At 8:37 PM -0500 12/14/2008, Al Poulin wrote: >Shopping for "Quad" interface eSata, FW 400, FW 800, and USB 1TB >external hard drive. > >I have narrowed the possibilities to the LaCie d2 Quadra and the OWC >Mercury Elite Al Pro Quad. The OWC carries a Hitachi rebate. I do >not know what vendor's mechanism is inside the LaCie. > >Dan, one of the experts on this list, likes his LaCie 500GB. Would >users who know these drives please comment, good and bad? Advantages >and disadvantages? How long are the cables from LaCie? OWC cables >are only 3 feet long.
I am, as you noted, a fan of La Cie. They're a multi-national that has always been Mac friendly. Not positive, but I think they may be owned by Seagate. The La Cie boxes I've used (mine & clients) have been perfect performers - fast and reliable. Never had a box (power supply, interface board, etc) fail. Had one mechanism die, but it was 4+ years old and badly abused. All ours came with Seagate mechanisms, but I've heard from a few folx on the LEM lists that theirs has WD mechanisms; not verified. The d2 quadra box has a solid metal feel to it. It's foot is removable, so it is happy horizontally or vertically. My 500 GB is near totally silent. The only way I can tell it's running is from a slight purr and the darned big blue Hal light on the front. That light is my only gripe. Oh, it came with Retrospect - but *shrug* I use SuperDuper and CCC. Like Seagate, Hitachi also has a very good reputation for drive mechanisms these days. The only vendor I suggest avoiding is WD drives over 300 GB in size. WRT cables... the ones that came with my d2 quadra were two and three feet. Moot, IMO, as I just use my regular cables. Buying advice -- just be careful of cheap cheap dealios. Inexpensive is ok. Cheap is a warning light. When it gets too cheap, you need to start looking for uber fine print that says it's a refirb and the warranty is in seconds, not years. I'm not knocking refirbs per se - I use a lot of 'em without problemos. Factory refirbs (with longer warranties) are fine. But store "refirbs" with <30 days --- ack!!! As to where to buy... I've bought from OWC, Amazon, Outpost, and eCost. All good. eCost has wonderful deals - but you gotta watch that fine print for refirbs. HTH, - Dan. -- - Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
