Average customer rating:
- Much quieter and better than past reviews would indicate
- Fan Noise Unacceptable
- Great storage and features let down by poor quality parts
- A brief comment
- Runs great out, but the fan is overbearing!
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Lacie Mini HD & Hub 500 Gb Fw & USB 2.0 7200RPM 8MB
Manufacturer: Lacie
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics
External Hard Drives
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Hard Drives
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Drives & Storage
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Computer Add-Ons
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Computers & Add-Ons
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Categories
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Electronics
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FireWire
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USB 1.1
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USB 2.0
Office Electronics
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Refurbished & Used
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Special Features
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Electronics Features
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Electronics
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![Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard [5-User Family Pack]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000BR0NPO.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard [5-User Family Pack]
Product Features:
- Includes - 500GB mini Hard Drive and Hub, USB 2.0 standard length cable, FireWire standard length cable, USB 2.0 short length cable, FireWire short length cable, Power Supply Kit, Quick Install Guide, LaCie Utilities CD-ROM with User's Manual, LaCie 1-Click Backup Software,Silverlining Pro for Mac OS 9.x, and Silverlining 98 for Windows 98SE & Windows Me
- USB 2.0 and FireWire interface
- Hub Ports - 4 USB-powered hub ports, 2 FireWire-powered hub ports
- Compact space saving design
- Study metal casing helps dissipate heat
ASIN: B000E5CYSM
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Product Description
Expand your digital life by storing much more photos, videos, music and files on the LaCie mini Hard Drive & HUB, specially designed to fit perfectly with the Apple Mac mini. Now you can connect all of your hardware peripherals at once - like your iSight, mouse, keyboard, web cam, camera, video recorder, speakers and other USB hard drives. Easily back up your computer or upgrade storage capacity, whether on a Mac mini, or another desktop or laptop computer. This multiple-connection companion is plug & play, cross-platform and ultra-quiet. Its sturdy metal casing provides advanced heat dissipation and its unique four-corner crown is designed to provide cooling airflow between stacked drives to protect against overheating. 4 corners prevent overheating by allowing airflow between stacked units Plug & Play design Driver-free installation for Mac OSX and Windows 2000/XP 7200RPM Rotational speed Maximum Data Transfer Rates - Up to 34MB/sec with USB 2.0; Up to 40MB/sec with FireWire 8MB cache Approximate Unit Dimensions - 6.5 x 6.5 x 1.77; Unit Weight - 3.2 lbs. 1 year limited manufacturers warranty
Customer Reviews:
Much quieter and better than past reviews would indicate.......2007-12-12
With great hesitation, I ordered this 500 MB External Hard Disk. I worried its noise would be as unbearable as others had indicated. It is with great relief I can report the noise of Lacie's 500 GB drive is only slightly more than my wife's Lacie Mini 250 GB drive. I use the 500 GB drive along side my very quiet MacBook Pro laptop and with Leopard's (Mac OS X 10.5) TimeMachine backup software. Lacie's drive is periodically woken (about every hour) from it's sleep by Time Machine to create a backup snapshot of the laptop's internal drive. Waking from its completely silent sleep, the Lacie can be heard, but it is the whir of the 500 GB drive and a fairly quiet fan, which can vary depending upon the amount of data to be written, the length of time it takes, and (surprisingly) the room's temperature. While louder than the very quiet MacBook Pro laptop, the drive's noise is not objectionable to me, but it does vary.
Pros:
- Intelligent way drive wakes from silent sleep & returns to sleep when done
- Works well with Apple's TimeMachine backup software
- 2 Firewire & 3 USB 2.0 ports excellent addition to computer that needs more (Mac Mini & laptops)
- Good price for 500 GB drive
- Very fast drive (quicker than my laptop's Internal Hard Drive)
- Built like a tank, but looks nice, even without complementary looking Mac Mini
Cons:
- Not absolutely quiet; fan-less drives quieter
- Has a fan
- Not cheapest 500 GB drive
- Takes a bit more desk space than a 'vertical' drive
I recommend this drive to anyone who needs extra Firewire &/or USB 2.0 ports, and it's also a perfect, complementary design for Mac Mini owners. There are quieter, cheaper, and larger drives, but none that have everything this drive has.
Fan Noise Unacceptable.......2007-12-09
I am not a LaCie basher; I've owned 20-30 LaCie External drives going back to the days of SCSI. I own about a dozen right now. I have never had an HD failure with a LaCie drive. The one time I returned a drive to LaCie, they could not duplicate the problem, but still took the time to call me and discuss in detail other-equipment problems that might be causing the drive to disappear from the LAN.
Be that as it may, I am spending my Sunday transferring almost 300GB of audio/video files to the replacement 500 GB drive I received from Amazon.
