Customer Reviews

Hi-Speed USB 2.0 500GB Hard Drive, Design by Porsche

5 star:		(107)
4 star:		(63)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(44)

 

 

This is my 4th LaCie external drive. I've been running the 160GB and two 250s for 4+ and 2+ years, respectively. I use one as a primary shared repository for files on the home network, including the TiVo. The others are backups. The share drive has been on 24/7 for 2 years. The other drives are only turned on when I need them.

I've seen mixed reviews for these drives, but my experience has been very positive. With the usage outlined above, I have had reliable, fast, and zero-maintenance operation.

OK, this is the USB version, but I bought the Firewire version. It was a hard choice, but the Firewire is reported to be faster in the real world (even though the technical specs put them close: check out the debate on USB 2 vs Firewire 400).

I had previously bought the smaller version LaCie Porsche Design drive (about 120 GB), and filled it in short order with simple, manual clicking and dragging. Not so the 500 GB. I used SuperDuper to image my MacBook Pro 111 GB drive to it. I only have about 80 GB on it. It took a bit to copy it completely (and do the file checking along the way) and make a bootable image. I want to say more than an hour -- less than two. I then did something radical: I plugged it in as the start-up drive on my iMac at work, and it ran smoothly and without incident. I wasn't sure if the MacBook Pro bootable would run the iMac, but there was no problem.

The drive runs very quietly; I do not hear whirring or otherwise. It's warm to the touch. My previous smaller one did not require an external supply and ran much cooler. This one does require external power. Compared to the elegance of the drive, the power supply is bulky and awkward. The Firewire version was about $170 from LaCIe, but the USB 2 version is substantially cheaper from Amazon. You decide what interface suits you. There is no mention on the LaCie website of a potential Firewire 800 which I would have preferred to purchase.

By the way, I now do SmartUpdate (in SuperDuper) from the MacBook Pro to the LaCie drive and it takes about 20-30 minutes to completely update all the files. I also checked the drive afterwards with disk utility software and found no corrupt files or bad blocks. Although it took me awhile to do this, it did give me peace of mind that the LaCie product (like its predecessor) is a quality drive.

What a deal. 500 GB.

PS: More recent weekly SmartUpdates take under 13 minutes. It must be getting smarter.

I now have about 8 Lacie external USB drives and they have all been great.

This one is fast, quiet, well designed and easy to install and use. Unlike the 250 GB drives, this one does have a fan, but it is whisper quiet. I acutally did not know it was there until I noticed the vents and put my finger there and could feel the air flow. Then I listened carefully and could hear it (up close). But you will never notice it in normal use.

Easy to install, very cool design, fast, works good. Sounds like a five to me. ;)

I bought this drive four months ago strictly to do backups. It worked during very occasional use until today when it died completely with no warning. When I first used it I noticed substantial heat buildup and so made it a point to turn the drive off except when I was actually doing a backup. Over the course of four months I filled the drive to roughly 70% of its actual capacity and was doing a backup today when it froze up. I let it cool off for an hour then powered it back on but its functionality is now limited to producing a clicking sound. I recently retired from 32+ years in the computer field and this isn't the fastest disk failure I've seen but it was one of the fastest. I would not recommend using this drive on a daily basis and not for anything but backup where you don't intend to delete the original files. IF LaCie replaces this I'll give the replacement to someone I don't like very much and shell out a bit more for a drive I can trust.
Their backup software wasn't nearly as good as the freeware backup I normally use. It starts a background process which serves no apparent purpose except to display their logo on the screen every time you log in. Running their backup creates a log which can only be read from a miniature box that displays when the backup is finished. There's no option to save the log or even look at it in a full sized window. I'd be embarrassed to distribute the program even as freeware.

I bought this drive because I wanted to have a fan on a drive with this much capacity for maximum reliability. I am completely happy with it:

- This design is the most compact stackable desk drive that I have seen.
- It requires no installation of any description with Win 2000 and later versions.
- The software is simple and very basic but might prove useful to non-tech friendly people (just one click will back up everything in "My Documents" for those who have trouble undrestanding where their files are actually stored).
- The "smart fan" makes it as quiet as the BEST laptops.
- The styling is understated and timeless, not flashy.

