They just market it as a large disk, and they've done this for a long time. Not everyone who buys them even understands/recognizes it as a raid enclosure. I don't really see this as a feature when the company who sells them doesn't even lay claim to it.
I'm sure not everyone knows they're RAID 0, but they do mention that they use a pre-configured RAID 0 setup. It's not like in a big giant burst, but it's certainly there!
Yes always expensive, but not necessarily produced or supported any better than other options. They just look pretty and somehow have a good marketing team. Pretty much every product they make is just OEMed from another manufacturer with little input on the Lacie end. Take their displays for example, samsung or NEC tech, oemed copy of coloreyes display, rebadged X-rite sensor, and display hood by whoever. I'd be fine with this if they actually did something to improve upon the combination and its usability as a whole. As it is they don't even have competent technical support. FYI I don't buy their products. I've merely had the unpleasant experience of using many of them owned by others.
I wouldn't say that their stuff is bad. I've had a number of their products over the years and haven't had any problems with them. My daughter has been using a LaCie drive for her Time machine back-up in college for almost two years without a problem. Next year I'll be replacing it. But I always do that with drive based products after three years, at the longest
Perhaps if you're using other people's used products, then you might expect to have more problems. I don't get used products from friends or elsewhere. At least, not products such as hard drives.
Fast as hell? That's funny - my first thought was that it sounds pretty slow (the Lacie drive, not Thunderbolt). "boasting read speeds of up to 190 MB/s" Hmmm. just checked, I get 199 MB/sec on my Air. Oh yeah, that's consumer - an SSD, admittedly, but nonetheless. Now the 900 MB/sec raid SSD drives on Thunderbolt, those sound fast.
I wouldn't say that their stuff is bad. I've had a number of their products over the years and haven't had any problems with them. My daughter has been using a LaCie drive for her Time machine back-up in college for almost two years without a problem. Next year I'll be replacing it. But I always do that with drive based products after three years, at the longest
Perhaps if you're using other people's used products, then you might expect to have more problems. I don't get used products from friends or elsewhere. At least, not products such as hard drives.
I think I've been misinterpreted slightly here. I'm not acquiring their secondhand items.
It's either I had to work on someone else's equipment for whatever reason or something crashed and they're calling to ask if I still have it, or if there's any way of retrieving it from their crashed drive. Lacie disks haven't responded well to heavy use (moving around GB worth of data for hours on end) in my experience and a lot of it is just thermal design. Users suggesting these as "performance drives" isn't something I agree with at all because they don't have the appropriate cooling for such a task. It's not as bad as a time machine backup, as that's a lighter task, but that's a totally different type of use from what I was responding to earlier.
I've seen some moderate issues with G-Raid too. I'm not sure what their controllers are like but disk thrashing has been pretty common with them.
He was asking if any devices hit 3 Gb/s yet. Some SSDs seem to be hitting it on paper according to spec sheets. You can also hit it easily with raided HDDs. It works out to around 350 MB/s or whatever so it's not that high a threshold.
Fast as hell? That's funny - my first thought was that it sounds pretty slow (the Lacie drive, not Thunderbolt). "boasting read speeds of up to 190 MB/s" Hmmm. just checked, I get 199 MB/sec on my Air. Oh yeah, that's consumer - an SSD, admittedly, but nonetheless. Now the 900 MB/sec raid SSD drives on Thunderbolt, those sound fast.
You're right.... RAID SSDs are faster than RAID magnetic spinning disks.
I guess this Lacie drive is just a good ol' average 190MB/s drive...
I got a Western Digital 1TB (2.5" external) 5400RPM USB 3.0 (backwards compatible to USB 2.0) Passport Essential drive for $58.70 including tax from Staples in late August.
This is just misleading. Lacie has done this little big disk thing for years. They use a cheap controller, minimal cooling, and are not serviceable. If one of the two drives died on previous models the thing was dead...
This has been my experience with dual-disk Lacie drives.
Finding a forum post on SlickDeals doesn't prove anything. You might as well find an authorized seller on eBay.
How do you figure? Sale price from Staples was $80 (it's regularly on sale at that price). Staples coupon took it to $55.
The point is, if regular consumers can get a retail package EXTERNAL 5400rpm 1TB 5400rpm drive for $80 (or even $55 pre-tax), someone like LaCie sure as he'll isnt paying anywhere close to $120 to $140 for a single BARE drive -- especially since they buy in large lots.
How do you figure? Sale price from Staples was $80 (it's regularly on sale at that price). Staples coupon took it to $55.
