POLL: LACIE FIREWIRE DRIVES: How do you feel about them?

OK...there are some that feel very strongly about these little babies in the positive & negative camps. Let's see what our colleagues think. Feel free to post your stories below the poll. Please be honest and have fun with it!!!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

To be fair... it did get kicked over while running. And that was one of 10+ I've used...

i voted "good", but then don't think i ever vote "excellent" for anything.

2 of my 7yr old LaCies are dead.

and had one recent failure.
that was after 3yrs use of a drive with a 1yr warrantee.


in fact given that ALL drives fail,
and presumanbly they have something on them when they fail,
maybe the poll question is misleading.
you could ask the same question about ANY brand of drive and come up with a negative result.

maybe the question should be more along the lines of "did the drive fail within the warrantee period"?



nick

are you talking 3.5 " desktop firewire drives or 2.5" bus-powered drives?

i wouldn't touch the 3.5" models with a barge pole (BAD) but have never had any trouble at all with the 2.5" models (EXCELLENT)

First generation was OK, but in the last 2 years I buried 3 out of 4.

nick...don't read into it so much. Simple poll. Excellent / Good / Bad / Never Again.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

How about someone who's never experienced a failure personally but has witnessed the carnage of lost drives by others?

I have 5 LaCie drives that I bought 3+ years ago and have never had an issue with any of them. Even the Porsche drives that need to be on stilts to get proper airflow have never really failed. I had them heat up and slow down once, but once I started making ultra-sure they were getting enough airflow when in use on the road, they've behaved fine.

Still, I now buy GTech products instead of LaCie when having to buy off the shelf.

I've had clients who've had serious problems with their LaCie (and one with Maxtor) drives, but I can't vouch for how they were handled because I never witnessed that.

What category would I fit into? I wouldn't buy one unless I had an urgent need and that was the only option because I've seen the problems others have had, even though mine have all behaved well over the years. (knock on wood, turn around clockwise three times, throw salt over left shoulder.)

deb

I don't know, debe. You have witnessed so many go down and you would STILL buy one for an urgent need? Wow. Post what you feel. You are not being catagorized. You like them...post GOOD. You LOVE them, go for the tattoo. We still love you no matter what you post

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

If I needed a drive that day because I'm out of town (or something) and I had absolutely no other choice, yeah, I'd take the risk.

I would replace it ASAP, but if the choice is to tell the client that I won't do the job he hired me to do because I can't find my hard drive of choice...well, that's bad business.

deb

They sell G-Raids everywhere debe

Just the fact that you say you would replace it ASAP puts you into the "don't feel safe using a LaCie" crowd. Welcome aboard.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Have had two Lacie drives running well for over 5 years. Ne'r a hiccup in all that time. But presently, am using a G Raid for my work. The LaCies have been relegated to backup only, as a result of the negative stories on this and other forums.

Would I buy another LaCie....nada!! Why take the chance??

I've got 6 LaCie drives.
(2) 250gb Porsche models
(2) 160gb
(1) 250gb
(1) 320gb quadra

One of the Porsches went kapoots. I had to use disk warrior to recover the info in that one.

Sometimes I've had problems seeing them in the finder. But otherwise they've been pretty good and reliable.

If anyone has any recommendations for another external drive brand I'd like to know.

Thanks!

HATE Lacie!!!!

1) Had 1 500GB D2 fail (for no apparent reason and with no warning) and the shop I bought it from's repair department could do nothing for it. Lost all the footage and .psd's for a short film I was editing as a favour for someone and now also have a gap from 2006 to mid 2007 in my showreel. Also lost a 60th birthday tribute video I did for my Dad. (Footage, project file and stills and Compresser m2v and aiff)

2) Had 1 160GB portable (the porsche design one) fail and lose the files I was transporting to a client -caused me to have to re-compress and keep them waiting for 1 day. The shop managed to resurrect the drive but not the data and would only give me store credit because according to them "It still works" -drive was 3 weeks old.

