Quick, portable storage
Written: Mar 07 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800 connections; armored aluminum case
Cons: FW800 cord is short; case can get hot; pricey
The Bottom Line: Great purchase if you can use FireWire or need multiple connections; FW800 is the fastest connection currently available.
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| crystalattice's Full Review: LaCie (301174) 160 GB FireWire 400 (1394a) Hard Dr... |
The label for this hard drive is somewhat misleading. It actually has 3 different interfaces: USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800.
I own a Macbook Pro and wanted an external drive to take with me when I went to Iraq. I have owned several USB 2.0 drives but 2 of them "died" on me, i.e. the USB interface wouldn't always register the drive when connected to the computer or otherwise wouldn't work correctly. Having talked to other people with external hard drives, I found that problems with the USB interface was a somewhat common problem.
Due to these issues, I decided that I wanted to have a Firewire drive, especially because the Macbook Pro has both FW400 and FW800 ports. I figured a drive that could interface with all common ports would be idle, since I could use it on other computers also.
One benefit of having a portable FW drive is that the Firewire cable supplies enough power for a standard portable (2.5") hard drive. That way you don't have to have an external power supply for it; you are truly portable. Most USB drives require an external power source because the USB port doesn't supply enough power for many external devices, such as hard drives.
Another feature of FW devices is that nearly all of them have 2 FW ports on them; this hard drive is no exception. This means that you can daisy-chain multiple devices rather than having to use a hub, like USB. The only caveat with this LaCie drive is that it has one FW800 port and one FW400 port, so you can't connect another FW800 device to it. However, most FW devices on the market are FW400 so this isn't that much of a problem. As a matter of fact, this is only the 2nd FW800 hard drive I've seen.
Using the FW800 port, the drive's throughput is theoritically 800 Mb/s; reality is that it's about 650-700 Mb/s. FW400 is actually about 300 Mb/s, the same as USB 2.0 (though USB 2.0 is theoritically capable of 480 Mb/s). The difference between stated and real speeds is due to the overhead associated with each protocol.
You'll notice that there is more of an overhead hit with USB vs. FW. That is because USB relies more on the computer's CPU to do much of the data processing whereas FW isn't as dependent. Therefore FW is actually better able to transfer data without bogging down your computer. If you are running CPU intensive applications, this is something to consider; using this LaCie drive via FireWire would be a better idea.
This drive comes with an aluminum exterior and rubberized-plastic armor. The included armor is orange, though you can purchase other colors. This is a good idea since you can color-code your hard drives depending on what you are storing on them. For example, you could put data backups on the orange drive, movies on the green drive, and music on the blue drive. I can't say how well the armor works because I try not to drop my drive but at least it's better than a solid plastic or metal shell.
The aluminum case means it's good at dissipating heat from the hard drive itself. Of course, it also means that the case will get hot after a while, especially if you are doing a lot of data transfers. There are no fans or cooling vents on it so you should be aware of what it is placed on, like your lap. However, it doesn't matter what position it is placed in so you can prop it up to maximize the heat dissipation.
The drive comes with cables for each connector so you don't have to worry about not having the right cable for it. The FW800 is pretty short, no more than 2 feet long, so it can be a pain find a place for it if your workspace is cluttered. I don't know exactly how long the other cords are since I don't use them, but I would suspect they are like other cords I've seen, approximately 3 feet long.
There's not much else to say. It was expensive when I bought it but now they have drives with 3x the storage for almost the same price. Drives with FW and USB connectors will always be more expensive, simply because of the additional hardware. But when it comes to data storage and transfer, having more options is a great thing, especially if you have a computer that can make use of the full bandwidth available.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
crystalattice
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Member: Cody
Location: San Diego, CA
Reviews written: 59
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Navy 11 years, Computer tech 14 years, Degrees: AS, BS, MS
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