Anyone using the LaCie 4 Big Quadra?

Just wondering if anyone here is using the LaCie 4 Big Quadra raid for video editing? I am in the market for a raid for editing HD and was considering this one. Any direct experience with his unit would be appreciated.

Hmmmm. Look at CalDigit for HD RAID, they have a nice solution.

LaCie is great for DV, IMHO.

- Loren
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LaCIe - BLEH!

Stay away from Lacies. In my experience, they have about a 50 per cent failure rate within the first year. And I have never lost any of my own Promax or G-Tech drives even after years of use -- my first-ever Promax 42GB still works every single time even after seven years, and most of my Promaxes are at least four years old now.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks for your input. I've looked at Cal Digit and it always scares me a bit to go with a product from a small company where you might not get the support you need. I sent them an email with a questions about their products 24 hours ago and have yet to get a reply.

Thanks for your detailed response.

Appreciate your help!

Their support is among the best in the industry. You don't survive a month in this business without good support. They've been making storage solutions for years. There are many owners of CalDigit products on this forum. What questions do you have? Quite frankly I can't think of a question that is not already answered on their web site.

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

Aquaimage.

I'm sorry if your e-mail question hadn't yet been answered yet.

If you sent an e-mail to sales that was involved, tech speaking, that might have been re-routed to support@caldigit.com or to our CTO Leslie, either way it should have been handled in a timely manner.

As Mike Horton indicated & I agree, our website's FAQ is one of the best out there:
[www.caldigit.com]

Or the support page for drivers:
[www.caldigit.com]

You can always contact me directly & I'll make sure to have your question addressed as fast as possible at jons@caldigit.com.

Mike's also right about us being around awhile now. We're not the new kid on the block, as an OEM before, (now in our 4th year as CalDigit) we designed & manufactured products for OWC, G-tech, Glyph, Pacific Pro Audio & many other companies. Our design, which other companies branded with their name. Video/audio & content creation storage are our forte.

If you call us we answer our phones 9-6PM PST (M-F) & we are in the process of having a live operator chat via our website with nearly 24/7 support online. If you e-mail us your phone number we'd be happy to call you back if necessary.

Thanks Michael.

Thanks for the reply.

My question was regarding the HD One and HD element. Do you have to have a drive in every bay? What is the pricing structure for different capacities?

Aquaimage.

All CalDigit products are fully populated with drives in every bay. An 8 bay HDOne 2TB for instance would have 8X 250GB drives inside. On pricing, our office generally quotes USD MSRP, that is to say US Dollar Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price.

The HDElement runs about 99 cents a GB, for the expansion unit itself, the CalDigit RAID card sold alone runs about $678.00 with the battery back up.

(A CalDigit RAID card /HDElement bundle is available) or the HDElement can be sold by itself as an expansion unit.

Current HDElement capacities are.

1TB
2TB
3TB
4TB
6TB

HDOne at todays date 11/18/08 MSRP is:

2TB $2299.00
2.56TB $2880.00
4TB $3999.00
6TB $4999.00
8TB $5999.00
12TB $7299.00


Do you have a favorite dealer? They're going to give you the best price. See our list here:

[www.caldigit.com]

Because someone will undoubtedly ask "What is the difference between the HDPro & the HDOne", the answer is here: [www.caldigit.com]

Incidentally I just spoke to Bob Zelin (A guru in our industry) this morning whom is working on a CalDigit RAID card/ HDElement article that will appear sometime in the near future. He loves the product & told me great product, great performance & a good price point.

I have an HD One and love it. Zero issues. Very fast, very reliable.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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Aquaimage.

& then there's Shane with his HDOne, or Michael Horton's counterpart in Boston, Dan Berube, whom loves his HDPro. There's Joey Morelli, a moderator here also that has several CalDigit products & Ben King that knows enough about us to know we're good. He'll be getting a HDPro or HDOne in the near future in the UK, where he's based.

Incidentally. I Like the new pic Shane, although something appears to be missing.

LaCie = DEATH.
CalDigit = LIFE.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hey Joey mate!

Don't slate LaCie so much man!

The new LaCie d2s with their new heatsink case are perfect...





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JonatCalDigit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Incidentally. I Like the new pic Shane, although
> something appears to be missing.

Ya....THE NOODHAMMER!


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Shane,

LOL, too funny.

What Shane said folks, is an inside joke between Shane & I.

