Customer Reviews

LaCie 500 GB Little Disk USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive Designed by Sam Hecht 301841N

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Now i know why so many savvy shoppers avoid this brand like the plague. If your Lacie drive gives you problems, don't expect to talk to a live customer service rep or to have the issue resolved with expediency or at all. Rather you will be relegated to the utter inefficiency of their 'service ticket web site' which seems to be the equivalent of no service at all. This little drive seemed to perform fine until just under the 1 year mark and now it disconnects on its own, in the middle of performing back ups. You can reformat the drive and start again, as I did, but even that won't solve the problem. At lacie, they put the onus on the customer to prove that they are actually having a problem vs. offering efficient ways to assess the issue and fix their defective products. My seagate gives me no problems and i was able to call customer service and ask a REAL LIVE person questions when issues re: set up arose. Easy. Done. No problems. Lacie on the other hand, via their ridiculous web service site told me that the small, internal cable on this drive may simply stop functioning properly as the item ages and that i would need to use the longer cable that came with the drive in order to power it properly from now on. Who sells a product that works as claimed for a year and then is happy to suggest to the customer that they should be content with losing functionality less than a year into warranty due to the product's own faulty design? Yes ladies and gentleman, it's Lacie. At Lacie, they will require you to write back and forth with a 'tech' on their web forum, endlessly and that tech will claim to want to solve the problem but will ignore the information you supply as well as the requests to have the unit assessed and serviced. They will not offer to take it back in order to test it etc, until you become so frustrated with their endless web-service-ticket-yadayada that you decide that dealing with the problem is more trouble than it is worth and demand that they take responsibility for their product.

I bought this drive because it is necessary for me to carry multiple camera cables, batteries, hard drives, etc. And I wanted something as compact and cable free as possible. A great idea, but this product falls far short of the mark. I'm not confident storing valuable data on these drives...especially when lacie's customer service is subpar and does not inspire confidence in any way. In an age when tech products come so cheap, and the web has leveled the playing field for competitive pricing, it is really customer service that sets a company apart. (assuming that the products are comparable and equally reliable....not sure that applies to lacie...). I'd say, if lacie keeps doing business like this, it's tough to imagine how they'll hold onto customers.

I am returning the 500 gb rugged today .I would not recommend to anyone but enemies buying any lacie product at this point .Tech support is like talking to a wall thru emails .The wall pretty much ignores your actual questions and gives you vaugue generalized answers that dont deal with your problem .I would like to think that I could make a difference by not buying lacie .Maybe if enough people stopped buying lacie they would listen .But If their was a difference made instead of changing their policy Im afraid Obama would just bail them out so they could just continue their dismal way of supporting their products

I've had LaCie for a couple months now. It was pretty easy to install for me for my mac - just follow the instructions online to format for mac. love the built-in usb cord, main reason why i got it. i hate having cords everywhere. it works great with my time machine on mac. so light and portable.

Product was difficult to install on my mac had to reformat then was able to use the product. The software that comes with it just doesn't work crashed my mac everytime i tried to use it. But since its been reformatted awesome!

my mac g5 wouldn't power this and itself using just the usb connection . it caused my mac to overheat and shut down . just try to find the $25 external power adaptor tho !!!! short , short , 3" connecting cable is also troublesome . don't bother .

Warning: if you have an older computer, the one retractable cable included on the device, is not enough to power the drive. I have a PowerBook G4 and haven't yet been able to use my drive because I'm still trying to find the correct cable. I thought Amazon, or the seller should provide it, since the product description said it would be included in the box. Instead they gave me a credit, which I wasted buying the wrong Lacie cable. Super frustrating.

This is perfect for what I needed. I love that the usb is retractable. It is a very short cord, but not a problem at all. It looks very nice and the face cover comes on and off easily. Love it.

I like the fact that this portable USB drive has a built-in USB cord, so you don't need to carry a separated USB cord like other brands. The design is minimalist - a simple glossy black box, which I like very much. I didn't try the included backup software, so can't tell about it. I just formatted it and start it using it.

Pros:
- built-in USB cord
- nice design

Cons:
- I also had to reformat to use on Mac as another reviewer mentioned, but that is really simple
- a little bit thicker than the WD models, but the built-in USB cord more than pays-off