Dabs Customer Reviews - LaCie 250 GB USB drive

Being a rather naiive person I thought that the customer review
section for a product would be fairly objective. However, I've twice
tried to post a review about the LaCie 250 GB USB 'Porsche' drive on
the Dabs site and both times it has not appeared despite the form
saying that it had been accepted.

Anyway, don't bother with this drive - I had one fail after five
weeks, LaCie were totally uninterested in the matter. Fortunately
Dabs accepted a warranty return and after two months and a bit of
chasing made a refund.

The drives look very nice but I think that perhaps the cooling is
marginal. I'd previously had a 80 GB version which is still
performing well and was very dissapointed with the 250 GB. I noted
that the 250 had a Maxtor drive inside.


New drive sourced from Western Digital which has a bigger case and
seems to run cooler.

ernest

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:25:09 GMT, C.O.Jones
wrote:

The drives look very nice but I think that perhaps the cooling is
marginal.

That is what I was told by a data recovery chap. He told me to avoid
branded external drives like the plague.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.

I've had a 250G Lacie/Porsche (usb2) drive for about 4months, no prob so far.
However a mate bought one at the same time (same order) and I heard a couple of
days ago that he has issues, when the drive is first switched on. The case is a
pig to take apart, a real piece of carp, hidden internal plastic clips and
double sided tape hold it together:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:c...+porsche&hl=en

I've used a Lacie 120G (Firewire) drive for 3yrs without issues, case much
larger, solidly made and easily accessible, perhaps its loud fan is worth the
noise. I use these purely for backup and try to alternate backups between
drives, its inevitable something will fail or get nicked sometime. I only
connect and switch on drives when backing up. I've had lots of experience with
tape backup and HD is orders of magnitude better for my needs, its fast and
generic, prissy little drive cases do start to go against the generic idea.


"Dr Teeth" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:25:09 GMT, C.O.Jones
wrote:

The drives look very nice but I think that perhaps the cooling is
marginal.

That is what I was told by a data recovery chap. He told me to avoid
branded external drives like the plague.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 10:19:04 +0000, Dr Teeth
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:25:09 GMT, C.O.Jones
wrote:

The drives look very nice but I think that perhaps the cooling is
marginal.

That is what I was told by a data recovery chap. He told me to avoid
branded external drives like the plague.

I have a 400GB Seagate external drive, it's mounted in the vertical
orientation with the supplied stand so the ventillation slats should
allow some convective airflow but the case is capaple of being placed
horizontally with the only case openings at the sides. Furthermore,
it's designed so you can stack them on top of each other horizontally.
With no forced convection I can only imagine how hot a stack of them
will get.

--
bweebar

In article , C. O. Jones
writes

I noted
that the 250 had a Maxtor drive inside.

I see what the problem is...

rOn Sun, 11 Dec 2005 03:14:12 +0000, Mike Tomlinson
wrote:

In article , C. O. Jones
writes

I noted
that the 250 had a Maxtor drive inside.

I see what the problem is...


shudder I've never had a Maxtor drive that operated properly. From
one that would not work if a Fujitsu drive was on the same controller,
to another where the manual listed the master slave jumpers upside
down and would occasionally list the drive name in the BIOS as random
characters. Its not like they were on the same PC either. OK so its
only about half a dozen drives but its put me off buying antoher
Maxtor drive again even if they are supposed to be very reliable.

On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:47:02 +0000, Gamma
cat.catcocatm
wrote:

I've never had a Maxtor drive that operated properly. From
one that would not work if a Fujitsu drive was on the same controller,
to another where the manual listed the master slave jumpers upside
down and would occasionally list the drive name in the BIOS as random
characters. Its not like they were on the same PC either. OK so its
only about half a dozen drives but its put me off buying antoher
Maxtor drive again even if they are supposed to be very reliable.

I've got a Maxtor here that works fine. However, a data recovery chap
who frequents the NGs told me that he'd only touch a Maxtor with a
screwdriver g.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.