LaCie drive reliability
 

I need to pick up two 1.5TB drives for footage from HVX200 and EX1, looking at the LaCie 1.5TB Big Disk Extreme+ (http://www.lacie.com/ca/products/product.htm?pid=10942). Has anyone had any issues with them? Thanks.

This issue has been discussed at length on another list. LacCie drives have a terrible reputation, particularly the really big ones. They use Western Digital drives which seem have a high failure rate. The way the double drives are set up, if there's a problem with either drive, you lose ALL your data.

Here's the advice from a professional data recovery engineer (not me, but I can give you a link if you want):

QUOTE
"From Least Often to Most Often Seen in our recovery lab, so from "Best" to "Worst," here are the brands:

In 3.5" format (i.e. desktop size):

Samsung
Hitachi / Seagate (tied for second currently)
Maxtor
Western Digital
Others (old Quantums, etc.)

In 2.5" format (laptops):

Seagate / Samsung (tied for first place)
Hitachi
Fujitsu
Toshiba
Western Digital
Others

See a trend?

We have opened these drives and examined how they are made. As a result, we store ALL of our company-critical data on Seagate, Samsung and/or Hitachi drives (either form factor).

I am NOT criticizing one brand over another, nor am I here to argue with others about their favorite brands. It is OK to use any drive you like. All drives fail after a time, and none should be trusted based on their name or someone else's recommendation. Rotational media storage is inherently crazy, but it's what we have right now. Back up, and then back up your backups.

If you can get deal on Samsung right now, take it. Buy more than you need and sell one to a friend. Put one in an external case (currently the best external cases are from MacAlly, the all-metal ones with FW & USB) and keep your backup on it.

Or keep my phone number handy. :-)"
END QUOTE

However, before I knew this, I had bought LaCie drives in 80/120/160/200 and 250 GB sizes over a period of years for archiving multicamera video projects. I like them and so far none have failed, but there again they are used very rarely.

So I would say, if you are going to work them hard, maybe best avoided?

Look up customer reviews on Amazon (not of course that you would actually buy anything from anywhere other than our sponsors).

Colin McDonald

Thanks Colin, that's helpful. I can't seem to find that other thread.

I've had no issues with LaCie's either. I will avoid the double / RAID-0 drive though. These are drives mainly for archive, will not be used heavily. Any favorites for that purpose?

Sorry, the quote was from from a completely different list, not dvinfo.net. The list has to be joined to view, there's no public archive like here.

I haven't bought any HD's recently myself, but Seagate seems to come up a lot as ones to go for. I can't quote you any particular models, but avoiding RAID-0 seems a good idea.

Some folks buy the FW enclosure separately and just put in a basic drive of their choice. I've not done it myself.

I've got 4 LaCie Drives and have experienced some problems with them especially when they get warm. I've switched to CalDigit for my RAID and OWC hardware based Firewire (2 disks) drives because they have good speeds and more importantly cooling fans. After 10 years of non-linear editing it's become clear to me that heat will wreck an edit in a heartbeat. So I pick drives with fast speeds and cooling fans. Other than that I've had good luck with Seagate & Maxtor drives.

My Seagate FreeAgent corrupts data VERY often making some, if not all of my HDV edits, a very risky thing to do.

I'm experiencing the opposite with Western Digital. I haven't noticed a single corruption on my 250GB external drive.

Rob,

Just saw your post - sorry for the delayed answer. I have used the Lacie 1.6TB bigger disk extreme. Probably 3 years old. When I switched to Mac a year and a half ago, I continually lost data. It was always due to me. Accidently getting unplugged (unmounting) and in each time, I got an error stating the drive shut down improperly and it ALWAYS lost the raid configuration. WOn't EVER use Lacie raided again! Again, it was my fault for letting it happen but that NEVER happens with any of my other drives. I now use 4 bay enclosures with 500 Gig SATA II drives and an ESata cable. The 5 pieces run me about $750 and gives me 1.9TB.

Jeff

I've had three Lacie drives fail on me (one raided, the other two not) in the past year. The raided drive's data is lost forever, I'm not intending to spend up to $4000 as quoted to attempt to recover it. Never going back to that brand.

I always thought that being Lacie it was better. Dissapointed. Lacie is only the aluminium case. I bought a Lacie 320Gb Quadra 4 months ago (that box with 4 connections available) and the drive stopped working yesterday. By the way it is a Samsung, so hurray for reliability! I have now a 1300€ proposal to get my data back... :(

It is hard to say what it the most reliable drive you can get. I've had all brands and all of them have failed me at least once. But Western Digital is perhaps what failed most.

Much is said about Raid0 being unsecure. It is a matter os luck. I've had one working with 2 different disks( you heard me, they do not have to be the same brand and size altough it is recommended) for one year and never had any problems. For HD editing it was superb!

Now I will definatelly look into some portable device that allows me to put 3-4 disks and do a Raid5 which has the better relation Speed/security.

Regards,
Nelson

Just installed a hardware RAID5 setup with 5 1TB drives in it, feeling much more secure!

For those who don't already know, on the LaCie external drives the symptoms of a faulty power supply appear the same as those of failed drive (click, click, click, won't mount). Personally, I have yet to have a failed drive, always a failed power supply.

So, before blowing a load of cash recovering data, swap out the power supply.

Hello all,
Tom, wether if you are commenting about my situation or not, I've decided breaking warranty seal and openning lacie box to test my HD directly attached in the computer before submitting it to data recovery. That was how I discovered it was a Samsung drive.

I'm sad that besides the aluminum Lacie case everything else seems to have regular finishings. When I'm paying extra money to have a Lacie HD I am in fact paying for the design and the box material.
Next time I will definately buy ebay's made in china enclosure, as what could make a difference is only the hd...

regards

Seagate is the best hands down. This is not a biased opinion. Just take a look at their warranty and that should say something. However, the FreeAgent has not had good reviews. As far as external drives, I would just go with a good internal, and a GOOD enclosure.

I am going to look into this RAID5 thing, sounds interesting. If anyone would like to give me a quick and dirty on what it is, that would be great.

Hi Nelson, just putting it out there because so many people buy LaCie drives. The problem of a faulty power supply is common enough that B&H sells replacement power supplies in their Harddrive Acc section (don't sell anyone else's that I can tell).

Heat kills drives, their life clock is counting down fast when their second stage fan comes on.
Cheers.