[introducingimacs]

I have borrowed this 120gb lacie tough drive that I expected would be "tough" so i put it in my backpack while travelling.
The case is dented all over (it's really thin material) and when I start it it just hums but won't make enough rpm to show on the desktop (macbook 2/2)
I took off the case which is held together by some clips on the sides and I see no damage.

This sucks. It's got many backups on it.

[mduell]

Sounds pretty typical for LaCie; I bet you paid a pretty penny for it too.

[Spheric Harlot]

FWIW, I have eight LaCie drives (six d2, one Porsche, and one Neil Poulton - all of them 3.5" drives), and the only trouble i've had (apart from confusion caused by the fact that the one Porsche design drive I have needs to be dis-/reconnected after powering down because the bridge isn't switched off by the power switch) is two power supplies dying over the years, both of which were promptly replaced by LaCie.

My d2 drives are rock-solid, as are the dozen or so in use by various colleagues and friends (except for one which a friend managed to fry by connecting the wrong power supply. Oh.).

Oddly, most of the laptop hard drives I've seen die did so without the laptop being dented out of shape.

And honestly, if you're managing to dent the tough drive case, it's kind of silly to expect a mechanical hard drive inside there to take that sort of handling, *regardless* of padding.

Shock-proofing is rubber and physics, not magic.

[brassplayersrock²]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Sounds pretty typical for LaCie; I bet you paid a pretty penny for it too.

[introducingimacs]

I disagree, Tough means solid, and I did nothing extraordinary with the case : The outer casing is as thin as paper. If tough just means "orange rubber around" LaCie needs to check their marketing division.

for comparison : The Olympus 770Mju is a tough camera.

[IceEnclosure]

Hard drives are certainly more sensitive than a digital camera. If it were a flash-based HD, that'd stand a better chance of course. I don't think I buy into any manufacturers claims of their external drive being "tough", regardless of some orange rubber coating along the edges.