Lacie 500 "Raid 0" vs 500 non "Raid 0"

I have to buy a 500 gig drive for the museum where I work, to be designated for a large project that needs to stay alive and ready for regular updates. So this would be long term storage and regular use. I looked yesterday on the Lacie site, and they have these two, the non raid is $429, the raid-O is $349. What's up with that price difference? Is the "raid-)" less stable?

Here are the two descriptions from their site:
1) $429 bucks
LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface
USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 160GB | 250GB | 300GB | 400GB | 500GB
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.

2) $349
LaCie Big Disk Extreme with Triple Interface
USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 500GB | 600GB | 800GB | 1TB
The combination of Extreme speed, massive capacity and triple interface connectivity (FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0) makes this plug & play drive ideal for audio/video professionals who desire a built-in RAID 0 performance and up to 1TB of impressive portable storage.

And what about thesse new G-Tech (G-tek?) drives, anyone try 'em yet?


all useful information and anecdotes are welcome,
Marla

Do a forum search for LaCie. Not many people like them in here. There are also lots of discussions on good external drive setups. The "G" series does well i the popularity polls.

Marla take what i say with a grain of salt I don't even own a mac YET (I'm still young) I read these forums pretty much every day for the last year or so I do video editing though if you search the forums you will see the exact thing i will tell you.

Avoid Lacie's at all cost the concensus here seems to be that Lacie's are not good drives they will crash and die on you.

Remember it's possible i could be way off, But here read for yourself here is a thread in which i was a part of.

[www.lafcpug.org]



Good Luck,

Sean

Agreed. Stay away from LaCie.

We use several 500Gb & 250 Gb FW discs,

Also 2 external SATA discs in RAID from Lacie.

Using them on a daily basis for more then 2 years.

So far encountered only 1 problem wich could be solved by Disk Warior.

Just to say not all Lacie stuff has to be bad.

Well well well. I am glad to see that my little wuestion has sparked such dialogue!

But noone has actually attempted to address the question!

I too have used Lacie's for the past 3 years with no problems, one time there was a small prob, but disk warrior fixed it immediately. The museum where I work gets them by the dozen, so to speak, though these new "Raid-0" ones are mysterious to me.

I simply need to understand the difference between these two types of drives, specs above...if anyone has any information, along with opinions negative or positive or anywhere in between, it would be appreciated!!!!

Oh-Also-Jude-you said the "G" series are good, does that include this new "G-Tech" "Raid-0" pretty silver shoebox shaped drive? I saw it at Tekserve the other day and it looked great, I just know nothing about it...

Thanks,

Marla

The internally RAID'd Firewire drives are usually 2 smaller drives which are half the size of the RAID, therefore making it less expensive. IE: 500 GB RAID is 2- 250 GB drives in an enclosure and a bridgeboard that raids the drives for you.

A single 500 GB drive is one drive inside a similar enclosure, etc. Since the larger single drives are more expensive, it would cost a little more.

Dos that answer your question?

Yes - though I don't see the full meaning - isn't it a good thing that they are two different drives? In terms of corruption and keeping media content safe? So that means that the cheaper one is definitely better? Or are there disadvantages of which I am unaware to consider (single vs double)?

Thanks,

Marla
PS-Oh, and "Raid-0" - does that mean that there are 2 drives, but that they are not striped, just housed together, so it isn't any sort of a speed advantage, etc??

LACIE = DEATH.
MAXTOR = DEATH.

RAID "0" means that they are "Striped"...they write on both drives at the same time. "Spanned" means writing to one drive, then when that drive's full it writes to the second. RAID "0" is the fastest / best performance.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

But then is a 500 gig Lacie d2 extreme "Raid 0" really only 250 gigs worth of space? I thought it was NOT striped, and that Raid 0 meant something else...

I have used lots of Raid disk arrays in other environments (Avid, 844X), but never with FCP.

If you hate LaCie's so much, which SPECIFIC drive DO you recommend??

Marla

Didn't realize that Raid 0 was not redundant... now I get it.

Thanks,

ever-learning,

Marla

I can recommend that you get internal Western Digital Raid -5.
I am using it now and it works well, its fast and its reliable. I paid about $1000 to have 1TB installed and I could not be happier.

I have had 6 lacie drives, 5 of them have failed, one caught fire.
I cannot stress enough the importance of NOT getting a Lacie drive as they are not only unreliable but also very fragile and they will bust eventually.

Then of course you can get lucky and get one of those that dont brake, (I have one at work) but I wouldn't risk it.



Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

"...If you hate LaCie's so much, which SPECIFIC drive DO you recommend??"

For Firewire800 = G-RAID:

[www.g-technology.com]

They have highly dependable Hitachi units inside and keep a sustained transfer rate even through 90% capacity. Very affordable and dependable. Every Editor / Motion Graphics Designer I know has at least one.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

"...If you hate LaCie's so much, which SPECIFIC drive DO you recommend??"

For Firewire800 = G-RAID:

[www.g-technology.com]

They have highly dependable Hitachi units inside and keep a sustained transfer rate even through 90% capacity.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Is it NECESSARY for you to use an external FireWire drive at all? I suggest you place a second media drive inside of your Mac. It's much more stable that way. If you MUST use an external FireWire drive, at least maintain it properly. The biggest thing you have to be aware of (and most people are not!) is to unmount your external drives prior to shutdown.

You say you (and others) have had problems and that Disk Warrior fixed it? This is the problem that occurs if you do not unmount your drives before shutting down the Mac.

You must RELIGIOUSLY unmount your external firewire drives before shutting down. Just drag them to the trash. THEN shut down the Mac.

Avoid hot swapping and hot patching as well. Unmount, then shut them down prior to patching or attatching drives.

That way, you'll never need DW to fix your drives. That problem will no longer occur.



Kevin Monahan
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Thanks for that unmounting tip, I will adjust my habits accordingly!

I have now decided to use G drives for my personal use, at work I doubt I'll be able to change anyone's mind about the Lacies...

And yes, it is necessary to use external hard drives here at the museum, due to the nature of the multiple projects that we need to keep consistently alive.

When you suggested a second media drive, are you talking about scsi or something particular? I have been told that, after the next fiscal year, July, they will be ordering me a scsi raid for my system.

Any thoughts about if that's the best approach? I have:

Machine Name: Power Mac G5
Machine Model: PowerMac7,3
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 2.5 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 1.25 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.8f7

Thanks,

Marla

You don't need an overpriced SCSI RAID ($$$ - CHA CHING). Look at SATA RAID unstead...you get more for your $$$. An 8-drive ARRAY enclosure can handle Uncompressed HD and it's WAY affordable.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.