The problem? Two words: fan noise. I own an identical LaCie 500 GB drive/hub along with LaCie 80 GB and LaCie 250 GB drives in the Mini configuration. They are virtually silent. This most recent (first use: two weeks ago) addition is so loud that you can sometimes hear it in the next room or from 20-30 feet away. In fact, it just started whining as I wrote the last sentence, so I can look forward to about four more hours of noise (the replacement is still silent, but this large data transfer should let me know quickly if it has a similar problem).
This is the sort of quality-control problem that needs to be worked out between LaCie and its vendors; I'm just glad I was able to swap the drive under Amazon's 30-Day defective-replacement policy.
Great storage and features let down by poor quality parts.......2007-12-06
Everything works exactly as it says on the box. It's pretty speedy and the ergonomics and aesthetics are spot on for use with a Mac Mini or an Airport Extreme *BUT* the biggest problem is the fan noise and the bearings have now failed after only a few weeks use.
Have to find a way to back-up all my data now and RMA to LaCie :-(
A brief comment.......2007-12-06
I have not found this drive to be noisy as a couple of people have said. I bought my drive almost a year after the first review complaining about it, so perhaps this problem was fixed. Also the same goes for running hot, which it's not.
The drive offers good connectivity by having three USB ports on one side, and on the back having firewire, USB 2, and another connector that I'm not familiar with. But anyway, there are a lot of ports.
It's a nice design and they're stackable, and you can chain them together. The drive does take a little time to spin up, more than I would have thought since it seems the same as the new drives I was working with several years ago.
One nice feature is that the drive turns on when I plug it into my laptop to back it up, and turns off when I unplug the USB cable. Sort of cool.
Overall though it's a good drive and so far I have had good performance and duty from it, and the price is reasonable too. I should mention that I had the best results when I formatted it with the Mac operating system. As a PC based drive it would read files but could not write them or modify the volume using my MacBook.
I was going to try to use it to back up both my PC and my MacBook, but now doing this would seem to require two partitions for best results based on my trials. So for now I am just using it for my MacBook. External backup drives have come down so far in price that one can get half terrabyte capacities for less than two hundred bucks, so I'll probably just buy another one for my PC.
Runs great out, but the fan is overbearing!.......2007-12-03
As a hard drive, it integrates flawlessly with minimal effort. After about 20 minutes of usage, the fan slowly ratchets up in speed to the point where it is more than distacting... you'd think you had a server installed there!
Compare this to Newer Technology's version, the MiniStack series, and it's a world of difference, noisewise... I have one of each.
If you're sticking the Lacie drive under your Mac Mini, in your entertainment center, be warned that the fan may upstage whatever you're watching.
Product Description
IMO 500GB MINI HD HUB USB - FW 7200 RPM 8MB US REFURB
Customer Reviews:
Noisy - Try something else.......2007-11-28
This sounded like a jet engine when it spun up and I could hear it clearly over the television and even in the other room. This is louder than many desktop computers. I returned it and will try to find something else (perhaps newertech mini stack).
Product Description
Back up your computer, upgrade storage capacity or easily transfer files with this stylish, compact and user-friendly drive. Expand your digital life by storing more photos, videos, music, and files with the LaCie mini drive - the ideal companion hard drive for Mac mini. Its unique 4-corner crown fits seamlessly into the underside of the Mac mini to create a stable, symbiotic harmony. The LaCie mini drive was brilliantly engineered to allow for a natural cooling airflow to move between these two drives for greater heat dissipation. It offers convenient plug & play and ultra-quiet operation. Stack several LaCie mini drives under the Mac mini for additional capacity or use it with any other computer with a FireWire connection.
Product Description
IMO 250GB LACIE MINI HD HUB USB - FW 7200 RPM 8MB US REFURB
Product Description
Expand your digital life by storing much more photos, videos, music and files on the LaCie mini Hard Drive & HUB, specially designed to fit perfectly with the Apple Mac mini. Now you can connect all of your hardware peripherals at once - like your Isight, mouse, keyboard, web cam, camera, video recorder, speakers and other USB hard drives. Easily back up your computer or upgrade storage capacity, whether on a Mac mini, or another desktop or laptop computer. This multiple-connection companion is plug & play, cross-platform and ultra-quiet. Its sturdy metal casing provides advanced heat dissipation and its unique four-corner crown is designed to provide cooling airflow between stacked drives to protect against overheating.
Product Description
IMO 160GB MINI HD FW 7200 RPM - 8MB US REFURB
Product Description
Expand your digital life by storing much more photos, videos, music and files on the LaCie mini Hard Drive & HUB, specially designed to fit perfectly with the Apple Mac mini. Now you can connect all of your hardware peripherals at once - like your Isight, mouse, keyboard, web cam, camera, video recorder, speakers and other USB hard drives. Easily back up your computer or upgrade storage capacity, whether on a Mac mini, or another desktop or laptop computer. This multiple-connection companion is plug & play, cross-platform and ultra-quiet. Its sturdy metal casing provides advanced heat dissipation and its unique four-corner crown is designed to provide cooling airflow between stacked drives to protect against overheating.
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