3) Another 160GB Gave another client all the captured footage (from several videographers working in DV, DVCPro50tape and HDV so they had no use for the orig tapes as they only had a miniDV cam). When they tried to access the files recently the drive would not boot. They have since misplaced the drive but I guess that's not really Lacie's fault.

To top it all, I pass an IT store that has a HUGE Lacie logo above their shopfront -grrrrr!!!

But, James...if you had all these projects where you didn't even backup the project files -- let alone non-timecoded media, graphics, audio -- then there's something seriously wrong with your work habits. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but it's at least 75 per cent your own fault. I detest Lacies as well, but even very good drives can fail, and if you didn't backup the project file, graphics, music files, notes etc., then any drive would be too dangerous for you to use.


www.derekmok.com

[Simple poll.]

ROTFLOL. Nothing's THAT simple.

What Nick M. said.

I realize some of you need to assassinate the brand for past crimes real or imagined, or as Derek says, because it's 75% operator error.

It looked like I was able to vote twice!! (And I was completely honest each time!) -- just what is the metric here? What are you asking about? The brand, box or the drive inside? All have morphed over the years. Inside, Quantum, IBM Deskstar, Hitachi, Western Digital, et al. Early LaCie's had the wrong Oxford chipset, (912 instead of 922) -- anyone remember that? Harvested a lot of mounting issues and headaches.

Today, I love D2 LaCie's:
- pronounced "LAH-CEE," French-- not LAY-CY"
- for all flavors of DV25.
- plugged into an UPS with AVR.
- periodically treated with Diskwarrior.
- occasionally defragmented to recover contiguous space.
- not abused with itchy twitchy hot plugging. Slow down, dude!
- not written to while reading from.
- not overfilled-- 10% rule of thumb.
- not daisy-chained.
- unplugged during thunderstorms, no matter what.

Just about how you'd seriously treat any serious storage.

Hey, if they start dropping like flies under these conditions, believe me, I'll switch. Ain't happened yet! Reliable performance, and the D2 design (NOT the Porsche box or the USB-powered models) look good, fanless and quiet, and inexpensive.

With all that in mind, I voted GOOD.

But great idea, Joey. Now that we're initiating manufacturer-based assass- eh, polls-- which can be stuffed faster than a voting booth in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, we should vote on all sorts of stuff. But at least set a common baseline condition on how the technology is used, what model we're tlaking about, what kind of media, etc. I would be very interested in a thoughtful approach like that.

And maybe get Mike to provide a real user polling mechanism which recognizes and prevents re-votes, based on login. I was able to vote twice before it recognized me and prevented it. I could get a message from a real poll.

Really.

- Loren
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You might of got lucky Loren. Perhaps a cookie or cache thing. I cant vote twice. All I can do is revoke the vote. Thats how this poll works and it is working good here.

Michael Horton
-------------------

derekmok Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But, James...if you had all these projects where
> you didn't even backup the project files -- let
> alone non-timecoded media, graphics, audio -- then
> there's something seriously wrong with your work
> habits. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but it's at
> least 75 per cent your own fault. I detest Lacies
> as well, but even very good drives can fail, and
> if you didn't backup the project file, graphics,
> music files, notes etc., then any drive would be
> too dangerous for you to use.

Derek, I couldn't agree more and once bitten, twice shy I now backup EVERYTHING regularly -including copying my project files to a USB stick at the end of every session.

Unfortunately (and I suppose partly in defence of my former, less cautious self), the D2 failure occured at the worst possible moment (surprising that!!) -I had only recently relocated to a new country and moved from Premiere to FCP and invested in setting up a company and bought a camera and a Mac and FCS1 and Dreamweaver and Photoshop and a Hard Drive and everything else involved in moving from employed to freelance.

I had a USB PC external drive (formatted to FAT32 but obviously that wasn't ideal for backing up large .mov's) and I fully intended to invest in a backup solution but it did not reach the top of that list during the D2's short and otherwise uneventful lifespan.

