Hi
I Have a 6 month old Lacie 1 TB drive that is starting to play up( lots of start up noise & takes a few times to come up on the desk top). I talked to Lacie today & they will repair it which is good BUT when I asked for a credit for another Lacie product they said NO. Looks like ebay for this drive. I told them about the problems with there D2 drives above 500, there reply was everyone gets a bad rap on forms. I am currently burning DVD's to get my data off of this drive before it really fails! I live in Australia & are there any other drives worth buying. I use a lot of Lacie products but I think this will be my last D2 drive from them. Any comments.
Thanks Denis

Denis,

I have never been a fan of using self contained external drives. They seem a good idea. Buy one thing and plug it in, but I just don't trust any of them. I have had a Lacie D2 250 die recently from a set of four purchased a few years ago.

I buy Seagate 750 SATA internals and put them in Granite Digital enclosures. The Seagate internals have 5 year warranties for replacement. Any drive can die, but I trust true internal drives sold individually. I can then make whatever mirrored Raid setup I want.

The Seagate 750, 1TB and Hitachi 1TB internals are the best way to go in my opinion. Just build your own setup with the best from dependable vendors. Lacie's problem has been that the bridge used in their enclosures is the weak link moreso than the drives.

I see some local photographers buy the cheapest 500GB external drives and just can't believe they have faith in generic companies and generic products. Lacie gained popularity through marketing and product styling, but that didn't help them with the number of drives mentioned on the web that fail. Of course we only hear about the bad and not the good. So here is the good. I have 4 Seagate 750 Sata drives doing very well in a 4 drive enclosure in Raid 1 config through Apple disk utility.

I second John's comment.

Granite's are less expensive and a great product. The new product that to me has changed the way I do things is Weibetech's RTX 100Q. It is the best drive housing made. With spectacular support.

I only buy Seagate drives now. I recently bought 20 HD's and ten were seagate and ten hitachi. Four of the Hitachi's failed the first month and no Seagates have failed yet. They all cam from different batches as well. From New Egg, Digital Transitions and Tiger Direct.

LaCie has horrible support and the 1TB drives are two 500 striped together. WHICH IS THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO!

They now make a 1TB drive but it is only a fairly recent addition.

Granite Digital and Weibetech are really all you need at any price point. From entry level that will grow with you to major RAID set ups.

Ask for Ken at Granite Digital

Best of luck

Weibetech has great customer service and tech service! You get a real person in Kansas and they stand behind you and the equipment they sell. I have a growing number of them. Previously I used all LaCie but the calls for tech support became too frequent.

Alex, Pittsburgh Digital Tech

http://alexrjones.com/alexrjones/digitaltech.html

Hi Denis,

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience with LaCie. Although I haven't had any problems with their d2 drives myself, I do know quite a few photographers who have.

I live in Australia too (Melbourne) so perhaps I can offer with some local knowledge ...

I did some research on external drives for a client recently and ended up purchasing the Macpower Icecube G2 Super from Express Powermac Solutions. It's available in capacities up to 1 TB, or as a bare box if you want to install SATA drive(s) yourself. Pricing (in A$) is competitve too.

Good luck with the DVD burning ...

Robert
Brave Frog -- Photography + IT

PS To verify image files from your dodgy D2, I can recommend ImageVerifier by Marc Rochkind.

Just another vote against lacie TBs - I had one go down - at least the content was fully backed up

now I use simple cheap 250s and lots of them always at least two copies of everything with the second set kept offsite

I wouldnt bother with DVDs myself a right pain 250s are the new DVDs like CDs were the new ZIPs

S

I agree.

I have stacks of unused DVDs that I bought when I was determined to back up everything (at long last). But then I started buying external HDs, and it's so easy and quick to do automatic backups and swap drives out periodically that my DVDs are just wasting space.

I started with a couple of Lacie's, because I thought it was a respectable name, but now I use external cases with good internal drives (Seagates lately). Easy, fast, and I have multiple backups of all important stuff, with some of the backups well away from the PC.

Another statistic - had two Lacie Externals and both died within a year. And why do they have to make such heavy housings?

