So what is the big deal about Lacie externals?

[Steven1621]

I am in the market for another external hard drive for my PB. Thus far, I have been very happy with Macally enclosures and Seagate HDDs (Note my sig). However, people on these boards constantly espouse the greatness of the various Lacie products. This leaves me wondering: What makes these drives so good? Do they have some advantage over putting together an external like I have been doing? I am curious. Someone please enlighten me.

 

[nichos]

I am in the market for another external hard drive for my PB. Thus far, I have been very happy with Macally enclosures and Seagate HDDs (Note my sig). However, people on these boards constantly espouse the greatness of the various Lacie products. This leaves me wondering: What makes these drives so good? Do they have some advantage over putting together an external like I have been doing? I am curious. Someone please enlighten me.

I can't say if they offer anything above and beyond other ext. drives, but we use then all the time and work, and have yet to have one die, at all, period. Not even so much as a bad sector, nothing. When we first got them, i was thinking "who the heck is Lacie?" But now I place them right up there w/Maxtor and WD. To quote another brand, they just work All that that being said, since we have never had a problem w/them, we've never had to deal w/their warr. or cust. support, so i cant comment on that.

 

[dops7107]

For me it was a matter of economics, really. For a triple interface drive it was cheaper and easier just to get an all-in-one external than mix and match with a drive and enclosure. MacAlly is relatively pricey here in the UK, and when you include postage, cables and hassle the Lacie looked much more attractive. And should the drive fail... well, open her up and you've got a triple interface enclosure.

 

[EricNau]

Since ~Shard~ doesn't seem to be here to say it:

Lacie doesn's make the actual HDD, they just put it in an enclosure.

 

[Steven1621]

Since ~Shard~ doesn't seem to be here to say it:

Lacie doesn's make the actual HDD, they just put it in an enclosure.

This leaves the question: What is so good about their enclosures to warrant such a following?

 

[iMeowbot]

There are plenty of happy LaCie users, and plenty of horror stories too (for a good time, search the apple support forum for LaCie). They use the same innards (not just the drives) as everyone else, this shouldn't be a surprise.

The real advantages? They have some case trim you can't buy from anyone else, and they bundle some useful software. They're great choices for people who don't know (and don't want to know) what parts they need to buy to get something that will work together. Reliability is about average, that's simply unavoidable with commodity parts.

 

[Synapple]

There's an interesting discussion about Lacie drives here

My 160 Gb is kinda noisy and I therefore suggested in that thread to just put a good drive in good enclosure... most of the posters, though, didn't seem to agree... lots of good experiences with Lacies...

 

[lexfuzo]

no idea

I have a no-name external drive, chose the cheapest available with FW.
Inside is a Samsung disk.
It's assembled in China and came with a two-year warranty.
Until now, it has been fast and reliable.
Even the case looks quite ok, no cheap or ugly plastics.

LaCie would have cost about 50% more but I still don't see the advantage..

 

[Platform]

Well the once that have the single drives in them are fanless and cool still.

FW800 is good for speed too

 

[wako]

There truthfully is NO advantages over a 200gb external HDD of a LaCie over a then say a 200gb WD. There might be a price difference but other then that its all the same.

Reason why people rave about them? They look better.

 

[iGary]

Loudest pieces of pooh in the known external hard drive world.

I have a Maxtor (of all brands) sitting next to a 1TB Lacie and the maxtor is SILENT. I can...actually....leave it on....all the time (instead of putting what I need on the Lacie and turning it off before I rip it out of the wall and throw the POS out the window).

 

[Synapple]

Loudest pieces of pooh in the known external hard drive world.

I have a Maxtor (of all brands) sitting next to a 1TB Lacie and the maxtor is SILENT. I can...actually....leave it on....all the time (instead of putting what I need on the Lacie and turning it off before I rip it out of the wall and throw the POS out the window).

Signed.

 

[Temujin]

Well the Lacie drives, let's take the 250 GB, has a search time of 10 sec, as most of their drives do.
Many other brands have search times of 8 sec.

If your not looking for a 500GB+ drive I would advice you to go for a "do it your self" kit. Pick out a good drive and enclosure. You'll get faster search times, and your wallet won't hurt so much.