User Benefits : - Save photos, MP3s, data files
- Stackable to save desk space
- Hi-Speed FireWire connection
- Back up valuable information
World-Famous DesignDesigned by the world-famous Porsche Design Agency GmbH, the LaCie Hard Drive exhibits world-class style and elite performance. The result of decades of architectural expertise, these drives feature state-of-the-art design and awesome performance.
Hi-Speed DownloadsAvailable with Hi-Speed FireWire interface, the LaCie Hard Drive offers fast data transfer rates (up to 400Mbits/s) that are required for substantial jobs like downloading digital photos or saving MP3s.
Built To MoveYou can back up your entire system or add extra storage space when your internal hard drive is full. Built to be lightweight and durable, these drives can be easily moved for sharing and exchanging of files.
Easy To UseThese drives offer setup that is nearly effortless, and are ready to use minutes after removing it from the box. Secured rubber feet allow drives to be stacked, so you can get the most out of limited desktop space.
1 Unreliable - WILL fail eventually
Do not buy this drive. I bought two at different times because of the price (160g, 250g) and they both have eventually failed - a bit of grinding and then Windows reports that the drive is not formatted. The 250g drive failed within a week of getting it.
2 Works Great!
Bought this for iMac G4 running OS X Panther. Works great. Everything I could ask for.
3 Nice looking piece of junk
I bought this drive to backup data on my Apple Mac iBook, running OS X with a G4 (the computer is 6 mos old). Out of the box, the drive should have been up and running, but when I plugged it into the computer, it wasn't recognized, and couldn't be used. So I returned it to Lacie and they fiddled with it, and sent it back. I plugged it back in, and still nothing. I called Lacie back, and they said it worked at their place. I tried it on 3 other macs, and none of them recognized the drive, it was like it wasn't even there. It wasn't a problem with the computers or the cables, I have other firewire drives that work fine. So I returned the piece of junk and bought a Seagate, which so far works like a charm.
4 DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT
This is a true stinker. Gets corrupt in the matter of minutes in read/write operations.
FinalCut Pro just quits rendering to it. Gets HOT big time. Save your money for something else. I've got it in a hurry to make some back-ups and got nothing but headache.
5 Works Perfectly and Reliably
This drive worked right out of the box without a single "hitch." I did reformat to HFS (Mac OS extended) before moving files but would have most certainly done this to any new drive. It quietly and quickly accepted the 40 gigs I dumped onto it only seconds after plugging it in/formatting. I read the other reviews for this drive and was a bit hesitant to purchase it. Maybe the problems are Windows related? I'm running OS X Panther on a Power Mac G4.
It is running a bit warm after several hours but then so does a large-capacity internal drive. I'm not worried.
As for the design, I was at first turned off by it's stark minimalism and suspected that it would feel cheap; flimsy, dent-able, scratch-able metal. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box. It does not feel or look cheap and the metal casing is sturdy and MUCH more attractive than I had imagined. The body is matte and the face has a shinier brushed appearance.
I was skeptical when ordering this drive but did so mainly because I have had nothing but good luck with Lacie products. This drive is no exception.
I highly recommend.
6 Don't buy this for backup or critical data
My Lacie P3 160GB FireWire drive performs very unreliably - so much so that I cannot trust my data to it. Problems included the dreaded "delayed write failed" message in Windows XP usually followed by corruption. It gets very hot in use which may be part of the problem. I used this drive with a number of PCs including a Toshiba Satellite Pro M10, a HP Laptop and a desktop with a Gigabyte 865PE Chipset motherboard with integrated firewire. Tonight it finally gave up completely and Windows claims it is not even formatted. Lacie UK Tech support are a joke.
I also have a Lacie d2 which is much better built, and seems to work well without problems on both USB2 and Firewire. I haven't tried out the new firewire 800 on it yet, so can't comment on that.
7 worst thing ever
DO NOT BUY THIS!!!! I recently bought this item to back up three years worth of work for my thesis project. This drive only worked long enough to transfer all of my work on, and then it crashed. I have started to talk with the technical support, but they are useless. Basically they will not take any responsibility for producing defective products, and the worst part is it takes them about a week to answer any emails.
