LaCie brings Little Big Disk Quadra to 1TB
By Nilay Patel 
posted Jun 16th 2008 9:58PM
posted Jun 16th 2008 9:58PM
LaCie introduced the Little Big Disk Quadra back in January, but the diminutive four-interface dual-drive enclosure is getting a new 1TB sibling today. Nothing new here apart from the capacity bump, but if you're into the aluminum RAID 0 scene, $700 is all you need to ride.
Does anyone know if it's any quieter than some of its predecessors? It's impossible to sleep in the same room as one of these; they creak and groan and make all sorts of unhealthy noises.
haha.
you sit and look at the computer screen, but are constantly concerned to have placed your valuable data into the noise-box that lays before you.
$700 seems a little high to me.. I mean, a 1TB Time Capsule is only $500
Oh, that's right, RAID 0. Sorry!
It's still really fucking high. I got a 1TB Buffalo NAS for under $300...
But, this is eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. That's quite a bit of connectivity so you're paying for that too. Personally, it's a lot more than I would need.
Hmmm...I am in the market for a 1TB external drive, but I'm super paranoid about reliability/stability. I'm kind of RAIDtarded - is this going to be reliable? Or should I get an external from a company that is known for a more reliable one? Suggestions prease. :D
LaCie is a well known manufacturer of accessories, primarily for Macs (though it is of course PC compatible). They also make very nice high-end color-accurate LCDs (my workplace has one for printwork).
As far as reputability goes, LaCie is top tier.
That said, this drive is not without caveats.
It is two 500GB drives in a RAID0 array - basically, data is written in "stripes" to each drive - Half of the data goes on drive 1, the other half goes on drive 2 (hence why it ends up being one terrabyte). This means that if just one drive dies, you lose data from both drives.
It's also pretty expensive.
My advice? Go to http://www.newegg.com and buy a 1TB drive and an external enclosure. Also, buy a Seagate drive - all hard drives will eventually die (and anybody who says "Brand X fails less often than Brand Y" is speaking anecdotally - don't listen to them), but at least Seagate offers a 5 year warranty (most manufacturers only offer 3 years).
Also should add that no matter what, BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT DATA.
Again, all hard drives die - RAID0 just doubles your chances of being screwed when a drive dies.
@manefesto.
Not sure about what you mean by"top tier" but Lacie stuff is generally considered to be nice-looking junk. Their controllers constantly fail, and the cooling in all but their more recent products is junk.
While 5 seconds on google will paint a similar picture, I am an unfortunate victim of this.
The only Lacie still standing is an external 250GB drive (on this comp) that mysteriously hasn't failed.
@JuniorMint
I shall answer your anecdote with my own.
I work in multimedia (well, I do support in Multimedia Labs), and hence, I am around a lot of macs and a lot of mac users (both coworkers and clients).
Less technical Mac users tend towards LaCie external drives and other accessories (they're pretty heavily marketed and sold in Apple Stores), and of all the drives I've seen, I've only seen one LaCie drive die (and that was after a coworker of mine dropped it getting out of her car - and of course it was one of those RAID0'd 1TB Big Disks, hence my bias against them).
That said, I reiterate that all hard drives die eventually, and "anybody who says "Brand X fails less often than Brand Y" is speaking anecdotally - don't listen to them."
P.S. I still love the LaCie 320 LCD monitor at work - amazing color accuracy for less than an Eizo. I definitely wouldn't call it junk (I probably wouldn't call it pretty either, unless you're talking about the picture :).
P.P.S. There's no "e" in manfesto.
Gotta dig the HAL looks.
i cant let you open that file dave
compared to other 1TBs available right now though, probably not worth the (approzimate) 100% premium over comparable external 1TBs
Look. This isn't cheap, but you have to remember it's using 2 500GB 2.5 inch drives in a 4 port sata enclosure.
500GB 2.5" aren't cheap. SATA -> FW enclosures are expensive and double all that + some design costs and that's where you're at.
Besides Lacie's site says $430 when I checked.
Also there's no benefit to this over a regular 1TB drive unless you use FW because otherwise you need a power adaptor.
Stupid me: It is $700 at their site...I need to look at the right numbers!
But you should be using FW anyway it's way faster.
However if you have a FW 4 pin (tiny one) port on your computer (PCs not Macs) then you still need and AC adapter. 4 pin ports can't supply power.
Oh dude. I missed your comment before I commented down below. You are right. This thing contains 2.5 inch drives.
The cool thing about this drive, I think, is the fact that it's bus-powered. No AC adapter is necessary for the firewire interfaces.
You've got the point!
The drive is about using Firewire 800 BUS POWERED.
While on the road, this LBD 1TB provides the high capacity and performance while being BUS-POWERED;
While returned to fix site, eSATA could take over for even faster trasnfer.
Obviously, this drive is designed with MacBook Pro users in the mind.
Well it looks nice...
http://pixblix.com
This is a waste of money. For 700 bucks you can buy two enclosures and two 1TB drives and make a 2TB Raid 0 or a 1TB Raid 1 for hundreds of dollars less. If you are on a mac or pc there is an easy way to do a software RAID.
Besides the high level of connectivity, another reason this is expensive is because of the size. Take the link from the picture and check the pics of it at their site. Look at the case next to a regular drive. I'm sure this contains 2.5 inch drives. It's very compact. Expensive, yes but I think it's important to not misrepresent it as "overpriced" for what it is.
I just set up a DNS-323 in RAID 1. Am very happy with it. Device + 2 750 GB drives (F1s) cost $400 - and that's in the great white north. Seriously, I sleep better with RAID 1. Costs a little more, like all forms of insurance.
Just buy a Drobo and a few SATA drives. I don't work for the company.
Expensive but: It is a 2 X 2.5" 500GB BUS POWERED DRIVE IN RAID0.
Lacie is waaaaaaaay overrated and has waaaaaaaay overpriced products. Always has, always will.
A portable, bus powered drive for working with huge media files. Yes, a good compainion to Macbook Pro toting video guys, and photographers prferring to shoot RAW.
A backup drive - no way, too expensive. As others have pointed out there are more affordable alternatives for the desktop.
If you are worried about data-integrity and RAID-0 arrays -- recall that RAID-0 is for speed, not redundancy. If you don't want RAID-0, then of course, the single, bus-powered drive is the way to go if you can live with 500GB.
Durability? 2.5" drives designed for notebooks and high-end servers (from HP) can withstand more bumps and movement than their bigger 3.5" brethren.
Coolness? You can build your own, but none will look as striking as this guy.
Unloved? you're just jealous you can't have one! I have one of the smaller capacity versions. I should have waited.
Finally someone who gets it. This drive is of no use to me especially as expensive as it is, but I understand what it is for. It is not intended for the casual user. It is expensive, not overpriced. It would certainly be important to back up data from this drive as this is not intended to be used as a backup drive.
I'm eying on this beautiful portable mobile harddrive now it's really a good deal for mac users who does have firewire ports..
The deal breaker for me really is the need for power adapter when connected to eSata, and USB, i think lacie should have this eSata and USB powered too.
It would really break my heart if they release a USB/eSTA bus powered version of this little thing after i bought it...
I'm on a mac but my Macbook Air doesn't have firewire.. do you guys know an alternative to this one?, Thanks..