I had a couple of USB cables already, so I used one of those for connecting to my desktop but I actually LIKE the short cable that came with it for CONNECTING TO LAPTOPS (who wants 6ft of USB cable trailing across their desk?).

I also like the push on/off button which I find easy to use by feel alone, which some other reviewers have criticised here (and on other LaCie drives) and which I find much easier to use than the fiddly slider switch I have on my older LaCie drive.

The only thing I do not like so much is the rather large power brick, but at least it is not one of those transformer sockets that take up too much space on surge protectors and it is no larger than the bricks shipping with many other peripherals (or even many laptops, for that matter).

I bought this as a replacement for a Western Digital WDG1U5000 My Book Essential Edition 500 GB Hard Drive, which failed the first time I tried to copy a large file to it!
The LaCie drive is very compact, nicely finished, AND WORKS.
Other reviews have complained that it gets very hot, but that is not my experience. It does get very warm, but not to the point that you can't touch it. The unit is quiet and if there is a fan, it must be pretty small.
The comments about the length of the USB cable are correct. It is unnecessarily short and is the reason that I have given it only 4 stars. For me it is no problem as I have a collection of USB cables and it is actually nice to have a short one for when I am using the drive next to my laptop.
If you are considering getting this or a WD product, go for this. There are no bells and whistles on this drive, no automatic shut down when your computer goes to sleep. Which means that there is nothing to go wrong! The on/off push switch is small and unobtrusive, but it is completely positive in its action and unlike the WD that I had, doesn't suddenly decide for you in the middle of a file transfer that it wants to shut the drive down!!

Compact, nice-looking, robust. I bought a LaCie 250GB drive two years ago, and now my 500GB stacks neatly on top of it on the visble grooves. They're both the same size, too, and this 500GB model also has a fan.

The newer models have a push-button power switch and what I believe to be an automatic power-off function if the drive idles for a period of time. My older 250GB has a switch instead, so I have to turn it off manually when I'm not using it.

The USB cable is oddly short, but the power cables are long; I suppose LaCie meant for you to have this drive near your computer where you could reach the power button anyway, but packaging an extension cable would have been nice.

The drive is very quiet and quite speedy. I'm likely to see myself buying a LaCie 1TB drive in the next two years.

The drive works well so far. Transfers are fast and quiet. I've had a number of internal hard drives fail, so I'm rather backup obsessed. I bought it in part because it has its own fan, which I hope will extend its life span. It's a bit heavy and bulky to lug around (think brick) but I'm using it as a home backup only. It seems very well made.

The unit does have an on/off button but it's positively hidden in the back and doesn't look like a switch. It has a very unobtrusive light in front to let you know it's on. I hope Lacie didn't pay Porsche too much for this "design;" someone in Mesopotamia beat Porsche to this "design" by several thousand years.

Update after 6 months: Still works fine. I use it as a backup for digital photos, and I never thought I could fill such a huge HD, but I probably will have this filled in another year. Then I guess I'll buy another.

This is my second 500 gb lacie. I purchased one in 2006 for Acronis back-up images and it is rock solid and quiet. I bought another in 2007 for video and music. They appear identical, however the new drive has a smaller power supply. I reformatted both drives for NTFS before using them. The new one is making noises when read/writing that the first one has never made and this was from the moment I connected it. These are drive mechanism sounds, not fan noise. After 1 week, the drive failed and Windows XP would no longer recognize it. (There goes my videos, photos, etc.) I installed and ran the excellent Acronis Disk Director utility software and was able to correct the file structure and resurrect the drive. I immediately backed up the files to another disk(whew!), and the new Lacie is still working for the moment, weird sounds and all, but I don't feel I can trust it with sole copies of photos and such. They must be using different drives in their enclosures from production run to production run...I can't recommend it.

Most external hard drives look like electronic dumpsters. Not this drive. I actually LIKE looking at it on my desktop. Sure it's not lightening fast but what USB external backup drive is? I didn't buy it for speed. I bought it to back up my files which it does just fine. I have now purchased three of these drives and I'm happy with every one of them.

Yes, if you want to store files larger than 4 Gb the drive must be formatted to NTFS from FAT32.

Other than that, the drive worked just as it was advertised and it's one of the most elegant pieces of hardware on my desktop.

I bought it through Amazon.com and the price was very competitive. I feel this drive represents a good value if you're looking for a large, good looking backup drive.