POSTED BY

Rob Beschizza

AT 12:03 AM
Sunday February 22, 2009

Accessories • Reviews

lacie

Review: An hour with LaCie's 2TB External Drive

lacie2tb.jpg

LaCie's hard disk MAX, Design by Neil Poulton, is a 2TB external USB unit that comes with a couple of neat bonuses: the two drives within can be configured as a RAID array, and it has a useful pass-through USB port.

It's a severe black box with a glowing blue light underneath, subtly lighting the table. Though its minimalist design is a delight, there are two flaws: the biggie is that the corporate logo is stamped crudely on one side. Less annoying is the plastic, which is glossy enough to pick up fingerprints, but is imperfectly cast: odd wobbly reflections at sharp viewing angles interfere with the Syd Mead vibe.

Syd Mead isn't the first name that springs to mind, of course, but I'm avoiding the obvious reference. Let's just say that Poulton is open about being inspired by a certain 1960s science fiction classic, and leave it at that.

At the back is the on switch, the power socket, an LED light for each of the two 1TB drives within, and the USB port. There's also a RAID switch that lets you select "SAFE" mode or "BIG" mode. The latter is RAID 0, which makes both drives appear to the computer as a single giant drive. The former is RAID 1, which halves the 2TB of available storage, but copies your data to both disks in case one fails.

On the front is a USB expansion slot. Ostensibly there to allow for more storage, it seems perfectly functional as a general USB port for your computer.

The LaCie initially appears as a tiny 4GB Fat32 partition on Windows, with software that formats it to your specifications: if you're on Windows, it recommends a giant NTFS partition, on which it places installers for a 30 day trial of MacDrive, adobe reader, and Genie Backup Assistant. On Mac, it recommends HFS+; in either case, it'll let you add FAT32 partitions for cross-platform compatibility. The drive also comes with free online backup for one year; you get unlimited capacity.

Throughput was good, but limited by USB; LaCie hasn't announced an eSata edition yet. Apart from that, there's not much to dislike about this drive, assuming you like the looks. At $269, it's cheaper than equivalently-sized NAS boxes, but still pricey. You can buy a nearly identical product from the same company, sans Poulton's case, for $70 less.

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15 Comments

Camillo Miller

#1 – 1:46 AM February 22, 2009

Rob, what about the noise?

I had to add a license plate to my last Lacie Drive...
It set my whole desk avibe (yes it's a neologism) spreading vomit inducing low frequency soundwaves all around my studio.
Ok it's a dirty cheap IKEA desk, but anyhow, the drive is really not that silent...

What about this 2TB Sarcophagus, is it noisy?

kaiza

#2 – 5:02 AM February 22, 2009

*COUGH*MONOLITH*COUGH*COUGH*

Injection Moulding 101: Making perfectly flat shiny surfaces in plastic is EXTREMELY tough - you'll notice the same undulations on even Apple products. That's why most flat plastic parts have a stippled texture - so you don't see the wonky reflections.

Rob Beschizza

#3 – 7:25 AM February 22, 2009

I read about the noise on the 1TB edition, but it wasn't at all bad on this one. It had squishy feet -- perhaps that makes a difference, at least when vibrations come into play.

ZoopyFunk

#4 – 7:54 AM February 22, 2009

About the esata connection:

I virtually guarantee you that if you opened it up, you can find that the drives themselves are sata. Its much cheaper for the Manu's to use those than IDE, but use USB externally, for obvious(short sighted) reasons. I have seen literally dozens of 'usb-only' drives, only to open the enclosure to find sata. Throughput throttling.

Dee to the you to the em to the bee.

GleepGlop

#5 – 8:25 AM February 22, 2009

These so called designer hard drives are always ugly somehow. I have a Neil Poulton Lacie that looks like one of those clunky yellow sports discman things.

Palilay

#6 – 9:40 AM February 22, 2009

Uh. "Design" ?

Sorry, but I could design a shiny black box in 5 minutes. Fail.

Also : It looks -exactly- like a similar Lacie reputedly designed by Leo Porsche.

I call marketing bullshit.

Anonymous Anonymous

#7 – 11:23 AM February 22, 2009

Check out these online backup reviews:
http://www.backupreview.info/category/reviews/
http://www.backupreview.info/category/our-reviews/

Anonymous Anonymous

#8 – 11:34 AM February 22, 2009

Warning: the RAID controllers on these products frequently fail. I should know, since it just happened to me -- I wasn't even aware my drive was AID0 setup until then.

Now I am going to have to analyse the array and hopefully recreate it to retrieve my data, after which each of those drives is gonna be flying solo.

Seriously, what kind of an idiot designed that 'striping' system anyway -- maximize failures!

Rob Beschizza

#9 – 12:06 PM February 22, 2009

"I call marketing bullshit."

DESIGN A HOUSE AROUND THIS.

Rodney

#10 – 12:07 PM February 22, 2009

Linux?

BobbyMike

#11 – 4:39 PM February 22, 2009

Did you mean to reference Syd Mead?

Anonymous Anonymous

#12 – 7:40 AM February 23, 2009

>>Linux?

Linux what?

Anonymous Anonymous

#13 – 10:01 AM February 23, 2009

It's technically not a NAS because it is connected by USB and not directly into the network. If it were, it could then be called Network Attached Storage. As is, it is an unwieldy external drive.

Jasonclock

#14 – 10:25 AM February 23, 2009

Those proportions certainly don't look 1x4x9 to me.

randalll

#15 – 1:09 PM February 23, 2009

@Rodney - I have the 1 TB version of this and had a hell of a time getting it working at first with my Ubuntu desktop, mainly because I'm not a command-line jockey of any repute.

If you have "Partition editor" in linux you can get it working by formatting it, or if you're good with the command line.

Linux or windows, always format it without the including disc, as included software is always ridiculous regardless of manufacturer.

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