Customer Reviews

LaCie Hard Disk 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive designed by Neil Poulton 301304U

5 star:		(145)
4 star:		(70)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(47)

 

 

I attached this 1-TB USB external drive to my 2.8 ghtz IMac. The setup was a snap, but the included utilities wanted to take the whole drive as a single partition. I used the Mac's disk utilities, and created two partitions. This way, one partition can now be used for Time Machine (which by the way, will keep backing up until the disk is full, then begins deleting the oldest files), and another partition that is used to back up my Linux server.

The rest of the setup was fast. The Mac found the drive quickly, and so did Time Machine. The Time Machine software asked me which partition I wanted to use, and once that was decided on, Time Machine took off, and has been backing up ever since. How simple is that?

Also, most of the specs I read on this drive show a cache of 16 mb, but the drive as delivered, much to my pleasant surprise, has a cache of 32 mb. Even with the USB connection (I think firewire, which is available on some other La Cie drives, is about 15% faster), I found the file transfer time more than acceptable. I have run video from the drive with no issues. Also, I often transfer rather large photo files, and graphic images to and from the drive, and again no issues.

All that being said, for the money, the drive is hard to beat.

This was purchased as external backup - it's quiet and lovely. The blue LED reflects off the surface (desktop) so you know when it's in use. Easy to use backup software included, but not robust enough for a power user or tech-geek (use cobian!).

The USB cable is kinda short, about 8", so if you're not planning on placing this directly next to or on the box you're backing up plan to purchase or use a different USB cable.

I bought two of these (750GB) to replace a failing drive and to be more responsible about backups. I have some complaints, but overall I really like them.

Pros: great case, good size (a largish paperback; slightly narrower, lower and longer than my Mac Mini), on/off button, small adapter with a regular plug, no fan, relatively low light output from the front indicator.

Cons: louder than other fanless drives (compared to the Seagate eSATA 750), ambient light flickers with drive activity (I'd prefer a constant light).

Depends: only has USB.

In my opinion, online images make it look bigger than it is. Check the dimensions. The smooth black case lacks prominent logos. They can be stacked, but only two. I assume this is for heat dissipation reasons.

Why only 4 stars? Lacie's advertising claims it is "near-silent". Close, but not quite.

UPDATE:

1 of these drives has failed as of 4/2009. Neither has ever been used for anything but a backup drive, so it's not as though it failed from overuse. I'm somewhat disappointed. I doubt I'll buy Lacie again.

I have bought this drive over a month ago. The first item I have bought turned out to be DOA. I have called the customer service and could not be happier, they were lightning fast to take my call. If you have any problems, my suggestion would be to call them. However, since I bought the drive through Amazon, I decided to take advantage of their exchange offer which I thought would be faster. Second drive arrived very quickly. As of today, I have been running this drive 24/7 most of the time (most drives die within a few months if they have manufacturing problems - I wanted to initiate kind of a "burn" test to see if anything was wrong with it) and I have not had any problems with it.

With all this said, I am not a big fan of Samsung drives which this unit contains. And the fact that the first drive was DOA just made me a little more nervous. I can not rely on this as my sole back up drive. I keep my precious data on my 320gb Maxtor which has endured many 3-4 feet falls over the span of 5 years and this Lacie serves as a 2nd back up.

Unit runs relatively cool and quiet, just remember to put it on a solid surface because the bottom is responsible for heat dissipation. For example, if you put it on your bed, it will turn into a fireball pretty quickly.

Case looks very cool, and keep in mind that all external drives are more prone to failure than internal drives. I suggest you buy this through Amazon thus allowing you to exchange/return easily if you have any problems with it.

As for me, I wait before if this thing lasts a few trips in a luggage and runs 24/7 for another 3-4 months before I upgrade it to keep more important data.

This drive worked perfectly for about ~6 months. Then one day, it stopped mounting consistently. Within a week, it wouldn't mount at all. While it was mounted, I tried reformatting it, thereby losing my backup, in the hopes of fixing the problem. Nothing. I did some research and found that Lacie drives have a history of bad power supplies, so I called Lacie and asked for a new one. To their credit, they send one quickly, but the new power supply didn't solve the problem so I emailed tech support. Tech support suggested a litany of inane fixes such as, "Make sure your drive is connected to your computer," and, "Make sure your drive is turned on." Yeah, really helpful. After a series of emails, they decided to send me another power supply. I ditched the drive and bought another brand. I'll never buy a Lacie product again.

