Lacie Hard drive – Vertical vs. horizontal

[Nick Boxer]

Lacie Raid (4Big quadra) has fan system and (according to Lacie) it uses less energy than other drives — meaning it would generate less heat.

I am not committed to Lacie, but it feels like some of the other raid manufacturers are charging an arm and a leg. A friend who uses Sonnet had multiple drive failures and ultimately Sonnet replaced his whole tower — it has been better since.

G-speeds only have Esata connection (and are pricey at that)

And since everybody uses Seagate and Hitachi drives, it would seem that drive failure in a cooled box would be pretty much comparable (unless the manufacturer is using enterprise drives and I am not convinced any of these makers do).

In the past, I used Avid and Rorke SCSI arrays and both seemed to work OK (but i did have more drive failures with the Rorke… also more drives).

I guess I am uncomfortable spending thousands more for technology with (potentially) a relatively short shelf life.

And while Warranty doesn’t mean everything, crappy manufacturers usually give short warranties, otherwise they lose money replacing and repairing stuff. It just seems odd that CalDigit and Sonnet have shorter warranties than Lacie.

Anyway… I get that Bob doesn’t like Lacie. What I would appreciate knowing is what you recommend (Bob, or others), that is in the affordable range and is compatible with a MacBook Pro (want e-Sata and Firewire connections). By affordable, I mean <$2000 (and preferably closer to $1000) for a 4Tb array with hot swappable drives. Thanks for suggestions.

[Maurice Jansen]

joel you said it your self.

make backup’s a tape will fail a harddisk will fail a DVD will fail.

what i was trying to say is that vertical to horizontal mounting will IMO not make a significant difference. and that it is wise to fragment your storage in to small carriers so if there is a faillure it will not crush 2Years of work but only a day or so.(which already can be a big problem).

great
Maurice