LaCie silently launches Mobile Disk, Desktop Hard Disk

LaCie's been known to launch a few products under the cover of darkness before, and sure enough, it's decided to do just that with a trifecta of new externals. Starting from the top, we've got the 1TB Desktop Hard Disk, which sports a USB 2.0 port (only) and an exceedingly simplistic black design. Next up is the more compact 250GB - 500GB Desktop Hard Disk, which sports the same name (and sole USB socket) but a much less bulky chassis. Lastly, the Mobile Disk comes in 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 250GB and 320GB sizes, fits in most cargo pockets and gets all the juice it needs from your machine's USB port. Word on the street has both the Desktop and Mobile drives starting at around €80 ($123), and if you look hard enough, you can actually grab these right now.

Read - LaCie 1TB Desktop Hard Disk [Via Gizmos]
Read - LaCie 250GB - 500GB Desktop Hard Disk
Read - LaCie Mobile Hard Disk [Via Gizmos]

[Balam Herrera @ Mar 10th 2008 5:50PM]

2 things:

1. USB only? what is that good for?????

2. When a new MacPro comes out, the new desing will be something like this??? All these manufacturers always make their devices match with all that Apple makes (which is good). So, can lacie be thinking in advance and designing the drives based on a new concept by apple???

[doctorSpoc @ Mar 11th 2008 12:51AM]

USB 2.0 is good for backup for one.. and for media storage for two...

Firewire and eSATA are faster but for backup and media storage who the hell cares, you don't need faster, so you are a fool if you buying Firewire or eSATA for that... it's a waste of money... you are not going to be use this drive for video editing or anything but if you have a sh!t load of ripped DVDs this is great.. as long as it's damn cheap.. i'm talk'n less that $230 'cause you can get a couple small 500Giggers for that or even less if you really look.. it good as long as it's damn cheap.

[BigDaddyM @ Mar 10th 2008 5:56PM]

I know so MANY people that have failed LaCie drives, including myself. Support was horrible. Anybody want a brick, buy LaCie. I keep my failed one around to remind everybody how bad their products are.
M

[Dave @ Mar 10th 2008 6:07PM]

That's pretty interesting. My friends and I have a great deal for respect for the design of Lacie's drives but have always found cheaper external drives. I'm personally a fan of FantomDrive, its all I've had and they've been great.

[absurdio @ Mar 10th 2008 6:16PM]

And to keep the opinions flowing, I've got two LaCie drives - one of which I've been using for years, and the second of which I purchased based on the strong performance of the first. Neither has let me down. *Shrug*

[Chris White @ Mar 10th 2008 6:28PM]

That's pretty funny, in my experience they've been the most stable externals I've had. I've been through a number of Western Digitals and a couple of friends have had bad luck with Seagates, but my Lacie has been rock solid despite traveling to work and school every day with me. In fact, I just bought (newer and smaller) one.

[Geir E @ Mar 10th 2008 6:23PM]

My two 320gb Lacie p3 drives keeps on spinning day after day for as long I have had them. I wouldn't have a doubt in my mind to buy Lacie again. beautiful are they as well.

[Ralph @ Mar 10th 2008 7:36PM]

I have to go with BigDaddyM on this one; I've been burned by LaCie externals in the past. To be fair, it was the distant past (ancient in computer terms; the last LaCie I spent money on was 5+ years ago). The burn, however, was enough to swear me off of LaCie pretty much for good.

[Ty @ Mar 11th 2008 10:12AM]

Hard drives die, external hard drives even more so. LaCie is one of the best out of the box externals you're going to get outside of buying an enclosure and building one yourself. Just keep in mind that for every person who is dying to scream out that their hard drive died, there are hundreds of people who aren't running to their keyboards to let the internet know that their external hasn't failed yet.

[navstar @ Mar 10th 2008 6:34PM]

USB 2.0 only? Bah!

Have you ever opened up a LaCie case? The cheapest, flimsiest components they can legally get by with.

[james @ Mar 10th 2008 6:16PM]

Lacie just use off the shelf drives and they don't stick with the same manufacturer every time so I'm sure the stats are just as bad elsewhere.

As for this one I just bought a Lacie drive and it requires a power brick...damn. This one might have problems with some laptops though if they don't output enough juice over USB.

[iDevin @ Mar 10th 2008 6:20PM]

We use a fair amount of LaCie drives in the industry I work in because for some reason people think they're the industry standard. I've seen a lot of them die, many at very inopportune times.

I personally opt for either Seagate or Fantom Drives. Lately I've gone to Fantom for externals because of the awkwardness of the Seagate Freeagents. I have five 500GB Fantom externals that I use daisy chained via firewire and they all work perfectly.

[Geir E @ Mar 10th 2008 6:26PM]

both my lacie p3's have seagate drives in them. they are reported as Seagate ST3320820A USB Devices.. so I can't see why a seagate external drive should be better.

[BigDaddyM @ Mar 10th 2008 6:45PM]

My western digitals have been running great. Seagate is okay. I also have G-Tech and I am not liking them. I have teh G-raid mini and it makes a hard click every once in a while but it is a replacement drive for another one that click. This new one clicks less.
M

[beowolf @ Mar 10th 2008 6:43PM]

the 1 TB version is on the market since a few weeks already here in Belgium, if you are interested I should warn you: the cooling fan is quiet for 30-40 mins and than constantly blows every 2-3 mins, and is quite noisy actually. This is no backup solution to be used constantly but rather casually, or you have to replace the fan, which will render your guarantee useless.
But it's a quick drive, over the thumb I would say I transfered a gig a minute.

