Lacie Rugged hard drives

A

andrew00

Well-known member
Hey,

I might be heading to SXSW this year so was thinking of getting a Lacie rugged drive as I'll inevitably take my 5d, prob pick up a 550D whilst over there as you guys in the states have them so much cheaper!

As I've only got 2xCF cards, I'll need storage but don't fancy taking my laptop and WD externals so thought I'd use my mates mac to transfer, take my Lexar CF reader and get the lacie, transfer things to that at the end of the day and be set.

The highest capacity according to the lacie website is 500gb and they sell both 5400rpm and 7200rpm versions.

Anyone know if the 7200rpm is mandatory? If memory serves it means faster access time so quicker to get data on and off, useful for transfer and editing should one need to do some on the road in the future (though won't on this trip).

Both have USB 2.0, which is fine, but most importantly is both have Firewire 400+800 ports, which will be needed if one is to transfer from the CF card to the lacie, through the mac (woe betide an older mac without both fw ports).

With speeds that fast on the FW ports, is the spindle important or should one ensure one gets the 7200? Price is £130 and £165 for 5400/7200 respectively on the lacie site, which seems to be pretty decent price wise, esp on the 7200 compared to my googling results!

a x
 
Here's the UK link, I think power is AC and/or usb/fw

http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/range.htm?id=10036

Oh and djkarn, I'm a little confused of what you mean. I'm reading it as - if I want to grab a random file off it and transfer then 7200 rpm is better. But if I want to use it for consistent usage, say video editing, then there won't be a large difference.

Suggesting for transferring files from the card to the hd, then 7200 is a plus, but for editing, it's negligible.
 
I've got a few of the "rugged" LaCie drives. They're okay, but IMO they're not worth the extra money. When I need small and portable, I just go to Best Buy and pick up the Western Digital MyPassport drives with FW800 and USB. I've edited an entire 7D project from one without a problem (transcoded footage to ProRes, of course).

--SM
 
I have one. I'm happy with it. No performance issues. Can't discern any speed difference between 5400 and 7200. I have a bigger Little Big Disc that I also like though it's considerably beefier than the rugged drive.

My only complaint is that it's not really rugged. You're paying extra for a silicone bumper around the edge, one that you can easily peel off and see the case itself is pretty thin. In all seriousness, I could probably crush the case with my hand.

I'd steer clear of WD. I've seen three of their "My passport" drives fail in the last two weeks. My 2tb drive, which I use to backup my system (infrequently) only spins up sporadically. I don't trust it. My local apple store genius says that although they sell WD drives they won't recommend them if asked. They advocate the G-Drives. I bought a 2tb (they sell 500mb) and the thing is built like a fortress...definitely more durable than the rugged drive and has (I think) a 2 year warranty. Only drawback is I think that all the Gdrives require a power source above and beyond the USB or FW bus (but you can look on their website to confirm since I maybe mistaken).

I wouldn't pay extra for the "rugged" version of the LaCie.
 
I have several Ruggeds and have had some for 3 or more years. I have never had a failure. I have one that looks like it has been run over by a car and it still works.

In a pinch last year I bought a Western Digital. I downloaded several cards to it without backing up. Well, it crashed three days in. I HATE WESTERN DIGITAL. It cast me $2500 to recover the data.
 
I've had good luck with the Rugged drives. I live in LA and used them to ship P2 material to a client in NY. Used the same drive for a year, never an issue. Of course I had a second as redundancy.
 
I've worked with the Lacie rugged drives...they're okay as long as you don't do anything rugged to them. My boss had a tendancy to drop things, hard drives, laptops, tape decks, etc. We've had 2 out of 6 fail due to this. Can't really blame the drive. Just don't think cause it says rugged it's indestructable.
 
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