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Recto Bold · Jul 9, 2005, 06:07 AM

I'd be interested to get feedback on LaCie drives. I've been using them for quite a while now and of the 3 I have owned, 1 has died and another (after ridiculously little use, but out of warranty) has started to tick, like it is about to fail. Friends of mine have also had a lot of problems with the drives dying and data being lost. Does anyone else have this kind of experience with LaCie stuff or are we just unlucky?

d.fine · Jul 9, 2005, 07:21 AM

I have 1 LaCie Porsche designed mobile 80GB FW400 HD for backup purposes and I'm pretty happy with it. I've had no problems. Then again my use is minimal, that being 2-3 times a week for 5-10 minutes to back up my data.

all2ofme · Jul 9, 2005, 04:58 PM

I have a 250GB Porsche Lacie drive that didn't mount a few times on my Powerbook. Never worked out why, but it's been fine since (and had been fine beforehand). Nice drive.

bmmp · Jul 9, 2005, 07:41 PM

I've had a 100 GB Lacie at work that has died twice and needed to be saved with (thank God) Disk Warrior.
I don't like Lacie's hard drives based on what I've heard from others as well.

I do like Lacie's DVD-R Drives though. I've actually dropped mine a couple of times from my desk, (which is a good 2 feet off the ground) and it runs just fine.

Tenacious Dyl · Jul 10, 2005, 06:07 PM

I owned:

1) Lacie Aluminum Firewire enclosure w/ 60 GBS, 7,200 rpm, 8 mb cache. I owned it for 2 years, and sold it, and the owner still uses it with NO problems. It is a beautiful drive.

2) Lacie 48x Aluminum Firewire CD-RW drive. Again, owned for 2 years, NO problems, and then sold, and is still working with no problems.

From my experience... an absolutely wonderful product. No complaints what so ever. I used both drives FREQUENTLY by the way.

david33 · Jul 11, 2005, 01:24 AM

I bought a Lacie Triple Interface 160 GB drive in April and it just died. I connected it to my powerbook and it started smoking for no apparent reason. It's fried and my info is lost forever. I may have used it no more than 10 times for backing up my computer. My only consolation, albeit a small one, is that the drive is still under warranty. I'd stay away if I were you, but that's just my opinion.

I've never seen a drive actually smoke before!?!?!

esXXI · Jul 11, 2005, 01:37 AM

Aren't some LaCie drives internally Maxtor ones? Two friends of mine have said how in Disk Utility and System Profiler that their drives were reported as being "Maxtor" ones.

Either way, my external 160GB FW400 has been great. Feels faster than my eMac's internal when booting from it and I've had no problems what so ever.

analogika · Jul 11, 2005, 06:16 AM

The Porsche drive enclosures seem flaky - I've seen a lot of erratic problems, with the hard drive failing to show up occasionally or permanently.

The d2 aluminum enclosures (which include the triple extreme drives) appear to be great.

gbarill · Jul 11, 2005, 09:50 AM

yeah i have a 160gb porsche one and it's a bit flaky.

i think the problems have to do with overheating, when it's hot my hard drive has problems reading. one time i noticed it was completely having problems, and i felt it and it was really hot. threw it in the fridge for a few minutes and after it cooled off it worked much better... that was a realization for me.. i'm thinking of building a little stand for it to sit on with cooling fans built in, that might help

Recto Bold · Jul 11, 2005, 02:32 PM

Wow - Wide range of opinion then. Seems like as many are happy as unhappy. Thanks for the response. I think that next time I may stray from the LaCie path and see what else is out there. Anyone have any other FW800 External HD recommendations? It's a shame, as the LaCies are lovely looking drives.