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lacie rubbish
i am experiencing MAJOR time management problems because the BIGDISK keeps turning itself off and on. not once in a while, but every 20secs or so! of course when it does, any software that is accessing media on the drives seizes up.
i have started copying all the media off these drives, as it has become impossible to work. but even during the copying process, the drive turns on and off and on and off… and so a task that should have taken 30 minutes, will now take around 3 hours.
i have had nothing but problems with these drives. woulnt touch them with a barge pole in the future.
i am on a G5, Dual 2.5 GHz processor, 5.5 GB RAM, Blackmagic, decklink.
i need extenal drives that will last longer than 6 months, with lotsa’ storage. any recommendations?
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7 Replies
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We’ve had similar problems (including the same problem as you are currently having) with the Big Disk 500GB, including some other problems. We’ve sent them off to Lacie for repair, and their service is good. But, here is what ends up happening. Your data is lost. They will fix a drive 1 time, then replace the unit the second time. We currently have an issue now where whenever a mini-DV camera is connected to either a laptop or the firewire drive, the Lacie Big disk will kick itself off the mount and shut down. Extremely unstable.
We were recently on a shoot out of town and had to run to Sam’s and pick up a couple Western Digital externals just to work. From these and similar experiences, here is our recommendation:
Do not purchase the 500gb or larger drives. Only purchase the 250 or less drives. These operate off of one physical disk, and we have rarely had a problem with them. The 500GB or more use mutliple disks, and if anything happens to one of them, you are lost. Also, something seems to happen where the communication between the 2 disks gets corrupted, and causes the situation you are currently in.
I hope you are able to gather the data, but from my experience, anything that was larger than a few megabytes was lost. –and any movie I was able to save was corrupted. Sorry for the bleak view, but I do hope this helps.Tim
Tim
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I am using two 500 Lacie’s and it has been reliable for years; although, your problem sounds familiar. One of my drives was spinning down about every 20 minutes. Since this interrupted the print to tape process I had to find an answer. Lacie tech support said there was no intelligence in the drive circuitry to trigger a spin down. What I did was turn off all spin down options in Adaptor and Battery Supply modes in the OS. I also used the utility called Cocktail to turn off spin down, and I haven’t had a problem since.
jmf
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I have 3 of these things and they are unreliable…. as is support from LaCie…. they respond in 3 days and tell you to do the same things you always do… repair permissions etc. and then they tell you to experiment with the cables etc. I am really fed up with LaCie….. but I am curious about these settings to prevent spin down… can you be more specific.
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“but I am curious about these settings to prevent spin down… can you be more specific.”
me too. the problem has got worse. the drive only spins for about 2 secs now before it shuts down.
how do i make these changes to the OS?
thanks…
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I’m using Mac Tiger OS, and they are in the Energy Saver Preference Panel. On the top there is a field called “Settings for:” select Power Adaptor and then go to UPS and be sure the hard drive check box is unchecked so the system does not put the drive to sleep in “Adaptor” mode or “UPS” mode. I also chose not to put the computer to sleep until 3 hours.
In Cocktail just follow the prompts for energy saving options.
jmf
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I am from LaCie.
In a normal OS X system, your drive should not spin down unless you have set the preference to spindown drives when idle for a certain period of time. I am sure this is not your intent.
We have seen a few situations in some customers systems where the drives spindown, regardless of the system preference setting in Energy Saver. This means that there may be a corrupted preference file or some other conflict within the system. Proper operation can be confirmed by booting with an OS X system CD or DVD, and then noting whther drive still spins down; this assures a clean system for testing. If the drive spins all the time as expected when booted from the clean system, it means that there is corruption within the normal installed OS X system that must be corrected; it is not a hard drive problem, as it is the system that is telling the drive to spindown (regardless of the preference setting in control panel).
What if the drive continues to spindown, even with a clean system? Then it may be a defective cable, connector, FireWire interface, drive power supply, or the drive itself.
I am sorry to hear that you consider the drive rubbish. We have many more customers who would disagree.
Mike
LaCie -
[alex] “i am experiencing MAJOR time management problems because the BIGDISK keeps turning itself off and on. not once in a while, but every 20secs or so! of course when it does, any software that is accessing media on the drives seizes up.”
Your Energy Setting on the Mac is set wrong. The drives should be set to never go to sleep at any time. This is in the System Preferences. ANY external drive will spin down if the system pref’s are set wrong.
I’ve been running LaCie drives for probably 5 years now. Only had one problem so far and it was quickly corrected by LaCie.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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