I purchased 2 Lacie Drives. One worked fine, while the other made loud clicking noises (sign of a bad hard drive near failure). I went through email support, where they had me jump through hoops for three weeks before having me call for "support". Support immediately said to send it in for service, but that I have to pay for my own shipping because the warranty doesn't cover that.

Basically, I've had to pay an extra $12 for a working external hard drive. I won't be buying another hard drive from a company that doesn't provide decent warranty support and regret my decision now.

Bought three of these Neil Poulton drives at the start of the month, and one was DOA. Contacted Lacie at the start of the month and I am only now (finally) getting an RMA. Turns out Lacie will not replace my brand new, DOA drive with a new one, they will only "repair" it. I don't have any confidence in any repair work Lacie will do on the drive (which is a Hitachi). Support takes up to three days to answer any emails/queries. This nightmare has gone on now for almost 20 days. At this point I would much rather throw the drive in the trash and forget about it.

Looked at other brands, and they have the same high failure rate, so its a lose/lose no matter which hard drive you purchase, but these drives only have a two year warranty.

I bought this to replace one of my 500 GB LaCie backup drives, which is approaching its maximum capacity. In fact, I've purchased about ten of their drives over the years and have had good luck with them. I like that they are reasonably fast, perfectly rectangular (and can thus be stacked in a drawer, a real plus when you own many drives), reliable, and inexpensive.

The 1 TB model is somewhat different from the previous models:

Good:

* They've replaced the finicky momentary power button on the 500 GB model with a positive-action toggle switch.

* The power adapter is significantly smaller and lighter. It's probably switch-mode and is thus more efficient as well.

Bad:

* The solid metal case on the 500 GB model has been replaced with a glossy black plastic that flexes when pressed and displays fingerprints magnificently. It looks cheap and gimmicky to my eye. If I hadn't already purchased other LaCie drives, I would assume that this is a piece of junk.

* I can do without the pretentious "designed by Neil Poulton." Who cares?

Despite the cheap plastic, I intend to buy more of these.

I bought one of these about 9mo ago. Worked great and was happy with it. About 3 months ago I was in a flood (3ft of water throughout the house). When we realized what was happening I quickly unplugged the hard drive (which I used for back ups) and my husband and I got out. Can't be happier that I got the drive and was backing up my PC. There was no chance to carry the whole PC out.

But to top it off I had left the cords (power and to PC) behind as they were already submerged. I couldn't figure out the correct power cord to purchase. La Cie's customer service (by e-mail) was GREAT! and promptly sent me out a new cord. I'll buy from them for my drive needs in the future just based on their great service. With all the things we had going on it was nice for one thing to go right.

I purchased this external HD to backup my desktop harddrive. The design of the unit is rather plain, but the appearance is not important to me since I basically keep it out of site in my armoire anyway. Works well and is large enough to backup all my home videos from my HDD camcorder.

Read/write speed is quite fast especially compared to my old NAS drive I had before getting this drive. It has a fan on the unit for cooling but the fan is very quiet. I barely notice the fan. It only has USB 2.0 which is fine for the most part. But it would have been nice if it also had an Ethernet connection so that I would not have to keep my desktop turned on to back up my laptop. But at this price point, I don't really expect ethernet capability so I didn't knock any points off the drive due to lack of this.

Where I felt this drive lost points is it does not have any sort of auto-shutoff feature when I turn off my desktop. And the one-touch software that comes with it generates new folders with each backup so you can run out of space easily. I would prefer folder synchronizing rather than creating new directories every time. So I use Microsoft SyncToy instead. Finally I wish that I had the option to use this drive on its side. The rubber feet and vents on the bottom mean that this drive was meant to lie flat. At least it is very compact for a 3.5" fan enclosed external drive.

Bottom line, I would recommend this drive. It serves my purposes and for the price is hard to beat. Only time will tell if the drive lasts.