LaCie gets minimalist with its latest external hard drives

We've definitely seen some wild designs come out of LaCie's workshops, so the company's latest external drive, billed simply as the LaCie Hard Disk, is something of a departure. The monolith-looking unit was designed by Neil Poulton for the company, and features a smooth surface marred only by a power switch, fan grate, and USB 2.0 and power connections. Not available until January, but LaCie's taking pre-orders now, with sizes ranging from 320GB for $119 to 1TB for $399.

[donavon.young @ Dec 6th 2007 2:34PM]

looks nice. to bad these drives will fail in 3-6 months.

[Beef Supreme @ Dec 6th 2007 2:49PM]

3-6 months??? Doubtful. I've had my 500GB Lacie since Q1 of 2007 no problems, you my firend have been misinformed. Anyway the design is pimp would love for this to accent my custom colorware 17" Macbook Pro. But why not 500GB model? 320GB to 1TB seems to be skipping across the buyers spectrum.

[Alex @ Dec 6th 2007 2:59PM]

320GB for $119 to 1TB for $399. They range from 320GB to 1TB, not just 2 sizes ;)

[km @ Dec 6th 2007 3:00PM]

Um, there's also 500GB and 750GB models. Generally the word ranging denotes a range.

[D Money @ Dec 6th 2007 3:37PM]

Uh, Misinformed? Beef Supreme i had 4 lacie porsche 250gb drive. all of which ceased to work within 6 months. lesson learned. best of luck to you on your dirve though.

[anonymous @ Dec 6th 2007 5:52PM]

you can say that for pretty much any electronics these days, quality is a luxury few companies try to attain anymore. It is all about the profit margin and the next item in the list to suck another buck.

[anonymous @ Dec 6th 2007 5:56PM]

you can say that for pretty much any electronics these days, quality is a luxury few companies try to attain anymore. It is all about the profit margin and the next item in the list to suck another buck.

[Wildness @ Dec 6th 2007 10:58PM]

I have four of the Porsche designed external HDs (3x250GB 1x500GB)and love them! Two of them I have had for more than a year with no problem at all. This new design looks even better. The major problem with these and the Porsche designed...they don't come in anything but USB and I now only need Firewire and eSATA drives at this point. One other design issue I hope has changed: auto power on/off with the computer like the Western Digital externals.

[linkman2004 @ Dec 6th 2007 2:49PM]

Cue the chorus and killing monkeys.

[seoultrain @ Dec 6th 2007 6:54PM]

It's nice to get to an article and know exactly the (sometimes obvious) joke to make, but see someone say it better than you ever could.

[Daniel @ Dec 6th 2007 2:51PM]

that. is. sexy.

[Anthony @ Dec 6th 2007 3:08PM]

I find an overwhelming sense of desire for rectangular shaped boxes too.

I just wish La Cie would include software like Maxtor. I want a "one touch" solution in a simple, efficient design.

[Solanole @ Dec 6th 2007 3:57PM]

LaCie does include one-click backup software; it lets you select folders on your computer and click a 'copy over' button. I can't imagine Maxtor's software is much more convenient or more powerful.

If you're on Windows and want a more elegant backups, the Microsoft Download Center has a decent syncing tool called SyncToy that's very user-friendly for getting files on to EHDs.

[Silencio @ Dec 6th 2007 3:08PM]

Beautiful looking enclosure for sure, but no Firewire 800 or eSATA == no sale.

[celeritas @ Dec 7th 2007 5:47PM]

Seconded.

[BoZs13 @ Dec 6th 2007 4:42PM]

You can say that again. Man, this is 2007 (almost 2008), when are these people going to wake up!

I love the style of the HD but reliability problems of the past are scaring me a little. Truly beautiful though...just add the damn high speed interfaces! (FW800 or eSata)

[Bill @ Dec 6th 2007 5:14PM]

Wrote LaCie sales and asked about a firewire version. Was told that one is coming, but no date as yet.

[Paul @ Dec 6th 2007 3:18PM]

Thats pretty cool, I wonder if they sell it as a seperate enclosure. I have many spare Hard drives flopping around and that looks pretty sweet.

[Good_Bytes @ Dec 6th 2007 3:22PM]

They also have the 750GB and 500GB

500GB:
http://www.lacie.com/ca/products/product.htm?pid=11014

750GB:
http://www.lacie.com/ca/products/product.htm?pid=11015

The drive also comes with 2 year warranty.
What is also missing in this article is that the 320GB and 500GB only has 8MB of cache, then the 750 and 1TB has 16MB of cache

[Ron @ Dec 6th 2007 3:45PM]

The problem with a warranty is that it does nothing when the drive dies and you lose all your data. It's nice that they will replace the drive, but it's the data that I care about.

