.
5. Comes with a standard 2A 12V compact power supply with a modest brick in mid-cord. So easy to plug in. Completely generic brand, not La Cie branded. The power cords is not excessively long, just right for me.
6. The attached USB cable is very short. I have lots of cables, so I was happy to get a new one that's short. I used another cable with this.
7. When you plug it in you have the option of formatting for OS X or XP. I tested both. With OS X it seems to do a full formatting, but with XP it formatted far too quickly. It must have been preformatted. Unfortunately, with XP I ran into some odd behavior with delayed write errors. Could have been chance, but I did a proper full XP format (takes hours) and the drive then behaved properly. I don't like those funny formats, I like to format myself and look for errors. I then follow the formatting with a disk test.
8. Mine came with a Samsung HD103UJ internally, but I suspect that varies.
Customer Review: Beautiful design, questionable reliability
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased two of these drives (1 GB) this past spring to attach to my iMac, 1 for use as storage for music, photos, and videos (I like to keep those things separate in case of an internal HD failure) and 1 for use as my backup drive using Time Machine. I bought them separately. The first drive I connected and then I transferred my music and everything to it. I was thoroughly impressed with the design, the blue light emanating from the bottom, etc. However, I was slightly disappointed in its on/off switch. Whereas previous external drives I've owned from Western Digital can be turned off by ejecting them from the desktop (i.e., you don't need to push the button to shut them off), this LaCie drive has an actual "switch" that must be turned to turn it off. Slightly disappointed there but the stunning looks outweighed that minor inconvenience for me. That said, I ordered a second one a week later to use as my backup drive. Within a week of starting to use it, it started to make a clicking sound--not so much when the drive was in use/spinning, but actually after the backup was completed, it would continue to click, click, click. I thought, ok, it's an idiosyncrasy of this drive. Then, months later, surely after any time I would have been able to send it back for replacement or refund from Amazon, I mentioned this clicking noise to a friend and she told me that it's a sure sign of a bad drive or a drive that will fail. Which reminded me of a PC I had years ago and that's what its internal HD starting doing before it crashed. Hmh... So, I gave the drive 3 stars, and most of those stars, unfortunately, are for its good looks. I wasn't even going to write this review but I thought I would chime in about its potential shortcomings, should you choose to order this model. Keep it in mind.