No excuse I know but perhaps a little more background information that lets me be a little less hard on my old self.

[Incidentally, the "learn FCP" course I attended when I made the switch made NOT ONE mention of the importance of regular backups. But then again I've learned 80% of what I know about FCP from this forum anyway!!]

> I had a USB PC external drive (formatted to FAT32 but obviously that wasn't ideal for backing
> up large .mov's)

There is actually one advantage to that -- you can use a PC-formatted flash drive to interface with PCs, get files from them, etc. Mac-formatted flash drives don't work on PCs, but PC-formatted drives work on Macs. But I'd recommend not using FAT32 drives/flash sticks for backing up important FCP files, for fear of corruption.

> [Incidentally, the "learn FCP" course I attended when I made the switch made NOT ONE
> mention of the importance of regular backups.

Yes, unfortunately, you're not alone -- many FCP "instructors" and classes I've encountered do not go into proper work habits, theory, settings, file management etc. Because many, many FCP "instructors" aren't actual working editors! I taught briefly at one supposed film institution, and I started teaching students about codecs, Capture Scratch, and detailed file management -- when starting out, students are much better off if they're given a "my way or the highway" approach to learning file management. Then I was told by the administration to shut up and skip all that. None of the students I taught, I would consider ready to be an assistant editor or even to prep their own projects once out of school.


www.derekmok.com

NOW Loren, you are accusing us of "stuffing the box". Incredible. You DEFINITELY work for LAH-CEE, don't you. C'mon...spill it. Freelance PR maybe? Anyway...if you voted twice, then we can knock off one of the GOOD votes. Thanks for coming clean about that

You can't vote twice or I would have voted "NEVER AGAIN"...again. It's not a conspiracy...it's a simple poll. ALL LAH-CEE drives are included in the poll (cases / drives / cables / little blue light for a power button / etc). Simple.

The drives quitting is not 75% operator error unless you include pushing the power button as operator error.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

[.if you voted twice, then we can knock off one of the GOOD votes. Thanks for coming clean about that]

Always. The users deserve no less.

- Loren
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you would have voted twice if you could have,
but it's not a conspiracy.
i'll get back to you when i figure that one out

c'mon Joe,

you keep saying "it's a simple poll" when it's clearly not.
it's a political exercise.

you started this poll to prove your own point.
you are on here all the time with comments like "welcome on board" and telling people how they should vote.

well no one can accuse you of not wearing your heart on your sleeve!

Joe, you are the most passionate and idealistic guy on here,
which is great and we all love you for it,
but it can be a problem if you dont keep your feelings out of what should be an impartial exercise.

I wouldn't have voted twice...that was a poor example of a joke, there, nick (forgot my "winky-winky" face).

Politics? LOL...hardly. There are 2 POSITIVE categories and 2 NEGATIVE categories. That is pretty politically correct to me... and I have nothing to gain by the outcome of this poll. I started this poll because nobody else did and I got motivated when a few folks mentioned that my bad luck with LAH-CEE drives is directly related to user error.

Telling people how to vote?? What are you saying, man?! People don't want to vote won't vote and those that do aren't going to listen to a blow-hard like me. You read way too much into text posts and you are generalizing bigtime. I told one person welcome aboard and she was asking what category she fell into...sheesh, c'mon nick loosen up your tie a bit

My big italian mouth won't sway ANYONE to vote any which way. I am here for the "entertainment value"... like an MC (LAH-EM-CEE ). The votes speak for themselves (well, loren did twice, anyway )

BTW...last time I checked, the voting was pretty close!! I may be eating a lot of crow by the time this poll is finished

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

If I didn't make it clear, I voted twice to test poll integrity, nothing more. Note that I could not vote a third time.

I don't want Joe or anyone to eat crow. I don't carry too much webwage. I delight in learning stuff and usually share it promptly.

