Customer Reviews

LaCie 301826U d2 Quadra 750 GB eSATA/FireWire800/FireWire400/USB 2.0 External Hard Disk

5 star:		(82)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I have been considering an external HD for some time now. Most of the research that I have done points to a couple of problems that I want to avoid: noise, and heat. Recent reviews of the LaCie d2 Quadra seem to indicate that the noise and heat problems have been greatly reduced in this HD. Well, I was suprised to discover that is not EXACTLY correct, the heat and noise problems have actually been totally eliminated.

Pros:

1) The drive small and sturdy - the weighted base plate has a footprint of only 6.5" x 2.5". With the base plate attached, the HD has enough weight to prevent it from moving about.

2) The drive is very easy to set up - it is a total no-brainer and takes just a few minutes to follow the simple setup procedure.

3) The drive is quiet - there is no fan so there is no noise... period!!!

4) The drive does not get hot - with the unique "the whole case is a heat-sink" design this drive stays cool to the touch even after running all day long.

5) The drive just looks good - the drive design is very simple, but for some reason it looks quite stylish at the same time.

6) The drive comes with every connection that you could possibly need - I hate getting gear that does not have a cable or connector or what-not. That is not the case with this HD, it has every concievable connector included in the box. Depending on your computer's installation location an additional USB extension cable might prove helpful though.

Cons:

1) A bit on the expensive side - but IMHO worth the extra money.

2) User Guide not complete - OK, there is very little that has to be in this tiny user guide, but there is no reason after setting up the HD that you would look at it and say "What the heck does that thing do?". Nowhere, either in the user guide, nor on the manufacturer's website could I find information on what the "Shortcut Button with Active LED" does (there is a one-line reference in the user guide that says "5. Install LaCie Shortcut Button software to enable the feature" but it does not tell you what will happen if you install that software). Now that button is like a big blue eye that always stares at you and blinks whenever the drive is active. The software to install the Shortcut button is pre-loaded on the HD (as is all the other required software for PC and Mac), just find it and run it from there. What the software does is give you 3 options to assign to the button: 1) 1-click backup, 2) 1-click launch of a user selected application, and 3) No Action - Button Disabled.

3) The drive is NOT really 500GB. After setting mine up it had only 465GB of storage. Now that is a lot of storage, but by the same token the missing 35GB is a lot of lost storage space. Removing all of the multi-language documentation that is preloaded on the HD made no difference what-so-ever, it is really a 465GB HD.

That is about it. I love this HD so far, and would make the same choice again. I consider it a very smart buy.

I'm in shock.

Having just moved from Windows to Mac (OS X 10.5.2) I'm used to long, involved nightmare hardware installations. Between OS X and the utilities supplied by LaCie on this drive, the whole business was up and running in about ten minutes. It took me longer to figure out which was the FireWare 800 cable than it did to finish the rest of the installation!

I have a new iMac with both FireWire 400 and 800 ports, and I'm using the LaCie as my Time Machine drive, so I opted to use the fastest interface available, the FireWire 800. The installation had four steps:

1. Physically attach the footplate to the drive so it could sit on its thin side, as in the photo with this review. Tools: included Allen wrench. Time: 60 sec

2. Attach the FW800 cable and the power supply. Plug in same. Tools: none. Time: 60 sec.

3. Turn on the drive. Tools: finger. Time: 15 sec.

4. Click through the installation program that pops up on the screen. The last click is to inform OS X that this will be my TimeMachine drive. Tools: mouse, finger. Time: 5 min.

Total time: 7.25 min. (It took me about 2.5 minutes to figure out which cable to use.)

The FireWire interface is so fast, it did the initial TimeMachine 30GB backup in about 30 minutes.

The drive is quiet, it's fast, and it has a cool blue light on the front. It also has an auto power switch that detects when the iMac is seeking from the drive and switches on drive power.

What's not to like?

I owned a 250GB LaCie Triple Interface drive for 3 years and I was very happy with it. When the time came to buy a 1TB disk, I originally chose the LaCie Big Extreme+ (301199U) because it was substantially cheaper. I returned it after 1 week because: a) the drive was much bigger than it looked in the pictures; and b) the fan was always active, even in standby mode.

I bought this drive in its place, and I couldn't be happier. It is much more compact and fanless, thus extremely quiet.

Definitely recommended unless the higher price is an issue.

This HD is worth every penny paid. The case is HEAVY, solid as a rock and really does stay very cool. This is what makes the drives last. I have a cheaper 500GB external HD in a typical cheap case, and you can fry eggs on it after an hour. The case on this LaCie feels like it's made of granite, and due to the thicker case, it's QUIET. I can't say enough about this drive. Then you add in all the different interfaces including eSata, and you've got a slightly more expensive drive that is totally versatile and will last a long time. I'm starting to realize that saving 20 bucks for the cheaper model isn't worth it at all, and this drive is a prime example.

***UPDATE: One year later

Still completely satisfied. I also purchased the 1TB model, same exact Quadra D2 just with the bigger hard drive. I use them both on eSata (ExpressCard adapter on my laptop) for video editing, Photoshop work and backups, and they are FAST, like an internal hard drive. In fact, they are fast enough for me to use as SCRATCH DISKS in Photoshop CS4! I've given away my cheaper drives, you get what you pay for and I have zero regrets with the LaCie line (and no, I don't work for them!).