Jon

OK nobody on the outside likes inside jokes.

Isn't "NOODHAMMER" a euphemism for...well...nevermind

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Joey, Ok, I'll relent: [www.sikkerheten-selv.no]

That's a Nodhammer, it's just I like to pronounce it incorrectly in my crazy Dutch accent as NOODHAMMER!

Being in the Netherlands makes one kinda crazy. Being in the Netherlands with Shane doubles that!

Jon

LOL...I never pictured you with a Dutch accent, Jon!

You know what Ben...if George Foreman built External HDD's, I'll bet even he wouldn't be dumb enough to use Maxtor / WD drives in it....otherwise it wouldn't be a "Lean Mean Rendering Machine".

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

aquaimage, you've run into the anti-LaCie snob mob. They offer no objective evidence that LaCie's are junk. I intuited (based on specs) that the LaCie Big Disk Extreme series was better-built than the LaCie Quadra series, and I didn't need SATA, so I bought three of the former. They've worked perfectly. Also my 3 little (Porsche design) USB-2 LaCies have worked perfectly.
Most hard drive failures are mechanical. Neither LaCie nor CalDigital make their own hard drives, not the guts in the middle of the box. Is CalDigital really using higher spec guts? Anyhow, if you're using RAID-1, or higher, configured drives, it's not so bad when one fails. With RAID, even if half the LaCie's failed and no CalDigital's failed (each within the intended lifetime) you'd be money ahead with LaCie's.

CalDigit does make their HDs. They made them for G-Tech too before they spun off and became CalDigit. And although I "somewhat" agree with you about LaCie calling people snobs just invites a fight. Everyone has their favorites. Lets just leave it at that.

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

Yes, I was a bit overwhelmed by the responses I got to this question. Some of the comments seemed a bit biased and less than professional...

Evidence? I have had 3 Lacie Bigger disks die...one mine, one a company that owned 5. The drives themselves died in one...well, ONE drive died. All other units had fine drives, as I took them out and got them working on their own. 50% failure rate right there...2/3 of that the failure of the guts.

Now...as for Caldigit...yes, they use different guts. They manufacture their own guts, or have designed the guts and are having them built. And they ONLY use highly rated drives, like Seagates and Hitachi. With Lacie, it is a crap shoot as to what drive they will put in there...Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi if you're lucky.

Joe has more drive failures...and I'll wager that everyone that doesn't like them has had a failure in their past. I have also lost TWO G-Raids...two...and I own 3.

I have 3 Caldigit drive enclosures...only a slight issue with one, and that was resolved by reformatting it. I didn't after I first received it, and it is best practice to do so, as who knows what happens during shipping.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Shane:
That's a more useful posting than many of the others. That's the type of information I was asking for, and I appreciate it. It's hard to justify spending more than twice as much if you don't have any concrete examples to point to.

Thank you.

> Evidence? I have had 3 Lacie Bigger disks die...one mine, one a company that owned 5. The
> drives themselves died in one...well, ONE drive died. All other units had fine drives, as I took
> them out and got them working on their own. 50% failure rate right there...2/3 of that the
> failure of the guts.

That's exactly the same failure rate I estimated for Lacies...and that's within one year.

Unfortunately, after using them for the past year, I've also found G-Tech to be short of expectations at this point. Shane and others used to recommend G-RAIDs, but I have three active right now and one of them is having issues, most likely with the power supply. No such issues whatsoever with my Promax drives, all of which (not some, all) mount on command, and all of which are at least a year older than the G-Tech drives. Some of the Promaxes are eight years old and some are five, and all of them have been working without even failing once.


www.derekmok.com

Thank you, Derek.

> aquaimage, you've run into the anti-LaCie snob mob. They offer no objective evidence that
> LaCie's are junk.

That's a pretty arrogant assertion, dcouzin. See the stats Shane and I offered above, and in countless past posts.

You're assuming our evaluations aren't based on fact just because you don't agree with the final grade. That is unprofessional.

Disagree with us all you want, it's your right, but don't dare assume that our analysis is faulty. You don't know us, and I can tell you that at least 150 film students I used to do tech support for would offer concrete experience countering your assertion.

> I intuited (based on specs) that the LaCie Big Disk Extreme series was better-built than the
> LaCie Quadra series

"Intuited"? Who's offering "unobjective evidence" now?


www.derekmok.com