may i reiterate WHY i HATE laCie...

Thanks, Derek. I just looked at the Promax and they are pretty pricey. I know you get what you pay for and don't want to take any chances, but I did read here that OWC are good reliable drives, and are decently priced. I'm looking at a Mercury Elite-AL Pro FW800/400+USB2 Performance 7200RPM RAID
500 gig, 32 MB cache, Striped SATA-Equipped for $309.

<<You should disconnect the drive's FireWire cable from the computer when the drive isn't being used. ESPECIALLY Lacies>>

I never heard of this one before. What is the reason for unplugging when the drive is powered off? Electrial storms? If so, wouldn't my surge protector protect the drive and computer?

> I never heard of this one before. What is the reason for unplugging when the drive is
> powered off? Electrial storms? If so, wouldn't my surge protector protect the drive and
> computer?

No, I'm saying you should unplug all cables -- FireWire or power -- from your drive if it's not being used. Lacies generally have an "auto on" feature that turns the drive on automatically when an active FireWire cable is plugged in. Not a good system at all; all other good brand-name drives I've used, including WiebeTech, Promax and Seagate -- have proper power switches where off is off, and on is on, none of this automatic nonsense.


www.derekmok.com

Hi.
My simple solution for my LACIE wich was near and "heart and brain failure"... Just like me!!!
A computer fan and a power supply. Total aumount spended 30 euros. Around $38.12.







Rui Barros
Editor Colorist Trainer
Lisbon, Portugal
RTP Post-Production
Apple Certified Trainer FCP 7
Apple Certified Pro FCP 7

Rui Barros Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi.
> My simple solution for my LACIE wich was near and
> "heart and brain failure"... Just like me!!!
> A computer fan and a power supply. Total aumount
> spended 30 euros. Around $38.12.
>
>
>
> [ruibarrosonline.planetaclix.pt]
> /page11_1.jpg
> [ruibarrosonline.planetaclix.pt]
> /page11_2.jpg
> [ruibarrosonline.planetaclix.pt]
> /page11_3.jpg

...that's a joke, right?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hi Joe.

No i'm not joking.
A few months ago while editing an offline here at home, around 4h30 am, the disk suddently started to have some problems.
I couldn't move the playhead in the timeline, FCP was showing me the warning about lost frames, and so on... Rebotting the Mac didn't help because the computer was simply OK. Touching the LACIE disk enclosure, it was hot enough to grill a burger. So i've turn everything off for a while.
When the disk was in a cool temperature, the Mac was turned on and i didn't had any more problems until the disk started to get hot again.
I believe that LACIE problems are due to excessive heat inside the disk enclosures.

Rui Barros
Editor Colorist Trainer
Lisbon, Portugal
RTP Post-Production
Apple Certified Trainer FCP 7
Apple Certified Pro FCP 7

What kind of machine are you working on? Are you dead set on firewire? I, for one, have recently abandoned all my firewire drives (except for one OWC FW800 RAID enclosure with a pair of old 250 drives in it) for a 4-channel SATA PCI card, a 4 bay SATA enclosure, and 4 500GB drives.

It's faster than firewire, expandable, interchangeable, and more stable, plus it doesn't take up bandwidth on your firewire bus. The enclosure and card were free for me from a client (about $150 and $260 new), the 500GB Hitachis were $200 each. You can add drives as needed, and swap out full drives that aren't in use. You don't need to have 4 drives in there for it to work.

A really solid solution, if you're not locked into firewire drives.

travis ballstadt
www.thrillcateditorial.com

G5DP2.5ghz, 4.5gbRAM, 2TB external SATA, Panasonic AJ-D455, G4PB1ghz, 15", 1gbRAM

3 to 5 years with several LaCie 250 Go / I have 5 now
2 of them 250 Go D2

never a drop frame

HEAT! this is one of my big deal qualifiers for ANY drive purchase - MUST have a fan!!!!!!

from what ive seen, few if ANY LaCies have a fan.

I have lots of La Cie Porche drives, when they start to make a clicking noise it's over run for the hills! On the other hand all drives have problems, I just said that to keep this thread alive ha ha!