8 May be among the best of a bad bunch
The world of firewire drives for the Mac is not a happy world. LaCie's 250GB Porsche enclosure/drive has received awful reviews, for example. In my own experience I've recently tried and returned TWO enclosures for a 200 GB Maxtor. My subsequent research has found bad experiences with every vendor, save perhaps WeibeTech.
Of all the enclosures and drives I've tried, this one, borrowed from a friend, worked best. I may buy it, but I would NOT buy the 250 GB relative for any price. The reviews of that drive are uniformly negative.
Here's the fundamental problem:
1. USB 2 and Firewire 400 were in competition for a few years. USB 2.0 won.
2. Only owners of older Macs need a Firewire 400 drive, owners of newer Macs will usually go for a USB 2 drive.
3. The Firewire spec is very demanding. Most Macs and most enclosures don't really meet the specs -- but they fall short in different ways.
4. Various point releases of OS X have broken firewire support in different ways.
5. Different drives in the same enclosures yield different results.
6. Different cables produce different results, the best cables are expensive.
This is how to test:
1. Check heat. Run the drive hard for hours. Does the enclosure get too hot to hold? I had one drive almost melt the enclosure.
2. Check drive transfers. Transfer 100 GB of data. Does it work?
3. Dismount the drive and unplug. Plug again. Repeat. Does the drive mount and dismount?
4. Mount the drive. Put your machine to sleep. Awaken it. Does the drive spin up on request?
5. If you have an iPod, try it daisy chained with the drive. Can you mount, dismount? Does iTunes work? (Note however, iTunes may have trouble with any music library stored on an external drive, this appears to be an iTunes bug.)
Only the LaCie 160 passed all 4 tests on my iBook dual USB running 10.3.5. Two other enclosure/drive pairs failed.
So it may not be great, but it may be "better than the rest".
PS. I read a review here that said: "The drive is very stylish. Tried it on MAC panther OS, EXTREMELY slow, compared to my other LaCie d2 drive, also if it comes across anything it doesnt like (file name too long, unrecognized symbol) just quits copying. This product is practically useless but will be a nice stylish accessory for your retro office."
I wonder if that reviewer had the drive formatted as FAT32. A FAT32 formatted drive will display the problems he experienced. All he would have to do is use OS X Disk Utility software to reformat as HFS+. Unless you have very particular reasons, you should make sure the drive is HFS+ formatted.
9 Great back up drive
I am pleased with this drive, which was easily formated following the instructions for my Mac G4 OS 10.2. It is exceedingly quiet and efficient. I transferred about 5 GB of song files in a couple of minutes and then had them playing back on iTunes. The automatic back up is also useful, since it backs up my docs every night at 1 a.m. Don't see any downside ... so far.
10 Works fine with OS 9.0.4 for me.
I bought the 160gb drive, did not format it in any way, loaded it with video pre edited and post,a couple thousand still photos and it works fine .I can't wait to attach it to my G5 when it arrives.
11 Excellent
Almost silent, very fast transfers, looks cool
The drive ships formatted in FAT32. If you're going to use it on Macintoshes running OS 9 it MUST be reformatted to HFS+ using Disk First Aid or something like that.
12 compact, stylish, quiet
Mac users: first thing you should do is reformat the drive as an HFS+ volume using Disk Utility. This will allow you to use unicode characters in your filenames, a must if you'll use the disk as a volume for iTunes. This is a bit annoying since Mac users really seem to be the target demographic for this drive.
But once that's out of the way, the drive works great. Its clean, minimalist design is a perfect compliment to the Powerbook it sits next to, and it spins down to be near silent when I'm it's not being accessed. Exactly what I wanted in a drive.
13 stylish but no starter!
The drive is very stylish. Tried it on MAC panther OS, EXTREMELY slow, compared to my other LaCie d2 drive, also if it comes across anything it doesnt like (file name too long, unrecognized symbol) just quits copying. This product is practically useless but will be a nice stylish accessory for your retro office.
14 Unsupported
This "plug-and-play" hard drive is advertized as a Mac OS9 compatable product. In fact, once installed, the drive is 'unsupported' by OS9. Perhaps the software drivers can be updated with time and effort, but the drive certainly is not 'plug-and-play." The "help' manuals on the Lacie CD are of no help. Try another product, or buy an extra ZIP disk instead.