The point is, if regular consumers can get a retail package EXTERNAL 5400rpm 1TB 5400rpm drive for $80 (or even $55 pre-tax), someone like LaCie sure as he'll isnt paying anywhere close to $120 to $140 for a single BARE drive -- especially since they buy in large lots.
You comment makes no sense for several reasons.
1) You implication that all 2.5" HDDs are the same as 3.5" HDDs for the same capacity is silly.
2) If you go to that Staples link the drive is $129.
3) It appears the drive in question isn't the new 2.5" 1TB @ 5400RPM HDD with a 9.5mm thicknes, but the older drives @ 5200RPM with a 12.5mm thickness.
4) You can't just take the same capacity drive and pretty much the same disc speed and call them the same. The market doesn't work like that.
I have always avoided these "little big" drives from lacie, simply because they have double the chance of breakdown compared to a single drive enclosure. I'm just waiting for simple single-drive enclosures, or perhaps SSD ones...I really want to move to Thunderbolt for the speed.
I just wanted to say, not about Lacie specifically, but in general: I'm really disappointed by the speed to market of these Thunderbolt drives. I wonder what the huge technical hurdle is with testing or whatever? I expected that by now we'd have many thunderbolt options to choose from, but there are only a couple.
In my experience they have buggy controllers, and the terrible cooling sucks. If you want any kind of longevity from the device it's the kind of thing you turn on, use, turn off immediately as they don't have enough airflow to run the device for hours at a time.
I wouldn't say that their stuff is bad. I've had a number of their products over the years and haven't had any problems with them. My daughter has been using a LaCie drive for her Time machine back-up in college for almost two years without a problem.
I've only ever owned two LaCie drives and one failed in less than a year. My LBD is several years old, but I never leave it plugged in.
Comments
They just market it as a large disk, and they've done this for a long time. Not everyone who buys them even understands/recognizes it as a raid enclosure. I don't really see this as a feature when the company who sells them doesn't even lay claim to it.
I'm sure not everyone knows they're RAID 0, but they do mention that they use a pre-configured RAID 0 setup. It's not like in a big giant burst, but it's certainly there!
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10549
Anyway, yeah, I know what RAID 0 is; I wasn't arguing that. I just don't quite understand what you think they're being misleading about.
Yes always expensive, but not necessarily produced or supported any better than other options. They just look pretty and somehow have a good marketing team. Pretty much every product they make is just OEMed from another manufacturer with little input on the Lacie end. Take their displays for example, samsung or NEC tech, oemed copy of coloreyes display, rebadged X-rite sensor, and display hood by whoever. I'd be fine with this if they actually did something to improve upon the combination and its usability as a whole. As it is they don't even have competent technical support. FYI I don't buy their products. I've merely had the unpleasant experience of using many of them owned by others.
I wouldn't say that their stuff is bad. I've had a number of their products over the years and haven't had any problems with them. My daughter has been using a LaCie drive for her Time machine back-up in college for almost two years without a problem. Next year I'll be replacing it. But I always do that with drive based products after three years, at the longest
Perhaps if you're using other people's used products, then you might expect to have more problems. I don't get used products from friends or elsewhere. At least, not products such as hard drives.
The idea of external SSDs over TB is pretty exciting. The future looks fast. The price will get where we need it.
It's also RAID 0 and fast as hell.
It's not a consumer drive
Fast as hell? That's funny - my first thought was that it sounds pretty slow (the Lacie drive, not Thunderbolt). "boasting read speeds of up to 190 MB/s" Hmmm. just checked, I get 199 MB/sec on my Air. Oh yeah, that's consumer - an SSD, admittedly, but nonetheless. Now the 900 MB/sec raid SSD drives on Thunderbolt, those sound fast.
I wouldn't say that their stuff is bad. I've had a number of their products over the years and haven't had any problems with them. My daughter has been using a LaCie drive for her Time machine back-up in college for almost two years without a problem. Next year I'll be replacing it. But I always do that with drive based products after three years, at the longest
Perhaps if you're using other people's used products, then you might expect to have more problems. I don't get used products from friends or elsewhere. At least, not products such as hard drives.
I think I've been misinterpreted slightly here. I'm not acquiring their secondhand items.
It's either I had to work on someone else's equipment for whatever reason or something crashed and they're calling to ask if I still have it, or if there's any way of retrieving it from their crashed drive. Lacie disks haven't responded well to heavy use (moving around GB worth of data for hours on end) in my experience and a lot of it is just thermal design. Users suggesting these as "performance drives" isn't something I agree with at all because they don't have the appropriate cooling for such a task. It's not as bad as a time machine backup, as that's a lighter task, but that's a totally different type of use from what I was responding to earlier.
