[Mat @ lacie]

Hello Geof,
Hope you are doing well.
The F800 has a variable speed fan that quicks in only when needed. Since the launch of the product a year ago we even improved the noise level.

The S1S is the same product with SATA connection (w/ hardware RAID controller that supports RAID 5).

F800 and S1S come with a 2 year-warranty.

Hope this helps.
Mat @ LaCie

[Mat @ lacie]

Hello,
For video editing, we are recommending the d2/Big Disk hard drives. They feature 3 interfaces and a heat dissipating aluminum chassis. You could also look at our new SATA II product: LaCie Two Big
https://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10489

The complaints about Porsche drives usually come from users who do not reformat them for Mac (drives come formatted as FAT32). They are great drives for data backup or simple storage.

Hope this helps.
Mat @ LaCie.

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi,
I am with LaCie so I thought that I could add a few comments.
– Your reseller made a good recommendation 🙂 There are plenty of LaCie products that would work for you. In Firewire, Big Disk is a proven solution. Dozens of thousands of pro users are working with this product every day. LaCie Biggest F800 supports RAID (hardware controller) so your data are totally safe if one drive goes down. In SATA, you should check out our new Two Big. The price is not much higher than FW products. It allows you to extract the drives and to chose from multiple RAID level.
– There is nothing surprising about finding negative comments about our products on the Cow. People usually post when they have a problem. if you check the forum of other storage manufacturer, you will see also read about negative experience. You might notice too that it’s very often the same members who respond with their negative experience with LaCie. We always work hard in terms of reliability and customer satisfaction. But because of the volume of drives that we ship, you will always hear more about LaCie.

If you have any question about products, feel free to contact me at mgasquy@lacie.com.

Hope this helps.
Mat

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi,
If you format the drive as FAT32, you’ll be able to read and write with both Mac and PC.
Performance will be less than HFS+ (Mac) or NTFS (PC).

Hope this helps.
Mat

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Sean,
Not a problem. I understand your frustration since you had a defective product. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know (mgasquy@lacie.com).
Thank you.
Mat @ LaCie

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Sean,
Just wanted to respond to some of your comments and maybe clarify some points for other users.

First, Thank You for buying LaCie drives in the first place. I am sorry that you had a bad experience with it and hopefully we

[Mat @ lacie]

Hello,
Since you have 2 drives, I would suggest that you connect each drive on a different FW800 port (use FW800 PCI card) and then stripe them with OS X Disk Utility.
The LaCie Big Disk is officially certified by AJA so it will handle this type of project.

Hope this helps.
Mat

[Mat @ lacie]

After 17 years in the external storage business and 2M units shipped last year, I think we have some fairly good expertise on what works and what does not 🙂 We have introduced a few weeks ago the 4th generation of d2/Big/Bigger with increased cooling to accomodate 500GB mechanisms.

Most external single drives in the market do not have fan (G-Drive, Maxtor One Touch, Western Digital, Iomega…). LaCie drives feature a fan when it is needed, for example on d2 500GB single drive. You will notice that most manufacturers do not put a fan on 500GB single drives.

Mat

[Mat @ lacie]

Hello Louis,
I hope that you are doing well.
For video editing, I would recommend the following LaCie drives:

– LaCie d2 250GB (great for DV – also comes in different capacity)
https://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10059

– LaCie 500GB Big Disk (from DV to SD uncompressed)
https://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10279

In regards to a comment from Andy about cooling fans – LaCie d2 500GB, LaCie Big Disk 1TB and LaCie Bigger Disks all have a smart fan with variable speed. All d2, Big Disks and Bigger Disks all have thermal foam and aluminum design for heat dissipation.

Hope this helps.
Mat @ LaCie

[Mat @ lacie]

Hi Bob,
Sorry to hear that you have a problem with a drive.
Please contact our tech support at support@lacie.com. Make sure to send the serial number and as much info as possible. You can also call at (503) 844 4503.
We’ll do everything to help you with this.
Mat