Customer Reviews

1TB LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Disk eSATA 3Gbits USB Firewire 400 & 800

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I've read some awful reviews about LaCie external hard drives but in my own experience they are excellent value for money and every bit as reliable as more costly alternatives such as G-Tech (I have both).

As a video editor, I currently have six LaCie HDs - the older ones have served me faithfully for years.

Having spoken to an engineer from G-Tech, I truly believe that most problems with external HDs are caused by inadvertent movement (maybe of the desk or table they rest on). Put your HD up on a form shelf where it will be free from vibration or accidental knocks and it should serve you well.

The tiniest movement while discs are rotating at such a fantastic speed, can be fatal.

We've used LaCie equipment with our Macs at work for many years without any problems but when I bought an iMac and Macbook for home use I decided to go for Seagate Freeagent drives to save money. I purchased others for other backups at work. The sad fact is that out of five Seagate drives purchased, three have now failed. One was replaced under warranty (all data lost). One was opened to try to recover data and then binned. Now number 3 has failed so I have spent a little extra on this LaCie drive. It is identical to one which has worked non-stop for 18 months at work. LaCie will have my business from now on and Seagate have no chance!

Excellent external drive, exactly what I was looking for: it makes no noise, doesn't get hot, runs fast, has a nice choice of connection ports, works perfectly under Windows & MAC OS, and is plug and play. So far, I've had no problems with it, and would gladly buy another one like this when i run out of storage space.

Used for Protools with my iMac on Firewire 800, then attached a firewire 400 audio interface to this device. All works absolutely fine, no problems. Only slight issue is that the drive is a bit noisy, but this can be solved by putting it under a desk !
Bought a LaCie drive five years ago and still going strong and this one is built just as solidly.
Highly recommended.

... I can only imagine the people who have commented to report nightmare scenarios above are running Windows software... no offence implied to Windows users but these things work great on a Mac, always have.

I'm on my 8th drive, still running an old 250GB original Lacie unit for backups and running all kinds of RAID arrays and Time Machine configs for high end video and general use, I also have 6 of the 1TB Lacies such as this and one of the BIG 2TB units.

I'm travelling a lot so they fly around in well-packed flight cases, but (touch wood) I've never had a real problem with reliability and data security.

Even better, when my power supply failed (after five years!) one brief phone call to the London office and the guy sent me a new one, no questions asked, and it arrived within 48 hours. Maybe I got lucky.

I think if there's an issue with the power supplies, buy two, it's worth ordering two PSUs to be able to run these drives, nothing else can handle the data like these bricks can. Sure, they are heavy, but they're built for serious business.

If you want simple ethernet backup or dainty USB photo storage, buy from WD or some other plastic company.

If you want military specification drives that really do look after your data then invest in the proper stuff.

Just make sure when you buy one, you have the direct line of the official distributor, just in case you have trouble with the power supply unit, though it seems to be a DC Output 5V (2.2A) / 12V (2.2A) 38W standard positive-pin supply that many other 12v UK peripherals require.

They're a bit noisy compared to some, but nothing you'd notice if it's under the desk.

In fact the clickety-click of your data being saved in chunks is actually quite reassuring.

I've seen a lot of precious data disappear on other brands of drive, including G-Drives.

I will admit I won't run these in a horizontal configuration, because they were designed to stand upright, but that's only because I never gamble with my precious data!

I rate these things 5 stars, and I'm usually the first to pick faults in computer peripherals.

I just can't fault them. They're swift and they work great on a Mac working with HD video. That's all I need them for.

I hope this review was helpful and I don't get flamed to hell for implying that PC machines might not be as compatible with these drives, I just don't know of any serious failure stories in the world of Mac with these.

I never seem to learn. The LaCie drive in that category over time (250GB, then 500GB, then 1TB) is often cheaper than the competition, and every time I think it can't fail again, and that all the feedback about drives overheating and failing must have been taken on board by the company.

And every time the drive fails anywhere between 1-2 years.

I'm switching now to Freecom or Western Digital. They might be more expensive, but it's cheaper than buying extra replacement Lacie drives...

I've got this drive after having it recommended by a friend of mine who works in IT. At that time I needed something with universal connectivity options, and very reliable. Well, I haven't been disappointed, my lacie d2 works like a charm, and it was extremely easy to set up with the Time Machine. After a little more than a year of trouble-free use, I'm very happy with this drive and planning on buying the 2TB version soon.

Bought one 1TB LaCie d2 Quadra about a year and a half ago. Until a couple of months ago it was working fine but now it loses connection with the computer very quickly and I hardly manage to access any data on it. Tried different computers interfaces and cables: same!
Very disappointing and unreliable. Nice design, though, but what can I do with a nice looking useless metal box...

Im a TV producer and need drive to manage fast data rates and mass srtorage for HD video etc. This drive has a bog standard Hitachi spinning hard drive inside it which (at the best of times) will not work well if positioned on its side like Lacie have made it do. The only thing you are paying for here which is made by lacie is the casing (and even that could be someone else). I stupidly bought this one and it completely broke just because my computer crashed while I was writing to the disk.

Strongly recommend people pursue a RAID drive or similar (RAID back up all the data automatically and store a duplicate on a second drive burried within the ame unit) such as the G-Tech range (cut and paste: G-RAID4 1000GB FW800/USB2/eSATA) into your amazon search. They cost more but are professional quality and wont have you replacing you £100 hard drive every year as Lacie would have you do.

GOOD LUCK - drives can be a nightmare.

14 months old and still on warranty. Power supply now dead. Contacting LaCie in France by mail and fax returned a no answer. Opened the disk case knowing that I`ll loose warranty and guess what you have inside - 1 Hitachi Deskstar Disk. Fortunately the disk works in my docking station and I could get all my data. Don`t buy from LaCie. Bad quality products. Company not reliable.