I've seen some moderate issues with G-Raid too. I'm not sure what their controllers are like but disk thrashing has been pretty common with them.
SATA II generally means the 3 Gbps flavor, right?
Thunderbolt is 10 Gbps. So no. Not even close.
He was asking if any devices hit 3 Gb/s yet. Some SSDs seem to be hitting it on paper according to spec sheets. You can also hit it easily with raided HDDs. It works out to around 350 MB/s or whatever so it's not that high a threshold.
Fast as hell? That's funny - my first thought was that it sounds pretty slow (the Lacie drive, not Thunderbolt). "boasting read speeds of up to 190 MB/s" Hmmm. just checked, I get 199 MB/sec on my Air. Oh yeah, that's consumer - an SSD, admittedly, but nonetheless. Now the 900 MB/sec raid SSD drives on Thunderbolt, those sound fast.
You're right.... RAID SSDs are faster than RAID magnetic spinning disks.
I guess this Lacie drive is just a good ol' average 190MB/s drive...
[Stewie Griffin] "Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" {/Stewie Griffin]
I got a Western Digital 1TB (2.5" external) 5400RPM USB 3.0 (backwards compatible to USB 2.0) Passport Essential drive for $58.70 including tax from Staples in late August.
Works great with my 13" MacBook Air (2011)
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3253919
Finding a forum post on SlickDeals doesn't prove anything. You might as well find an authorized seller on eBay.
This is just misleading. Lacie has done this little big disk thing for years. They use a cheap controller, minimal cooling, and are not serviceable. If one of the two drives died on previous models the thing was dead...
This has been my experience with dual-disk Lacie drives.
Finding a forum post on SlickDeals doesn't prove anything. You might as well find an authorized seller on eBay.
How do you figure? Sale price from Staples was $80 (it's regularly on sale at that price). Staples coupon took it to $55.
The point is, if regular consumers can get a retail package EXTERNAL 5400rpm 1TB 5400rpm drive for $80 (or even $55 pre-tax), someone like LaCie sure as he'll isnt paying anywhere close to $120 to $140 for a single BARE drive -- especially since they buy in large lots.
How do you figure? Sale price from Staples was $80 (it's regularly on sale at that price). Staples coupon took it to $55.
The point is, if regular consumers can get a retail package EXTERNAL 5400rpm 1TB 5400rpm drive for $80 (or even $55 pre-tax), someone like LaCie sure as he'll isnt paying anywhere close to $120 to $140 for a single BARE drive -- especially since they buy in large lots.
You comment makes no sense for several reasons.
1) You implication that all 2.5" HDDs are the same as 3.5" HDDs for the same capacity is silly.
2) If you go to that Staples link the drive is $129.
3) It appears the drive in question isn't the new 2.5" 1TB @ 5400RPM HDD with a 9.5mm thicknes, but the older drives @ 5200RPM with a 12.5mm thickness.
4) You can't just take the same capacity drive and pretty much the same disc speed and call them the same. The market doesn't work like that.
I just wanted to say, not about Lacie specifically, but in general: I'm really disappointed by the speed to market of these Thunderbolt drives. I wonder what the huge technical hurdle is with testing or whatever? I expected that by now we'd have many thunderbolt options to choose from, but there are only a couple.
Affordable is relative and when you consider the first announced TB drives were over $1,000, these are affordable.
That's like an affordable $100,000 Ferrari.
Isn't $999.99 also "sub-$1000"?
Are there any AI employees who are competent writers?
Better would be if they said the first sub-$500 Thunderbolt drive.
There's no reason to post insulting, baseless comments like this.
They're not my definition of "affordable," either, but they're RAID drives.
If you aren't in the market for that, wait for OWC or someone else to ship theirs, but there's no call for attacking AI over covering a news item.
It's basically a lie to say he "attacked" AI.
In my experience they have buggy controllers, and the terrible cooling sucks. If you want any kind of longevity from the device it's the kind of thing you turn on, use, turn off immediately as they don't have enough airflow to run the device for hours at a time.
Exactly what I do lol.
I paid $800 for my first 10MB HardCard back in 1985 or 86 or so.
Your point?
Well, you have to buy a $50 TB cable unless you managed to get one for free...
Good point.
I wouldn't say that their stuff is bad. I've had a number of their products over the years and haven't had any problems with them. My daughter has been using a LaCie drive for her Time machine back-up in college for almost two years without a problem.
I've only ever owned two LaCie drives and one failed in less than a year. My LBD is several years old, but I never leave it plugged in.