I've had several of their inexpensive Porsche designs drives, and have found them prone to overheating. (They have a grill and a spot for a fan, but mine don't have fans. They also don't automatically spin down after X minutes on inactivity.) This design looks like a shiny black version of the "gunmetal" plastic Porsche version; hopefully they included a fan and a better controller board. Can't bitch too much, though, since the drive & enclosure cost less than a naked drive.

[Good_Bytes @ Dec 6th 2007 4:45PM]

Well you can always open up the drive case, remove the drive and slide in a nice WesternDigital or something. :)

[Mort @ Dec 6th 2007 3:22PM]

I just want the enclosure too. It looks very stylish and absolutely shmexy.

[Hotwings @ Dec 6th 2007 3:24PM]

Up to 1TB for only $399? Wow, that's good considering the prices of other 1TB drives out there, plus it'll look sexy while doing it's job, nice combo.

[T-Bone @ Dec 6th 2007 4:12PM]

I'm not so sure a shiny, black box can really be "designed". I guess shiny and black can be designed, but they are only a tiny step above primitive designs.

[macmike47 @ Dec 6th 2007 4:28PM]

Mmm, I was thinking this too. I wonder what Poulton gets for doing that? And does anyone else have to think of chickens?

[Adam @ Dec 6th 2007 8:52PM]

It usually takes a good designer to tell a company, "Hey, chill out with all the LEDs, molded plastic and dull, gray boxes. Try something clean and simple."

[Dixonij @ Dec 6th 2007 4:13PM]

My god... its full of data...

[Ed @ Dec 6th 2007 4:26PM]

"If I had a million dollars..."

[Matthew Hilario @ Dec 6th 2007 4:32PM]

it's the all spark!

[Jason @ Dec 6th 2007 10:21PM]

Yeah. I like it. And it is surprisingly cheap, for such a "designer" drive. However, no sale for me without FW800. Otherwise my Time Machine backups will take forever.

[navstar @ Dec 6th 2007 8:58PM]

Looks like a fat black Wii.

It is nice looking, but these fanless drives get super hot if you stack them. I had two of their Porsche drives and two of them stacked together got so hot, I couldn't even touch them!

I like the new WD MyBook redesign better.

[sotec_productions @ Dec 6th 2007 5:25PM]

My fiance has had a LaCie 30GB external drive for years now, and she's never had a problem with it.

[blackbyte @ Dec 6th 2007 5:30PM]

ALLSPARK???? LOL.... you are hilarious. That is why I read this stuff. 30% for the reviews and 70% for the comments. lol

[thethirdmoose @ Dec 6th 2007 7:08PM]

Are you sure it's 30/70, and not, say, 35/65?
By the way, the all spark comment displayed an utter lack of comedic value.

[zoara @ Dec 6th 2007 7:57PM]

January? Arse. I've had this on order since early November (in the UK), and was wondering why the estimated ship date kept slipping and the LaCie website had no mention of it.

It's very cheap; I hope it's as much of a workhorse as my LaCie d2.

[Mike @ Dec 7th 2007 1:45PM]

USB is less expensive than FireWire is less expensive than USB/FireWire

Check the website.

While this new Poulton designed drive is USB only, LaCie have other models that have a variety of interfaces.

As for drives failing:
- disconcerting to say the least, bu no vendor guarantees data recovery if a drive fails

Here is a guide to commenting on future drive announcements:

- Vendor _______ sucks, and I'm going to purchase a drive from vendor _______; I've heard they are much better but I don't have any personal experience. My original drive failed after ________ days/weeks/months and that was my only copy of my valuable data.

- Vendor ______ is great! I've never lost anything after several years of happy operation.

- Buying a name brand drive is for losers. Simply buy a bare drive from ______ and slap it into a cool box you can purchase anywhere.

- Anybody can design a __________ (pick your favorite color) disk drive. What's so cool about this one?

[Z @ Dec 7th 2007 2:07PM]

The design looks very nice, except for that big dorky "LaCie" badge on the left-hand side. Couldn't they have minimalized that a tad? My guess is that Neil Poulton wanted the drive completely clean, but some executive who had his tie on too tight and who didn't have any design instincts in a single bone in his body, wanted the LaCie name "stamped" somewhere, which of course, ruins the looks to whatever degree.

The design is so clean otherwise, instead they could've placed the name in VERY small capital letters (spaced apart further than normal) on the front in some really cool font, and then had them light up in blue. That would've looked much nicer than that tacky, misplaced badge.

With that said, I hope these drives last longer than their warranty. The drives in my laptops have lasted much longer than that.

[Naga @ Dec 7th 2007 2:21PM]

We've had a few LaCie drives at work, and ontop of failures and buggyness, their tech support is poor and send us back partially working devices. It's also important to note they span alot of data across many drives, with zero redundancy.