LaCie's Rugged XL: 1TB of ready-for-anything storage
By Darren Murph 
posted April 14th 2009 3:46PM
posted April 14th 2009 3:46PM
posted April 14th 2009 3:46PM
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That's a fine price for that sized harddrive, even without the exterior
Not in 2009 it isn't. I've been shopping drives and it's looking around $99 for a 1tb drive (that's when they aren't on sale).
2x 1.5TB 7200.11 was gotten for $129 last month by me.
So i agree w/ Gipio.
The price is great, but no FireWire : (
Yeah, yeah I know it has eSATA, but my favorite thing about FireWire is you can daisy-chain devices.
And you only need the one cable.
and a free compass?
maybe a $160 compass with a free 1TB drive?
1TB for only $160? That's great.
Thats exactly what I was thinking :D
Anybody know WHERE they can buy this for that price? I can't even find it on the Lacie site.
Try Newegg: www.newegg.com
I just might have to send this to my brother in Afghan land.
I'm sure 'durable' may live up to it's name there.
The fugliness CAN be swapped:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10888
I am a liar, those wont fit the XL since it is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the normal rugged. That drive is GINORMOUS!
What I have never understood is how a "rugged" drive without any top or bottom protection can be all that rugged.
I think in this case they mean to say the drive has rugged good looks.
It has top and bottom protection.
For one, the case is aluminum with internal shock absorbers. That already protects the top and bottom. Second, the main point of protecting an external hard drive is against drops. It's practically a million to one shot that you'd drop a hard drive *square* on its top or bottom - completely flat. It almost never happens. 99.9999% of the time you'd drop it on some sort of edge or corner, so that's where the rubber strip is.
That said, I have one of the older versions of these drives and the rubber sticks out a bit on top and bottom - it's not completely flush with the aluminum. So even if you did drop it totally flat, the rubber would still protect it - in addition to the aluminum and the internal protection.
So yeah, it's fully protected.
i've used these drives a lot. not the 1TB flavor, but other capacities. It's really no more sturdy that anything else on the market. the aluminum casing is easily dented. The rubber housing might be the only thing that offers some real-world protection by absorbing shock.
The drives themselves were good...just don't be fooled by the whole "rugged" thing
One can only hope Lacie has woken up and replaced the Samsung 1TB drives that they stuff in their black desk top External HD. I have 3 of those sitting in my office collecting dust after only 3-6 months of use. Lacie's customer service is also in need of a load of laundry....
Why? Are they wearing their undies with the stains inside out?
I had the prior model of these issued to me a couple times while I was working in northern sub Saharan Africa. If this model is anything like Lacie's prior "rugged" line, and at least from the outside, they look identical, they are no more "rugged" than any other hard drive. In fact, I found the aluminum to be remarkably flimsy with a lot of flex and the rubber bit to not seal very well at all, allowing a significant amount of dust to work its way into the case. If you ask me, this is a device for the soccer moms who want an external hard drive to go with their REI outdoor-chic wardrobe.
For true rugged external hard drives, US Modular or Olixir offer external cases with real environmental protection.
Looks like a nice drive..especially at that price when it's portable!!
Picture is wrong! This is old mobile disk but rugged XL is desktop disk
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11257
I just wish these did not use a 4 pin power connector. I find barrel connectors to be much more durable.
a durable 1TB for only $160 nice
How long will these be relevant in a world with cheap ssd's?
Looks like it does use a barrel connector after all. I want one for that price..
How long will these be relevant in a world with cheap ssd's?
test
What is a "software suit"?
Is it bulletproof? That would be rugged.
$99 for a 1tb? can u give me links nd stuff? that wud be a sweet deal
www.newegg.com
The advantage of this one is it is rugged, but it is definitely possible to buy a 1 Tb drive for less than $100.
I've got 320GB USB only version of this... cannot be happier. It small, portable, does not need power cord.... If nothing else the rubber absorbs the shocks tiny bit more than plastic corners on WD drives (which broke in my case within 2 weeks)
I need one of these
Damn I thought it was a 2.5" drive and USB powered. That would have been news.
Otherwise get a terabyte in Staples for $135. No need for the "rugged" look when it will sit on your desk most of the time.
Lots of people use drives in a way that doesn't keep them on a desk all the time, but neither are they exposed to battlefield conditions. My company, for example, moves a lot of media files around both between buildings in the same city and nationwide. With the file sizes involved, it's most efficient to just messenger or fedex drives around.
We've had about a 50% failure rate from the standard LaCie external drives. We've had a 0% failure rate with these.
i want one!
AHHH I love LaCie
What's so odd about lacie is that their drives only have a power-LED and not a drive activity one, I keep wondering about that, I know it doesn't matter, but all other manufacturers have an activity LED, and I'm guessing kacie also uses standard chips that have the pins for it, so I wonder if there's some reason for it.
Maybe the CEO always hated them?
Some have activity lights, some do not. take a look at the specs and manuals that are online. On many of the drives, the power light does double duty as an activity light.
I based my statement on my personal experiences with lacie drives, and a review too, and in all cases that I know of lacie's only have a powerled.
Although I imagine some other manufacturers might have just a powerled or combination-LED too, but it would be a bit overdoing it to find and read tons of manuals in the hope of getting a profile of what is the general trend.
I won't buy anything from these idiots. Their tech support told one of my staff that the reason the drive wouldn't spin up was because it had too much data on it (weighing it down). The manager agreed with his tech and insisted we delete some files so the platter would weigh less.
It wasn't even April 1st.
Unless your in another country then the US, UK, or Italy i don't believe you. I used to work for Lacie and know all the guys that did tech support for those countries and wouldn't say something like that unless you colleague was being a jackass and we just wanted you to go away. I'm not defending the company though everything we make is CRAP CRAP CRAP!! I worked in Tech Support and spent most of my time debugging HUGE flaws that made it to market. Everyone one their hates the people at our HQ in France because of the crap we put out. Dont even think about getting a multimedia drive or NAS from them. So many bugs and nearly no information about how they work, they wouldn't even tell us how they worked!
I'm sorry that you choose not to believe me, but it did happen. We are in the US and we weren't being jackasses (at first). Two of us were involved in the conversation and a third observed the conversation. We were dumbfounded when the manager (supervisor, whatever) backed up the ridiculous story. They seemed to believe that magnetic material was added to the platter when data was written to the platter. The conversation was more than frustrating.
From that moment, we switched to WD and couldn't be happier.
This is still a great HDD
I have four weeks to get one of these before I run off to spend a year in the desert.
Too bad it's not really available yet... DOH!
good one
The hard drive will survive falls, but the controller board itself will after a couple of years. Buyer beware.
i like that, kinda steep price thou for me