Monday, February 20, 2012

LaCie 320 GB D2 Hard Drive USB 2.0/Firewire 400 & 800 (301146U)


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Combining all of the leading interfaces into one drive, the LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface now also comes in higher capacities to handle your most demanding projects. It can be easily shared among multiple users and is conveniently plug & play. With up to 800Mbits/s per bus and up to 64MB/s per drive burst, it's ideal for a variety of professional applications for your PC and Macintosh. Unit Dimensions (WxHxD) - 1.7 x 6.3 x 6.8 inches (44 x 160 x 173mm) / Weight - 3.31 lbs / 1500 g Manufacturer's 1 Year Limited Warranty

This review is from : LaCie 320 GB D2 Hard Drive USB 2.0/Firewire 400 & 800 (301146U)
Reliable external Firewire 800 hard drive for Macs (or PC). . I've been using this external drive for a month now with my MacBook Pro and have not experienced any problems. It serves as my primary backup drive to mirror my MBP's internal drive in case of failure. I also use it to store DV files for editing and other media files.

Data transfer speeds are fast over Firewire 800 as expected. Average transfer speed at 50% capacity is 27-70MB/sec. Although a 16MB cache would've been nicer for a drive of this capacity, 8MB seems perfectly fine for most needs. Firewire 400 speeds average 20-33MB/sec. USB 2.0 is the slowest averaging 13-18 MB/sec. Keep in mind that these are rough estimates and that read/write speed will vary depending on file size, the part of the disk it's writing to, the level of file fragmentation, and your computer's specs. But generally Firewire 800 will be fastest and USB 2.0 will be slowest.

Although this drive unit has no internal fan, the Seagate ST3320820A 7200rpm HDD is not silent. Next to my MacBook Pro, the whirring of the spinning HDD is clearly audible. When it's reading or writing, the clicking of the drive head is also noticeable. Every HDD makes noise to a certain degree, with some quieter than others. I've found Western Digital HDD's to be among the quieter ones, Hitachi's being fairly noisy and Seagate's somewhere in between. I keep the LaCie under my desk and don't notice the whirring sound, but can still hear it click occasionally. I don't mind the clicks since that helps me know when it's busy. But the constant whirring sound on your desk may drive you batty especially if you work in a quiet environment. So my recommendation is to put the drive someplace where you can't see it.

One feature of this drive is that it will spindown if you disconnect it from your Mac. Some external HDDs continue spinning unless powered down. The LaCie also obeys your Mac's Energy Saver hard disk sleep settings. The default spindown time I believe is 10 minutes. There are various third-party tools that allow you to modify the spindown time. I just use Terminal and the "pmset" command to modify this. For example, to change the spindown time to 45 minutes when my MBP is connected to a charger, I enter this in Terminal:
sudo pmset -c spindown 45

One caveat about modifying the spindown time - this setting affects all drives connected, including your internal drive. So you will need to choose what spindown limit is reasonable for all drives. (Personally, I'm ok with 45 minutes on mine.)

One last thing... if you plan to use this drive as a bootable backup drive with your Intel Mac, be sure to first re-partition the drive using the GUID partitioning scheme. This will be one of your options in Disk Utility. You'll then be able to backup your internal drive or install OS X onto the LaCie and boot from it. The default partition scheme out of the box is Apple Partiton Map, which is bootable for PowerPC Macs. To boot with Windows you will need to repartition it as Master Boot Record.

To sum up, I've had a good experience with this drive and would recommend it to those looking for an affordable, large capacity, Mac compatible, Firewire 800 drive.
LaCie 320 GB D2 Hard Drive USB 2.0/Firewire 400 & 800 (301146U) Reviews
3 options for interfacing is excellent very fast and quiet. . I have owned 3 LaCie drives and they all work very well. This is the latest one I have bought and I have been even more satisfied then in previous purchases. They finally figured out how to make this drive completely quiet. If you are a HD music lover and stream from your hard drives then you will love that feature. Fan noise and drive noise is almost non-exsistant.

Additionally the USB, FIREWIRE 400 and FIREWIRE 800 options are awesome. The previous version only had the 2 firewire plugs but adding the USB was a great idea. So now no matter what computer you move it to you can access the information. Obviously the FIREWIRE 800 has the fastest transfer rates but all interfacing works fine. If you own a mac its plug and play. Can't comment for PC users however I am sure its a snap.

***Warning: The LaCie drive is a spinning drive. Do not be fooled by its size and weight. If you plan to transport it from location to location be VERY careful. I lost my first one because I traveled to a 'on-location' job and when I got back the drive failed. This is true with any 'spinning' drive so its not the fault of LaCie. If you plan on doing a lot of traveling with the drive then look for a 'solid-state' drive technology. ie. flash/thumb drive etc.
LaCie 320 GB D2 Hard Drive USB 2.0/Firewire 400 & 800 (301146U) Opinions
320GB Lacie D2 Extr II 7200RPM . The separate Power Supply `Brick' started to fail almost immediately. After searching the web and reading what other people having the same symptoms said, I called Lacie customer support and requested a new Power Supply. I received the new supply (bigger than the original) in about a week and have had no problems since.

