LaCie 1 TB Bigger Disk Triple Interface FireWire and USB 2.0 Hard Drive (300875)

Comment: I had this LaCie drive for just over a year and the drive stopped working. First, you hear a chirping sound and the blue light on the drive blinks. This is the first indication that the drive is failing. After a week, the drive no longer turned on at all. Fortunately, this was my backup drive so I didn't lose any of my data. But, it's still not comforting knowing that your backup drive is failing you! In my office, two other people have had the same LaCie drive fail, so do not buy it!

Comment: The drive works great but if it stops working look out! Inside the case are 2 to 4 drives, not one "big drive" or a single Terabyte drive. The drives are working together in a RAID Zero array so, if the drive fails or you drop the thing, it will cost well over $2,000 to recover, trust me, I'm trying to get mine recovered now.

The outer case is steel but, don't let this fool you, there is absolutely no padding what-so-ever inside, a fall from a desk will destroy the drive for sure. A simple fall over has taken mine out. The drive is high vertically and thin with an extremely small base, if you reach out and accidentally tap it, the drive will fall over, and you can say goodbye to all your data.

The drive could use the shock detection that protects hard drives incase of a fall, ThinkPad laptops and Tough Books use this, that would protect your data but, I guess then you wouldn't have to go out and buy another one would you?

If you get this LaCie drive, make damn sure you have it very, very secure.

Comment: I have five different LaCie Big/Bigger Disk drives, from this the 1 TB version down to 500 GB versions, and 2/3rds of them have had some sort of failure as follows: 1) external power brick going bad, 2) FW800 ports going bad on 1 TB Bigger Disk, 3) bad drive (one of the two 250 GB drives in the Big Disk 500 GB version), 4) extremely loud noise (a Big Disk 500 GB version), 5) included firewire cable going bad.

Basically, anything and everything that can go wrong has gone wrong in these drives.

Naturally, all of these failures occurred after expiration of warranty. A new power brick from LaCie is $75.

For a failed disk, I put in a brand new WD and reformatted and the RAID recognized the "foreign" drive.

The fact of the matter is, from my experience, though aesthetically pleasing, are absolute JUNK. The failure rates for such a critical item (data storage) is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE. And it's not just one particular component.

Comment: Although the units are convenient when they're working, they're very inconvenient if something goes wrong. LaCie doesn't have good troubleshooting software. Instead, you get a flashing blue light--really helpful. Taking the drives out and putting them back in is difficult. I'm concerned that the reason two of the four drives failed in ours is because they got too hot. The units are only used for backup, so they don't receive intensive usage.

Comment: I purchased three 1TB Lacie drives and have used them on multiple computers and different ports. Over the past 2 weeks all of them have failed during copying of large numbers of files. Delay Write Failed. Many people are having the same problem. I thought I knew better than other people. Last Lacie purchase for me ever.