[JonSedar @ Mar 10th 2008 8:25PM]

There's a 320GB mobile hard disk sitting on my desk just fresh from being unwrapped... currently filling it with music. A very tidy design, surprisingly light, feels fairly durable, although what looks metal in photos seems to be just thick matt black plastic.

I've owned 2 of the aluminium 3.5" HDDs for 18 months or more, nearly always on; no failures of any kind.

[JonSedar @ Mar 10th 2008 9:01PM]

... on second thoughts it is metal. The whole thing is really light and though there seem to be no power specs, my T60 is powering it with just the one cable via USB bus power.

The disk reports to be a Samsung Spinpoint HM320JI. Bought the drive for $190 from a big river, so quite impressed with the value.

[alex @ Mar 10th 2008 8:34PM]

looks exactly like my fantom drive.....

http://images.tigerdirect.com/skuimages/large/M261-1040-main.jpg

[Twist @ Mar 10th 2008 8:33PM]

The 1TB disk might be nice to use with my Xbox 360, but otherwise I would want something that also has Firewire 400 at the least. Currently I own one of LaCie's d2 Quatro 500 gig drives and I love it. It has every connection (USB2, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and eSATA) I could possibly need for the next few years.

[orbitcorbett @ Mar 10th 2008 9:09PM]

Looks like it was designed by the famed Radio Shack designers who gave us the Minimus 7 line of speakers. I expected better design by LaCie.

[Charles Han @ Mar 10th 2008 10:35PM]

honest advice just get a seagate hd with 5 year warranty, and get external enclosure. That way you will at least be able to use the hd for that long or more, instead of having only one year warranty with the lacie drive. ALL hdd eventually fails.

[hjb1000 @ Mar 10th 2008 10:46PM]

This drive should have eSATA- USB 2.0 barely has the throughput you need for such a big drive.
Lacie should just make the cases, and the user should be able to choose the HDD of their liking- the warranty situation would be far simpler.

[techcafe @ Mar 11th 2008 1:18AM]

that's been my experience also... LaCie drives are famously unreliable, aside from the drives themselves, there's something usually wonky with the usb or 1394 interface... i'm just saying

[porschedevotee @ Mar 11th 2008 1:45AM]

I'm gonna cast my vote for the camp that's had good experiences with them. I got the Porsche design .5TB one (show of hands: who saw that coming from my username?), and it's constantly on and transferring data - no problems whatsoever in the year or so I've been running it. The only negative comment I have is that the fan seems to be on a lot and it's definitely audible - not really annoying, but you're aware it's there. Other than that, I love the design, the instant on/off, and I haven't had a single problem with it. *knock on wood*

[alan @ Mar 11th 2008 2:35AM]

i have had 2 of the porsche designs as well, both have been excellent and heavily used for years. no complaints on performance and the looks are great.

[andrea @ Mar 11th 2008 2:50AM]

I've bought this one a couple of months ago and brought back to the shop because I've lost all data after less than a week.

Iomega didn't showed the product on their website, the serial number wasn't recognized from the support pages, etc...

Quite enough to me to ban forever Iomega.

[justin @ Mar 11th 2008 8:22AM]

I think I need something like this.
I need your help engadget maniacs!
I want to load all my music in lossless into something like this and plug it to my PS3.
I've looked at the audiophile solutions, but those are big $$$$
The ease of accessing my 700 cd's from my sofa sounds appealing to me.
Thanks for any help ....I don't know where else to go

[Mike @ Mar 11th 2008 12:32PM]

I've got a of LaCie drives. I've also got quite a few from other manufacturers as well as empty cases that I have added my own drives.

Out of all of them, very few have failed over the years. My first failure was a 30MB Micropolis - yes, 30MB! I lost all the data on it. I have had a failure with every single manufacturer - sometimes due to my own doing; sometimes out of the blue.

Why so many drives? Redundancy is the only guarantee of data preservation.

If you want your drive to last longer: never move the drive when it is spinning; be careful when you connect and disconnect the drive; when using a Mac or PC,be sure to unmount before disconnecting; never bump or drop the drive. If you baby all your drives, then you will have better luck with them.

Some of the alternatives mentioned seem obscure - perhaps you never hear about failures because there are so few of them out there. As for G-tech, their forums over at creativecow.net seem to show that even G-tech users are now unhappy about failures. Using Google, I see that LaCie, Seagate, WD, Fantom, OWC, and many, many others have users complaining about failures. There also seem to be reports about happy users too. Perhaps most people only post when they have problems...

[Reid B. @ Mar 11th 2008 5:23PM]

Crap.

What the hell is so revolutionary about this?

Where is the ethernet port?

[Its just OK @ Mar 26th 2008 8:56PM]

I just got the 1TB hard disk. It's definitely big and it works. But - the noise is driving me bonkers! Every 30 seconds the fan starts up. The fan is on for 30 seconds, then off for 30 seconds, then on for 30 seconds.... all day long. Its not incredibly loud, but its just a small annoyance that I didn't have before.