This unit is used primarily for backup purposes and also is used for transferring data between computers. It is easy to use and I am pleased with the speed.
What's not to like? . Ordered on friday, recieved on monday, set it up the same day. I have a MacBook Pro and the unit was already set up for it. All I really needed to do was plug in the 800 wire to the unit, plug the 110v cord to the wall and that was it. Total no brainer. One click backup works great especially cool with the "Leopard" and "Time Machine". It took longer to read the directions than anything else. Buy it.
EXCELLENT! . I've owned six LaCie drives and never had a single problem. I would recommend this model series to anyone!
320GB Lacie D2 HD . I have used LaCie external drives for many years. They are reliable and effortless to set up and get going. This drive has proven a worthy replaceemnt for the last one I bought which is now being used by my son.
The only brand External Hard Drive I will ever use . I got my first LaCie 4 years ago and filled it up. They are expensive, so I tried and off brand as my second and it was the pits. I bought another LaCie and it is perfect for me and my mac.
If you use a mac, I suggest no other brand.
Nice but slow . I use this with an Apple G4 PowerBook. I tested some large and small file transfers. Using FW800, the fastest interface, the rate was about 19 MB/sec. That is painfully slow. Using FW 400, I got about 12MB/sec. That is like a disabled snail. Smaller files transfered at a slower rate. The drive is quiet. It does not seem to overheat or get especially hot. It was very easy to set up with multiple partitions. Or it could be used right out of the box. It is very compact. I have not tried other external HD with the PowerBook, so I do not know if this is fundamentally a problem with the Powerbook or just a slow external drive.

Cheaper external HDs on PC's with which I am familiar transfer files much faster. It would be ironic if Apple, which brought out the FW800, implemented it so poorly that it is inferior to a PC using FW400 or USB.

Cons Review
Great Drive Until it No longer Worked . I was very happy with this drive, until it started to poop out on me after about 1 year. It now pops and spins down every few hours, and continues to spin down/up for about 10 minutes at a time, during which it is inaccessible.
Having seen the reviews for lots of these external drives, I wonder if it's just the nature of the product... none seem to be very reliable for very long.
Unreliable . I bought this paper weight in late 2004 and it promptly failed in the middle of a video editing project, taking 10 hours of stored video with it. I contacted Lacie for support, and a tech diected me to a trial one-time use data recovery software company and I was able to recover about 70% of the data.

Since then it has failed again (today, on Christmas), and it is not worth it to me to pay for software to clean up after this unrelaible device.

This is especially disappointing as a number of friends (Mac and PC users) recommended Lacie. Maybe they have fixed the reliability problem since I bought this brick, but is little consolation to me.

Buy something else.


Feature LaCie 320 GB D2 Hard Drive USB 2.0/Firewire 400 & 800 (301146U)

  • Capacity - 320 GB /Interface - 2 x FireWire 800 (9-pin) ports /1 x FireWire 400 (6-pin) port (compatible with iLink, DV)/ 1 x Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (compatible with USB 1.1)
  • Rotational Speed (rpm) - 7200 /Interface Transfer Rate - FireWire 800 - up to 800Mbits/s (100MB/s) /FireWire 400 - up to 400Mbits/s (50MB/s) /USB 2.0 - up to 480Mbits/s (60MB/s) /Max Sustained Transfer Rate - FireWire 800 - up to 64MB/s / FireWire 400 - up to 42MB/s /USB 2.0 - up to 34MB/s / Average Seek Time (Write) - <10 ms /Cache Size - 8MB minimum
  • Software Configuration - Driver-free for Windows XP/2000 or Mac OS X; Silverlining for Mac OS 9; Silverkeeper for backup with Mac OS 9 & Max OS X
  • System Requirements - FireWire 800 equipped computer - Mac OS 10.2 or greater or Windows 2000/XP/Vista /FireWire 400 or iLink equipped computer - Mac OS 9.x/10.x or Windows 2000/XP/Vista /Hi-Speed USB 2.0 equipped computer - Mac OS 10.2.x or greater or Windows 2000/XP/Vista / USB 1.1 equipped computer - Mac OS 9.x/10.x or Windows 2000/XP/Vista / Intel Pentium II 350MHz-compatible or Apple G3/G4/G5/Intel processor; minimum 64MB RAM (Apple G4 processor required for use with FireWire 800)
  • Box Contents - FireWire 800 to FireWire 800 cable; FireWire 400 to FireWire 400 cable; iLink/DV cable; Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable (USB 1.1 compatible); Drive stand; External power supply; LaCie Storage Utilities CD-ROM including - Silverlining Utilities (Mac OS 9) for advanced drive management, and SilverKeeper (for Mac) software for automatic backup and file verification




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Product Details

EAN : 0093053703035
UPC : 093053703035
MPN : 301146U
Brand : LaCie
Weight : 6 pounds
Height : 7 inches
Length : 9 inches
Width : 9 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Hardware Platform : Mac
Manufacturer : Lacie
Model : 301146U
Publisher : Lacie
SKU : zw9913
Studio : Lacie

Where To Buy


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