Equipped with the fastest-ever FireWire standard, this drive is capable of reaching transfer speeds of up to 800Mbits/s for FireWire 800 users, up to 400MBits/s for FireWire 400 users, and up to 480Mbits/s for USB 2.0 users. This drive's triple interface, 7200 rpm speed and 8MB buffer make it the fastest-possible storage solution for digital content creators. Made of a metal alloy that dissipates heat and prolongs drive performance, the LaCie d2 Hard Drive features a slender, stylish case that offers versatile desktop and rackmount configuration options. A space-saving drive stand allows for upright desktop use, while an optional rack-mounting kit enables configuration in standard 19-inch racks. This drive also features a fan-free design for quiet operation. With plug and play convenience, LaCie d2 Hard Drives are hot-pluggable for easy file transfer and data sharing. With the appropriate cable, LaCie's new hard drives can be connected to any computer equipped with FireWire 800 (9-pin), FireWire 400 (6-pin), USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 ports, making it the most universal drive ever. Chained and striped in a FireWire 800 RAID 0 configuration, LaCie d2 Hard Drives can reach unprecedented sustained transfer rates of up to 100MB/s, making them ideal for working with professional video in high-end workstation and small-server environments.
1 Listen to other's experience before buying a D2
There is no doubt that this is one sexy product. The problem is what you don't see from the outside. The hard drive is good when it is working, but like others have said....once it goes down, that's it.
I bought the 1st generation 80gb version, and it is now reduced to a clicking piece of crap that does not work. Not to mention it being full of all my AV work that i do for a living. Most of it was luckly backed up, but others have not been so lucky.
Can't give it 1 star because it served me well for a couple of years, but longevity is not one of Lacie's strong areas.
2 Oh no! Not again!
For some reason, I've always felt attracted to LaCie's products. I'm not sure why exactly. But my 250GB d2 Firewire drive just crashed. Its clicking and knocking when it starts up. There was no warning or prior indication suggesting that I be ready for trouble. Filled up with DV Media (filled up with around 8GB remaining), I'm now going to have to start redigitizing hours and hours of footage. This drive is not my only drive on the chain; the others are different brands and sizes.
The reason I'm writing though is to confess, that the ONLY other hard drive (internal or external of any size and type) I have EVER go down on me, was another LaCie d2 hard drive... full of the data I make my living with.
I don't know if its that the LaCie products just look cool, or that I respect their brave development of larger and larger drives, or maybe its just that their company feels so familiar, but for some reason I forgot how painful that first hard drive failure was. But tonight, I'm sitting here feeling it again; trying every utility there is (Norton, Disk Warrior, TechTool Pro 4), hoping that repairing is possible, and that if so, it will take less time than redigitizing.
So, if you're out there, like I was, and you're thinking about buying another LaCie hard drive for reasons you're not exactly sure of... REMEMBER! (ok, this is really just a note to myself, in case I forget again)
3 Even the case is beautiful
Designed to compliment your Mac G5, the sleek siver enclosure and glowing blue light make having an external drive not such a bad thing. This drive looks great on my desk - almost like a piece of futuristic machinery. It's solid base keeps the vertical drive from tipping. Sadly, I only have a G4, so the drive is more sexy than my CPU! The only annoyance I've come up with is that I need to drag the drive to the trash before I shut down, otherwise the computer won't shut down properly - but I think this has more to do w/ my G4 and less to do with the drive. At about $1 per GB, tihs is a great deal in storage. I partitioned mine into scratch disks for Photoshop and other storage volumes - which was a piece of cake with the included partitioning software.
4 Just plug and chug
I have found the Lacie d2 250GB drives to be fantastic. I've been wroking with two drives hooked up to a G5 or a G4 laptop, and have had no problems. The drives wake up quickly after sleeping to save energy. They're a little loud, but I think I notice this only because the Macs are so quiet. I connect using FW800, and enjoy the quick connection when working with HD and DV video footage in Final Cut Pro. It's also excellent for backup purposes. I'm not an expert at hardware, but all I've had to do is hook up the Firewire and I've been good to go. I've only had the drives for a couple of months, but so far so good.
5 Triple interface ? Firewire = Great
I own three of La Cie's external drives in this form-factor: a 120 GB a 160 GB and a 250GB. I don't have the triple interface model. That is the only reason I didn't rate this drive 5 stars.
UPDATE as of December 2004. I now own two of the LaCie d2 triple interface drives and they are great. I can (and do) use them for cross-platform data storage / exchange (video files in the 2-6 gig range transfer from my Mac(s) to PC(s) twice as fast (or faster than) as 802.11g network transfers.
I do own a Kangaru 40 GB portable drive with multiple interfaces (Firewire, PCMCIA, SCSI, IDE, USB 1) with different connectors to what is an ATA drive. The technology to permit multiple interfaces exists and works well on the Kangaru - I just have have had no experience with the Lacie implementation. None the less, I don't think that the interface issue directly applies to the drive performance (save for potential transfer speeds).
The OS X 10.2 to 10.3 changeover had a few risky popups for me - I just powered down the drives rather than allow 10.3 to reformat them. The bug (more a minor incompatibility - unless you are unlucky enough to reformat the drive) was present on cold starts. Apple and Lacie (and other firewire drive companies) addressed the issue promptly.
I run these externals with a 12" pBook G4, a snow dual usb iBook 600 G3, a Flat Panel iMac 800 and a P4 XP box. I don't have problems moving back and forth between systems and I find the drives very solid. Very, very solid (DON'T drop one on your bare foot solid).
Performance has been excellent and I plan to acquire a terabyte big disk in April '04 as they become available.
These drives can be "bolted" together and used to creat a RAID array (very slick and very easy to do).
Who knows when drives will fail - they all do - but these drives have S.M.A.R.T. controllers and you can use 3rd party software to monitor the drives for early warning signs of failure. I use TechTool 4 - but there are many options out there for Wintel, Linux, UNIX and OS X / MAC systems.
I find the company responsive and responsible (not withstanding the negative reviews posted across the product line by an unhappy person).
