[CJG86]

I am looking for a external hard drive and came across the LaCie PowerDrive. I am wondering if there is any one that has owned one or does own one can tell me if it works well when not using the power supply and just powering through the firewire port. If any one has any other sugestions on portable hard drives let me know. I am also looking for a good piece of software that will let me backup my entire hard drive on my mac.

Thanks In Advance

[Luca Rescigno]

Lacie drives ship with SilverKeeper, a buggy backup software program that works but will often require you to specify what you want to back up over and over again. It just doesn't remember well. Anyway, it's better than just dragging everything over every week, because it only moves files that have been changed.

I'd suggest making your own portable hard drive though. Go to www.newegg.com and buy a cheap 2.5" bus-powered Firewire case, and the 2.5" hard drive of your choice. I made myself a 40 GB portable bus powered hard drive for around $160, when 40 GB portables were doing for $200 most places. Now I'm selling it actually, if you're interested...

I'd just have to contend that assembling the hard drive yourself is the best way to go because it's so much cheaper. For example, 3.5" desktop firewire hard drives are usually $160-$180 from most places right now, but I got one for $110 today from NewEgg by buying the hard drive and case separately.

EDIT: In case it was unclear, I actually kind of like SilverKeeper, it's just frustrating to use sometimes. Also, it's available as a free download even if you don't buy a Lacie drive, so it's not like you have to buy a Lacie in order for it to work. If you want to do any serious backups, use a real backup utility. SilverKeeper (the OS X version at least) does not support scheduling.

[voyageur]

If you don't decide to build your own, as the previous poster suggested, I can tell you that the LaCie PocketDrives have worked very well for me. We have been using them where I work with Retrospect to back up our server and and a few clients for over a year now, and they have been reliable. We had one that went bad after a month, but LaCie replaced it without a hassle.

[CJG86]

I am thinking about going with the LaCie. I am wondering how well it works when powered by the firewire. Does it ever just turn off?

Thanks

[mmihalik]

PocketDrive works fine as bus powered drive. Just need to use the built-in 6-pin FireWire connection on a Mac. Most Macs turn off bus power when shutdown. Works with PowerBooks, iBooks, iMacs, and PowerMacs.

There is no separate power switch for the PocketDrive.

When in doubt, PocketDrive also ships with an AC adapter.

If you want to turn off the drive, simply unmount from desktop, and unplug.

Also, SilverKeeper 1.1 is now available at www.silverkeeper.com, and it now fully supports OS X scheduling.

Mike

PS I am affiliated with LaCie

[tooki]

I used a PocketDrive extensively at my last FT job... I never once used its AC adapter, just bus powered, which works fine, as expected (even on PowerBooks, even when running on battery, even when booted off the drive and you put it to sleep... it wakes up fine).

tooki