LaCie 500 GB d2 Extreme External Hard Drive with Triple Interface (300793U)

by LaCie

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.7 x 6.8 inches ; 3.3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6.8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000AY5MTA
• Item model number: 300793U
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 18, 2005

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

This trusted, popular ingeniously designed drive now offers higher capacities, triple interface (FireWire 800, FireWire 400 & Hi-Speed USB 2.0) and Extreme speed, making it ideal for professional audio/video editing, graphic design and system backups.

Combining all of the leading interfaces into one drive, the LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface now also comes in higher capacities to handle your most demanding projects and storage needs. It can be easily shared among multiple users and environments and is conveniently plug & play. With up to 800 Mbps per bus and up to 64 MBps per drive burst, it’s ideal for a variety of professional applications, including digital audio/video, graphic design and system backups. It can be conveniently stacked, stood upright or rack-mounted, and it’s specially designed to be ultra-quiet and dissipate heat.

Product Description

Box Content: LaCie Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface. FireWire 800 cable, FireWire 400 cable, iLink/DV cable, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable, Drive stand, External power supply, LaCie Storage Utilities CD-ROM. With the leading interfaces combined into one drive, the LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme has Triple Interface in higher capacities to handle the most demanding projects and storage needs. Share among multiple users and environments with its convenient plug & play. With up to 800Mbits/s per bus and up to 64MB/s per drive burst, it's ideal for a variety of professional applications, including digital audio and video, graphic design and system backups. Its size can also be conveniently stack, stood upright or rack-mounted. It is specially designed to be ultra-quiet with its fanless heat dissipation. Operating System - Mac OS 10.2x or greater, Windows 2000 or higher Weight - 3.31 pounds, 1500 grams Dimensions - 1.7 x 6.3 x 6.8 inches, 44x160x173mm Buffer - 8MB minimum Software Configuration - Driver-free for Windows XP/2000 or Mac OS X; Silverlining for Mac OS 9; Silverkeeper for backup with Mac OS 9 & Max OS X System Requirements - FireWire 800 equipped computer - Mac OS 10.2 or greater or Windows 2000/XP FireWire 400 or iLink equipped computer - Mac OS 9.x/10.x or Windows 2000/XP Hi-Speed USB 2.0 equipped computer - Mac OS 10.2.x or greater or Windows 2000/XP USB 1.1 equipped computer - Mac OS 9.x/10.x or Windows 2000/XP

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars These drives are truly very poorly designed, December 26, 2005

By 

Georges Khairallah (Chino, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LaCie 500 GB d2 Extreme External Hard Drive with Triple Interface (300793U) (Personal Computers)

This review is concerning 5 (not 1 , but 5 LaCie 500Gb drives) that we purchased for our office, and every single one of them failed. I had called in the first drive that failed, and was actually able to send it in to LaCie. They returned it to me saying that they couldn't reproduce the problem. 3 days later, 2 more of the drives failed in the same way. the drives would make a clicking sound, would have tons of windows delay write failed errors. a few days later, the rest of drives failed, and eventually stopped being recognized by our computers completely, so we decided to just open up the cases and use the drives individually (they are setup in some sort of serial connection to hook up two 250Gb drives, so we bought seperate USB enclosures for the working drive and used them one at a time, and tossed the bad drive.

Whatever the case may be, I think having 5 drives fail the same way tells me that this is very bad product. for $500 ... I think I would question the value for sure! do not buy this... you've been warned.

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Failed after 13 months - no repair available from LaCie, December 16, 2005

By 

L. Clark (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LaCie 500 GB d2 Extreme External Hard Drive with Triple Interface (300793U) (Personal Computers)

I purchased this device thru Amazon. After 13 months of good service, the disk failed. LaCie service quotes: "Unfortunately, the drive is past its one-year warranty and we are unable to repair it. We do not perform out-of-warranty repairs. It is usually
more cost effective to purchase a new unit."

$500 for 13 months suggests questionable value.

A company not offering out-of-service repair work is also concerning.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'll never buy another Lacie drive., April 16, 2007

By 

T. Boyden (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LaCie 500 GB d2 Extreme External Hard Drive with Triple Interface (300793U) (Personal Computers)

I own four Lacie external hard drives (three 500 GB and one 250 GB). Before you put one or more of these drives in your shopping cart, I suggest you consider the following 1) What is really inside this shiny case? I took a similar drive (the D2 Big Disk Triple Interface) apart when it failed after three years and inside were two 250 GB Western Digital desktop drives. I found out from some tech experts that WD drives are less reliable than some brands (such as top-rated Seagate and Hitachi) because they draw more current which can fry the rather weak bridges made by Lacie. Bridge failure was what happened to my drive. 2) What is the warranty period for this drive? Lacie's warranty period is only one year, while other more reliable drives (again Seagate and Hitachi) have warranties up to five years. Warranties are obviously important, especially for hard drives, and these other manufacturers stand by their products. 3) What sort of support does Lacie give if the drive fails when it is out of warranty? When my drive failed (after only three years of light use), I tested the two WD hard drives inside and they were OK. So I called Lacie to see if the bridge (inside the Lacie case) could be repaired or replaced. They told me that they offered no out-of-warranty service or repairs for any of their hard drives (at any price). They even suggest that I look for replacement parts on eBay! So if it fails, and it's out of warranty, you're out of luck! I now see Lacie as more of a hard drive packager than a hard drive manufacturer, and their support is abysmal. I'll never buy another Lacie drive.