La Cie 600gig Big Disk Extreme any problems?

[Dave Mac]

I can add a few points to the mix. Unless you get a DOA unit, the La Cie drives work pretty well, especially when used with a FireWire 800 connection.

A lot of the reported failures with La Cie drives are due to a bad FireWire bridgeset, and, more frequently, due to the power “brick” failing. Symptoms include erratic drive operation, failure of the drive to mount, and so on. La Cie doesn’t do repairs for drives that are out-of-warranty. Unfortunately, they do not even offer replacement parts. They are, at heart, a reseller and not a manufacturer.

The “death” many people experience with La Cie drives is usually repairable. You may be able to get a new power brick from La Cie (if you’re still under warranty), or from a third-party electronics supplier. If the bridgeset is the issue, or you don’t want to simply replace the power brick, you can install the drive(s) into a new case. WiebeTech is one of the better case resellers, as they offer replacement parts (and their cases/components are well-made to begin with).

I have heard good things from people about the following vendors of FireWire drives:

WiebeTech Their stuff is somewhat more expensive than other vendors, but they offer excellent support and replacement parts for equipment that’s out-of-warranty. Bullet-proof quality.

G-Technology Very good quality stuff. Used by a lot of media production folks.

Other World Computing (OWC) Prices similar, or better, than La Cie. I haven’t heard about problems with their stuff.

Granite Digital Another, high-quality vendor.

MacGurus A terrifically informative site, with great prices. They sell quality
stuff from other vendors, and high-quality, do-it-yourself kits.

FireWire Depot Also well-regarded.

You should choose a FW-800 capable drive, if possible. They are much faster. A dual-drive setup is also much faster. A hot-swap RAID setup is even better. A SATA-based external setup is even better yet. Of course, a fiber-channel-based RAID system like the xserve RAID is the ultimate (other vendors are terrific, as well, such as Medea, etc., but these are very pricey though definitely worth it for commercial HD post work).

For more information about La Cie drive issues, check out MacInTouch’s reader reports (search their site). Bare Feats is a great site for learning about performance benchmarking and enhancements of Mac OS systems (http://www.barefeats.com).

I have personally own 2 La Cie FW-800 drives (d2): single-drive 250 GB model and a 2-250 GB (500 GB) dual-drive model. The power brick on the dual-drive unit started flaking out and I swapped it with the other one… things are working okay, for now. I also have a dual-drive FW-800 unit from OWC that has worked well for about a year now (2×400 GB drives). I also have a WeibeTech FW-800 case, in which I put a 500 GB Hitachi drive (that I bought separately to save big bucks over an “all-WiebeTech” model).

My main storage system is an 8-bay, external SATA hot-swap system. Wicked fast. Bought it from Mac Gurus as a kit. Bought the drives separately from New Egg, which always seems to have among the best prices on bare drives.

Hope this info helps (sorry if it is too much).

-Dave