Customer Reviews

LaCie d2 Quadra 301110U 500 GB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

As of this writing, you can get the predecessor LaCie 500Gb HDD for $115 shipped. It's a very nice unit that is extremely cost efficient, but with one drawback: it gets very hot when used for a long while. Otherwise, it's a fine and reliable hard disk drive. So, why pay $70 more for this new Quadra HDD that has the same size storage?

First off, the older LaCie is only USB 2.0 compatible. Second, it has just an 8Mb cache. And lastly, it is only designed for horizontal placement, not vertical.

This new Quadra design cools off the unit better. It still gets very warm, but not as bad as its predecessor. I never let these external drives frequently run for hours on end anyway, but when you're doing an overnight download you don't want to heat up the room!

Next, it has a 16Mb cache--double its predecessor. You won't see 2x times performance necessarily, but it is definitely better.

But where this HDD really shines is in the quad connections (hence "Quadra"). It supports USB 2.0, Firewire 400/800, and eSATA. If you have an old computer system, you can transfer media via USB. And if you have a newer system that supports the faster Firewire or eSATA, this device will keep up nicely. So this makes for a great "technology bridge" storage device, able to work with older and newer computers. If you've got an old PC or Mac and you're looking to upgrade in the near future, getting this HDD will let you have the faster transfer rates when you upgrade.

Why not 5 stars? Well, I do find the workmanship of the external casing not as solid as the older LaCie. For $70 more, you shouldn't have to sacrifice the casing quality. So, it's not as great for portability--not an issue if you're keeping it at home.

One final note: the need for faster transfer rates depends upon how you use your storage. If you're only looking for a simple backup HDD and speed is not of the essence for you, go with the cheaper 500Gb LaCie. But if you plan to watch video media directly from your external HDD, definitely go with this one. And if you've got space limitations requiring a vertical placement, you'll want to go with this HDD as well.

Like everyone else, I continue to add new photo's, music and videos everyday and a large capacity external HDD is more of a necessity than ever. It's also great for scheduled backups for your PC/Mac. I've had this unit for over a year now and have been impressed with its design, (quiet, low heat, firewire, 800/400 USB2) and most of all reliability. 5 Stars for Lacie.

Excellent hard drive. Great value for all the space. I had it connected to my Mac and up and running in about 5 minutes. No problems or complaints.

I was a little hesitant about this drive based on some of the reviews. However after talking with a number of people, and based on my previous good experiences with Lacie. I decided to go ahead and get it. I'm using through the FW800 interface (which is great as it's a port I otherwise would not use) as a Time Machine back up volume with Mac OS X. The drive is reasonably quiet and has performed flawlessly so far doing hourly system backups. The visual design of it is nice, and compliments the Aluminum iMac. It's not an eyesore on the desk by any stretch. I opted to lie it flat rather than stand so that it occupies "dead" desk space beneath the display.

The package included all the cables need for any interface hook-up, a foot for mounting the drive vertically, and a disk of software (which, honestly, I haven't looked at).

In all, I'm very happy with it.

I researched hard drives for a while before buying the LaCie D2 500GB Quadra. I'm using it with Logic & Pro Tools, often with a MacBook Pro, so I needed the FW800, and so far it has been working great. It's fairly quiet and easy to use and isn't overly bulky. It looks like a regular hard drive, nothing fancy; I do like that it can be vertical or on it's side... LaCie includes little rubber feet for the bottom if you wish to do this. The other models I considered were the G-Tech 500GB (almost twice the cost for the same features, but only 8MB cache) and the LaCie Little Big Disk (half the size, twice the cost, with smaller HD size). For the money I don't think there's a better hard drive available.

Product worked great for 1 year and inexplicably the HD failed and no longer works. As an IT person, I've tried everything (swapping out cables, power and even tried connecting the device to my laptop and backup PC). It was good while it lasted. Now I've lost 100GB of data. If you plan on buying, please remember to backup your LaCie HD.

I bought this drive at the first sign of trouble with my laptop. I backed up the data on Saturday and my laptop's hard drive crashed on Sunday. Great timing.

This is my 4th LaCie drive, and they have all worked without any issues.
For those that have experienced their LaCie drives crashing, I wouldn't say it's not impossible, but it isn't typical, either.

My only problem with the drive is the price. Comparable drives are less expensive, yet LaCie continues to charge what I consider to be a little more than they should.

If you can afford it, you probably won't do much better for a solid (heavy) external drive.

This is a great, sturdy external drive. I have purchased and used about 6 externals over the years, starting with SCSI, then USB, etc. This drive is rock solid, built like a tank (weighs about 3 pounds) and has four interfaces so it will work on anything. I run it on a Mac using Firewire 800. I pulled it out of the box, slid on the bottom plate, plugged it in and it works perfectly, as LaCie products always do. It's rackable if you desire. The aluminum case cools it well - the first thing I did was to clone my 300 GB hard drive to it (takes about 4 hours on a Mac because cloning is much slower than copying) and the drive got only slightly warm. It's quiet. The auto power feature is nice (powers down when not in use). I haven't tried the one-touch button yet but it's an intriguing feature. This drive also comes with all the cables you need (eSata, USB, firewire 400 and firewire 800, and power). Many drives don't give you all the cables and they add a lot to the total cost. This unit is ready out of the box. Can't go wrong with this one.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard due, I wanted a decent size external firewire drive for the new Time Machine backup feature. I purchased this one due to its size and the fact that its already formated in a mac format. Some people were having issues with the time machine feature not working because of other drives being in a windows format. It's not difficult to reformat the drive, but its just nice not having to. The only draw back about this drive, its a little loud. But I have had louder so I can live with it.

I got it, captured about 400 gig of video onto it, set it aside for about eight months, tried to use it, and it was dead. I lost all that video. I know I should have backed it up, but I've got like 12 Iomega hard drives and none of them has ever died like this. Maybe I just got a bad one, but that really didn't matter to me when I was ripping my hair out.