Four stars because I cannot speak to the question of longevity.

This device has been running for about a week. It is dead quiet and runs cool. The the corrugated sides may help disperse heat. Those sides certainly make this unit more attractive than the old LaCie models.

Connecting to a Mac could not have been easier: I just plugged it in. No, really.

I was also able to daisy chain two LaCie drives with the Firewire connector that is included in the box. In fact, all the connectors -- Firewire 400, Firewire 800 and USB are included in the box.

I hope that I like this product as much a year from now as I do now, but only time will answer questions about reliability.

I bought this item for family's personal use based on a recommendation from an IT person on our school staff. When it comes to computers, we are all beginners and not too familiar on how and why things work on a computer. He was so right with this product. The only thing we had to do was to open the packaging and read the very simple and brief instructions. Basically connect it into an outlet on one end and connect the other plug to our laptop computers. Then the simple instructions came onto the screen guiding us on how to back up our files from the laptops onto this external hard disk. Very user friendly for someone who is not too tech-savy!

This drive is awesome. It is super quiet and easy to use. Basically plug and play. I have Windows XP pro and Vista premium. I just plugged it thru the USB and eSata inputs and worked like a charm and no issues. I haven't tried the fire wire inputs (yet). I've had this drive for about two months and had no issues of any kind. I had too download the backup software from LaCie's website because my PC crashed when I was running the backup software already installed with the drive. Just like the instruccion booklet says "in case the PC lost power during installation". I did three backups totalling about 200GB and made a small dent. Before the backups my PC's read the capacity of my 1 TB drive as 930GB. That's kinda of a bummer, but there's nothing you can do about how PC's read the capacity of a drive. In summary, awesome drive. No problems. 1 USB, 1 eSata (1.5,3.0), 2 Firewire (400 and 800). Plenty of options for the future. Recommend this drive.

This was SO easy to hook up with my iMac, just took literally a few minutes. And it worked perfectly; the noise when it was backing up wasn't bad at all. I really liked the blue light in front because, well, just because it looks cool. :)

However, I bought it only about six weeks ago, it was on sale as I recall, however it unfortunately died tonight. VERY loud clicking noises and my Mac froze up, which is beyond rare. Darn. All those backups lost since they'll have to refurbish it or replace it, which I'd of course prefer. Since they are closed the next two days, I don't know exactly how they will handle it.

Added: Once I finally got hold of customer service, after being on hold for an hour, the rep was not very responsive. The capper is that I have to pay for shipping (not a light unit) back at my cost, with stipulations as to how to send (3" bubble wrap - like I just have that sitting around). No refund unless they can't fix it. If I had it to do over again, I'd give it one star. If the returned unit (no ETA on when that might be) also fails, I WILL get a refund. You know when you call tech support and your 21st in line - AND there is no toll free number - it's time to prepare for the worst.

Of course, all my backups are gone either way. Please read their warranty VERY carefully before considering this unit.

I am perhaps premature in writing a favorable review of this device. I have had it for only a month. I have another LaCie (for Time machine) in the same genus -- corrugated sides. I thought long and hard about buying two devices from the same manufacturer. I will feel very foolish if/when they both crash on the same day.

But I was won over by the ease of installation, cool running and dead quiet operation of the first drive. I also liked the fact that I could daisy chain the drives with an included firewire connector. This lets me save a port on the Mini.

Only time will tell about the reliability of these LaCie drives. I don't expect them to last forever. Hard disks used to be rated in terms of MTBF -- mean time before failure -- something I always keep in mind. Thus two drives. I just hope I don't end up feeling foolish.

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3/19/2010

It keeps on ticking.

11/21/11

Still ticking.

The core of my home media center is an Intel Core 2 Duo Apple iMac with a 500GB drive. I've been a Windows junkie for 15 years and finally gave in to the urge to go exclusively Apple for home media management last Christmas, and have never looked back. Apple TV to iPhone to Airport Extreme ... we're engulfed within the silver Apple, but that's another review. So when it came time to select storage for media and back-up, I didn't have the luxury of buying one with an Apple logo (sans Time Capsule). After a month of research and talking to other home media geeks, I selected these 2008 vintage LaCie Quadra drives. I bought two 750GB drives, placed them side-by-side via fw800, and dedicated one to iTunes media and the other to Time Machine back-up.

They have been running 24x7 for 6 months under heavy use. The iTunes drive has been on almost constantly for the entire house - reading and writing media via several wireless MacBooks, iMacs and, of course, the Apple TV. And the Time Capsule drive has been backing everything up every hour, every day for the last six months. Both drives have done what they needed to do flawlessly with no user intervention. And as others have said, the set-up on the iMac took less than 5 minutes. So this geek is sold on LaCie. They perform extremely well and look very cool next to the iMac. OK, one annoyance, the blue lights on the front are always on and look like two spooky eyes in the dark. Other than that, don't hesitate to make the purchase.