[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Rick,
We are expecting to have a PCI-E card for the S2S by the end of June.
Could you send me some details about your config and the performance that you are achieving with the S2S. I am curious to know more about your real world feedback with S2S.
Thank you.
Mat @ LaCie
mgasquy@lacie.com

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Enzo,
We started to ship in the US a few weeks ago so I am fairly sure that LaCie Australia is also shipping Two Big. If not, it should be a matter of days.

Just in case, here is LaCie Australia contact info:
https://www.lacie.com/au/contact/

Thanks.
Mat

[Mat @ lacie]

Hello Enzo,
If you are considering a SATA solution from LaCie, you can check out the Two Big:
https://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10490

500GB or 1TB.

Works great for 8bit/10bit SD.

Hope this helps.
Mat @ LaCie.

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Andy,
You never miss an opportunity to share your opinion on LaCie with the rest of us 🙂 We still don

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Steve,
LaCie actually sources mechanisms from all 4 main brands. Considering our volume we always have at least 2 suppliers per capacity. Like computer manufacturers, we receive mechanism samples and qualify the mechs that match our requirements for performance, reliability and heat. Each manufacturer has good mechanisms. Depending on capacity/specs/interface we pick what we believe is best for our products and customers. Some storage companies are proud to use only “Brand X mechanisms” but realistically it does not make sense, except for the marketing hype. What if those mechanisms are not available? What if they happen to have a reliability problem on a large batch?

You will always find people who prefer one brand to another, but we don’t sell mechanism X or Y in a Taiwanese enclosure. We sell a complete, tested solution, like computer manufacturers (nobody know what mechanism you get when you buy a G5 or a Dell).

250GB is the most popular capacity right now. There is clearly no reliability issue on 250GB mechanisms. While you may see some negative comments online, we shipped 750,000 external drives in the first part of our fiscal year. And the trend is now even higher. That’s a lot of happy customers 🙂

There are plenty of choices in the market place. Customers who don

[Mat @ lacie]

Just wanted to add my biased comments 🙂

——-
Mark, I am sorry that you had a bad experience with our products and tech support. They are usually very responsive, whether it’s with email or phone.

Bob, you should definitely try our S2S and Two Big SATA II solutions. I am sure that you’d like them 🙂 Come check them out on our booth at NAB.
——-
Product reliability is the #1 priority. We have dedicated teams from R&D and QC working on this aspect from product conception to manufacturing. Obviously any customer with a defective product will be unhappy, and we always do our best to fix those problems. If you check forums from other storage manufacturers on the Cow, you will notice that some customers have problems with those solutions as well.

Mat @ LaCie

[Mat @ lacie]

Hello Don,
I hope that you are doing well. You catch me at a bad time since I am in Costa Rica with a weak wi-fi connection 🙂 Hey, I am not complaining 🙂 That’s how responsive we are at LaCie LOL

First, it’s unfortunate that you ran into a problem with this drive. We will fix it for you, no problem. You can contact our tech support (support@lacie.com) or give them a call. Or you can shoot me an email next week when I am back in the office.

There would be a lot of reasons for you to remain a loyal LaCie customer. I’ll try to summarize this way: when you buy a LaCie drive, you get the best solution at a fair price and the guarantee that it delivers the latest – reliable – technology available. Our return rate (including drives with no problem found) ranges from 0.5% to 3.5% depending on the line of products. We have been doing external storage for 17 years, and our support has always been praised, from the time we shipped 2000 drives/year to now with 2M+ drives/year. We never talk about our competition so I am not about to start now. We have the largest offering so we hope that you will always find the appropriate solutions from us. We were recently voted Best Hardware and Best Vendor by US resellers/retailers.

Now I need to correct David statement. I never said that we are using consumer level drives vs entreprise level drives. I simply explained that warranty on drives sold to OEM (like Apple, Dell, LaCie…) may be different than warranty on the same drives sold in retail under Seagate, WD or Hitachi brands. Mechanisms can be identical, it has nothing to do with the quality. Maxtor, Seagate and WD external drives sold in retail carry a 1 year warranty too – that’s the part that’s standard. We are not in the business of selling cheap unreliable products. We would not have been in business for that long and we would not be doing that well if it was the case. Because we are able to sell solutions for less than smaller competitors, it does not mean that we use less reliable components. It simply mean that our competitors have higher costs and try to justify their price difference, mostly through marketing. Just don’t hate LaCie because we are more visible and we offer products that customers can afford 🙂 We don’t think that there is anything cool about buying overpriced products.

Ok, I deserved a drink now 🙂
Mat @ LaCie
mgasquy@lacie.com

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Dave,
Thanks for the response. I’ll shoot you an email.
FYI, mechanisms sold to OEM like LaCie (or computer manufacturers) don’t carry the same warranty than the mechs sold to end users/retail.
Mat

[Mat @ lacie]

Just wanted to point out that some models of Big Disk Extreme (1TB for example) have a variable speed fan, in addition to a heat dissipating aluminum chassis and thermal foam. Other models provide sufficent heat dissipation. We run extreme tests on those products to make sure that they can handle a heavy workload daily.

Bigger Disk, Two Big SATA II and Biggest Disk (F800, S1S, S2S) also have fan(s).

With less than 3% return rate (including between 69 and 72% of No Problem Found products) we maintain a very high reliability rate.

Hope this helps.
Mat

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi,
Just wanted to comment on the LaCie Big Disk Extreme. Actually some models like the 1TB Big Disk Extreme have a variable speed fan that kicks in only when needed (because 500GB mechs are running more hot than 250GB mechs for example). Big Disk have been used for pro video for 3+ years and they are approved for DV, HDV and SD uncompressed. For example, shows like Scrubs are using them daily. Same for the editor on Napoleon Dynamite.

Dave – let me know if you need some help with the drive that failed.

Hope this helps.

Mat @ LaCie