I've been using the Firmtek Seritek eSATA enclosure for about 4 months now and I have nothing but great things to say about it. It features dual enclosures and trays for quick swapping. Firmtek's tech support is also very good.

http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-2en2/

I use Newer tech cases with Seagate 500 gig HAD's.
Have not had much trouble. They also come with several extra firewire and USB ports which is quite handy as well.
I NEVER do Raid systems as they can be very problematic and if you get problems on one it is carried to other...
I do 2 Hard Copies of everything then DVD's as the 3rd BAck-up of Just my Picks.
I have also had Lacie's for a couple of years and never had any problems. But have heard of a lot of people in the last couple of years having troubles with Lacie..?
I hate Western Digital.. JUNK in my mind.
Seagates are pretty reliable so far.
Snook

I had 6 lacie drives....2x2TB and 4x1TB....one fialed right after I backed all my info onto it....and 2 other failed within a year after purchase.

So I am done with Lacie...and my advice is to NEVER use them, because 3 failing drives out of 6 is to much!

I bought a 12 drive enclosure and 12 750GB Western Digital drives and it is all working like a charm....for the same money.

Hi
Thanks to everyone for their advice. I have bought a lot of Lacie products but after this experience I think this will be my last. With the drive being 6 months old & when I asked Lacie here in Australia if they would give me a credit towards another Lacie product, they said NO. having spent $700.00 AUD at the time, I could have used that money for something else.
Thanks Denis

Denis,

I am very happy with a couple of G-Technology external drives. They are extremely reliable compared to some of the LaCies I owned (and dumped) myself. G-Techs are widely used by video professionals as well. A bit more expensive, but well worth it.

I'd go with a G-Drive or G-Drive-Q. Here's a link to the Australian distributor's site:
http://www.provis.com.au/products/storage/gtech/gdrive_q.htm

Cheers,

Andrew

Have any of you tried Drobo for storage of large image files? Maybe this is an easier/better alternative to RAID (which is something I don't want to get involved with). Dunno - but this product looks like it might be a great.

Jack

I saw a demo of the Drobo, the unit looked nice but the transfer rate was very slow. I just use Seagate pro drives. 750 drive onsale is $179.00.

Maybe because it's a usb 2 connection (vs. FW 800 or 400) and not because of the drive(s) themselves.

Jack

100% its the usb 2 that makes it slow, that why I use seagate freeagent pro with esata.

pixjohn TX! I know I said no RAID but Infrant raids look very interesting. Here's a YouTube video for your info..

I think I'll go to my grave warning people about the experiences I had with Lacie mass storage products. I had 4 (yes 4!) D2 250Gb drives which failed, plus a DVD/CD writer which also failed. Only my 500Gb big disk is still working.

The secret to mass storage on the PC is to get one built with a motherboard like the Abit AB9 Pro. That supports about 9 drives and three or four RAID arrays. Couple that with dockable drives (like the ICY dock range) and you get a one box solution to support up to 9 TB of data. It also has an eSATA port that can be used with external bare drives for extra backup, if three or four dockable drives aren't enough.

I also recommend Antec tower cases which can accommodate 9 drives including up to three or four of the icy docs. In addition drives are suspended on silicone pads, so its a very quiet computer.

Icy Dock

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo...roductID=502809

Antec Case

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126946

Abit probably have newer motherboards than the Ab9 pro which are better, mine is over a year old now.

me too. I've written here for years about what dreadful products La Cie have with appalling failure rates. but somehow people keep getting suckered into buying them with their shiny aluminum cases. Apple owners seems especially susceptible to them. It wouldn't matter, but its photographers work getting trashed here by these dreadful products.

AVOID LACIE!

Every time a MFDB manufacturer raises the bar on resolution and therefore file size, I wince. Archiving, backing up, etc. image files is a big, big problem and it's getting worse and simply has to be addressed ASAP. I hear what everyone is saying about Lacie. But I've heard that said about many hard drive manufacturers. I think it's the nature of the beast: hard drives fail and I guess the best that one could do is buy a redundant system - RAID - or whatever. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who is losing sleep over this problem. RAID has possibilities but then I have to become a part-time IT person. The Drobo solution is good but slow, maybe the Infrant/Netgear solution is the best. I just dunno. . . .

Jack

Hi
I will be taking back my Lacie 1TB for repair next week. In the meantime I bought a WD 500 GB drive & a fire wire enclosure for $200.00 AUD to back up. I also bought a Taurus Raid enclosure that I will put Seagate drives into. For a drive 6 months old I was not impressed with the attitude of Lacie here in Sydney!!! Has anyone used the products from macsales.com? They have enclosures.
Thanks to everyone for there time on this issue.

Hi
Update it was the power supply & not the drive in the end. This drive will be used for backup storage. I will invest in mirrored drive enclosures from now on though. Seems like everyone has an opinion between WD or SG drives?
Thanks Denis