LaCie 301313U Hard Disk by Neil Poulton 500GB Firewire400/USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

List Price: $124.99 Discount Price: $102.99

Features:

• 500 GB external hard drive features a stunning design by Neil Poulton
• Triple interface including FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0
• Plug and Play functionality for both Macs and Windows
• Fanless design allows for near silent operation
• Measures 4.6 x 1.8 x 7.6 inches (WxHxD)

Customer Reviews:

So Far So Good [Posted on 2008-07-12]
It works right now after a few weeks of service.
I have 7 Lacie Hard drives, ranging from 78gb to this 500gb.
2 of these, the 78, and a 160gb crapped out on me some ago. With 3rd party software, I was able to recover data from the 78gb, and reformat it to work again. I was not so fortunate with the 160gb. I was never able to recover data, or get it to work. It's a dust collector now.

2 failures out of 7 units mean my Lacie hard drives are failing 29% of the time. That's not very comforting, considering most of us use external hard drives as a safe-guard against data loss.

Great Drive! Support your local midgets! [Posted on 2008-07-14]
I could write a short book explaining away all the novices who trash technology and drives with nonsensical bad reviews (not applicable if one actually makes sense lol)... but here it is summed up: this is a great drive. that being said, as with any drive (internal or external) it's technology which means humans built it which means they will crash or come DOA.

Drives have also become extremely popular over the past 3-4 years (especially external) so the sheer spike in volume of the number produced and sold has exponentionally skyrocketed. More devices out there = higher chance / percentage of your failure group.

Now that is not to say there are not particular drive mfg's you would like to avoid or others you would prefer to use. There are, and that is true. That being said, this Lacie drive is fantastic. Well designed, surprisingly quiet (I say that due to it's built in fan), and with connectivity choices such as USB 2 (blah), eSATA & Fire Ware it can function fast for even the most demanding power user moving huge chunks of data.

The fact that it's a "Neil Poulton" design is... well, of no consequence really - it's irrelevant overall. However, the unit truly is very slick looking, with a shiny black piano type appearance and bright blue LED underneath, so it does look nice.

This drive comes with 500gigs, (though 750 & 1TB are also offered by Lacie), at 7200 rpm with either 8mb or 16mb cache (contingent on when the unit was built and which model of drives they had in manufacturing at the time) which is fast and runs quiet and cool. I love the drive - it has become one of my favorites (if such a thing is possible... I guess by that I mean it's the one I worry about the least whenever using, handling or moving it) anf I've had at least 9 or 10 external drives over the past 5 years.

That being said, just remember it's technology and they're built by the millions...so it's very possible you just may get a DOA or one that fails. It is what it is. Good thing is Lacie provides a 2 year warranty, and with drives...typically if they are going to fail they will do it in the first 6 months - 2 years.

Great drive, looks great, performs great & offers multiple connectivity options.

Everything that I could ask for [Posted on 2008-07-15]
I bought this LaCie drive as a large backup drive for my new intel based mac, running os x 10.5 Leopard. I edit a whole lot of video/photos/audio, which I had been backing up to DVDs. If you can imagine the typical stack of dvds that you buy (the tall stack), all used up and scattered around the typical American office, that was me before I bought this drive. Now that I have the space to backup and store everything on the 500gb drive, I can deposit the huge piles of dvds into a trash bin. The drive is quiet, and FAST, when using firewire.

If you want the best drive possible for the money, this is it.

First One Didn't Work, Waiting for Second One [Posted on 2008-07-16]
Just received this from J&R Computer World. First time it did not mount on my Mac Book (OS X 10.4.11), second time it did but after install would never mount again. Tried FireWire 400 and USB both, neither worked. Tried different cables, nothing. Downloaded firmware update from LaCie, but it could not successfully install the update. Drive does not show up under Disk Utility, and shows only as Unknown Device under System Profiler. My FireWire and USB connections work fine with other peripherals. Called Support at LaCie, other solutions did not work, so now I will be returning this to J&R for exchange. Crossing my fingers that I just got a bad one (which unfortunately seems to be not uncommon with external hard drives). Will re-post as to whether the second one works.

Recommended for Mac users [Posted on 2008-09-06]
I own a MacBook Pro and bought this unit to backup my writing, photos, and music. It's easy to use--just hook it up to your Mac and the software will be automatically downloaded onto your drive. The standard back up software is simple and one of the best on the market. It emits only a slight hum as it works; it's simple but elegantly designed (better than it looks online).

I looked around for a long time before buying this unit on the recommendation of two long-time Mac users. If you're a Mac user looking to backup your drive for the first time, this will make the transition to security very easy.

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