I guess this measures brand loyalty. I mean, I DID lose a total of two LaCie units over the years. I could have voted "Never Again." But I dealt with LaCie tech support and talked to them at MacWorld and understood why things went wrong -- that was a 911 chipset, not a 912, BTW, which supercedes the 922's-- my bad-- and that understanding contributed to my best practices list for all Firewire devices used for online media.

It has also told me when to deprecate Firewire devices. I won't use them for any online media over DV25. With that in mind, I'd like to see a poll on SATA drive systems. But not by one brand-- which as Nick says looks political-- but by all popular available brands? That make more sense?

Or should we just leave this stuff to Bare Feats?

- Loren
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I've been using the Lacie Rugged 7200 rpm 200g bus powered drive to edit as I fly back and forth across the country, and it has worked great!! Tomorrow the real test comes when I fly back to New York editing HDV for the first time on this drive!

Alan Tavener
Powerbook G4 1.67GHz 2G RAM FCP 5.0.4
Dual 1.8GHz Power PC G5 1.5 GB RAM FCP 5.0.4
[www.youtube.com]

I'm not going to vote because our experiences have been a little odd.

The personal LaCie drives have been pretty awful. We've had several client drives bite the big one while they were here and one of the casual users in the company show up wanting to back up their data in a big hurry because their portable drive was showing signs of instability. It was a LaCie and it since crashed. We were lucky.


On the other hand, we took delivery of a 1T LaCie 4-drive stack and then another one and put them on the two "big" video Macs. We formatted them RAID5 and just started to pile stuff on them. One of them failed in such a way that we had to replace the cabinet, which LaCie gave us with no trouble. We lost no data in the process and that tower has been running ever since. The other one never did anything wrong and we since bought one or two more for Avid local storage.

We very recently took delivery of a LaCie 2T tower and that one seems to be happy.

So I can't tell if this is a time thing, or a product line quality control issue, or what. We're still using them, but we're reluctant to recommend them outright because of the earlier experiences.

Koz

That's a good, conservative stance. Interesting they perform reasonably well as RAID for higher bandwidth formats-- especially via FireWire. You confirm those are FW models, or SATA?

- Loren
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I bought my first LaCie about 4 years ago. Today I have 23 sitting on my shelf. I have only had 2 minor issues with two drives. The drive was fine it was the enclosures chip-set(???). It would spin up but never mount. I unscrewed the enclosure and plugged it directly into my system and it mounted perfectly. I sent both drives and enclosures to LaCie and 1 week later 2 new drives. (The warranty had expired but I explained to the tech that I have 23 of these and I purchase them frequently. He had me give him a SS# from a newer drive still under warranty, and covered it. THANKS LACIE)

I always read and have seen colleagues loose LaCies. However most of the time I learn that the LaCies are the 500GB or larger. Most of mine are 250GB and 320GB When I started buying drives I figured keep them small so if I loose one or two I only have to explain myself to 3-4 clients instead of 10+ clients.

I use them and don't abuse them. I keep them on a rack and when needed I plug that drive in. I keep everything well ventilated and shut down my drives every night. I also have a small Pelican-1510 that holds my PowerBook and two LaCie drives. I always have a drive or two in tow. Still these drives have done the job and I have been very happy with them.

Last year I started using the CalDigit's for my HD work and I hope these will be just as good.

Please LaCie's don't fail me now;-)

Royce

Quote

I unscrewed the enclosure and plugged it directly into my system and it mounted perfectly.

Yeah my point exactly - the cases (mostly the bigdisk and porche ones) are rubbish you shouldn't HAVE to do this...

Extra minus points - at least they went someway to giving you replacements which means nothing to your client when its lost all their work and you don't have another enclosure and your deadline is looming.

Sorry but for Pro stuff LaCie still get the no vote. With one exception - the little 2.5" USB drives are (in my experience) as reliable as any other in the mini external HDD category. However I wouldn't use these for serious work digitising or playback but merely for (SneakerNet) transfers.



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