LaCie Rugged Triple USB 3.0 500GB USB 3.0 / IEEE 1394b x 2 Orange External Hard Drive 301983 LaCie Rugged Triple USB 3.0 500GB USB 3.0 / IEEE 1394b x 2 Orange External Hard Drive 301983

Pros: Nice Design
Looks neat
Seems Rugged

Cons: Terrible ports

Other Thoughts: My USB port went out in about 6 months.

Don't buy this...

Pros: This is a great hard drive. Fast via Firewire 800. Dual ports for daisy chaining works great with my other firewire 800 drives.

Write Speeds via Firewire 800:
79.8 MB/s
Read Speeds
82.5 MB/s
Using Black Magic Design, Disk Speed Test app.
Test file size set to 5GB

Cons: non so far.

Other Thoughts: Faster the any other 2.5 inch FW800 drive I own.
I own a LaCie Rugged (301924) and have had issues with the FW800 port not keeping a good connection. I'm curious to see how this one holds up and if it will have the same problem.

Pros: Great design idea, capacity, USB 3.0 and firewire.

Cons: Price

Other Thoughts: Drive died after 3 days. It was extremely frustrating because I had loaded 6 hours worth of work onto the drive. Come Friday and I need access the files and the drive would not show up in "Computer." I plugged it into my mac and still nothing. I could hear the disk spin but nothing would happen.

The data on the disk were crucial so I had to figure out a way to access the data. I thought to myself "what if the controller just went bad but the disk is still good," well what do you know? I took the risk, cracked open the case (voided my warranty obviously), plugged into my desktop and bam! My drive was working and my files were retrived. Now I have the enclosure laying around in pieces but atleast i got my data back. At the end, it was indeed the controller that went bad and not the drive.

I am out 140 bucks...

Pros: This drive is reliable, easy to use, large capacity, and comes with IEEE/Firewire 800 connection. Perfect for use with an older MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, or iMac. Ideal for video field video storage for these systems.

Cons: At only 5400 RPM, video editing files stored on the drive is not ideal.

Other Thoughts: I use two LaCie Rugged drives and have had no problems. If you still use Mac products with IEEE 800 ports, this is a great portable drive.

I shoot HD video on SDHC cards and this drive with a MacBook Pro allows me to quickly and easily off load the contents of the card. The fast IEEE/Firewire 800 speed makes the process easy and quick, freeing up the SDHC card for reformatting and use. The 1TB size lets me store video from multiple shoots on one drive.

At only 5400 RPM it isn't ideal for video editing, but will do in a pinch.

I can then quickly off load the video files on my edit workstation at the office and get right to work.

I have also shipped the drive several times to other videographers for sharing large video files and have had no problems after shipping.

Pros: Fast transfer times, no issues with reliability, consistently stays in my backpack and doesn't show any signs of damage/wear, all necessary connection cables provided

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I was going to complain about a seemingly-proprietary connection cable between the drive and the USB 3.0 cord but it looks like that's just the new version of the USB "mini-b" connector. It's my first USB 3.0 device so I didn't know what to expect :).
I don't think my usage of this drive really warrants necessity of its "rugged construction" but I will say that the build quality has held up for the last couple of months despite riding in my backpack every day.

Pros: Nice color

Cons: THIS DRIVE FAILED AFTER 3 WEEKS OF USE. IT WAS SITTING ON MY DESK AND WAS NOT ABUSED. DO NOT BUY.

Other Thoughts: I have owned LaCie portable drives for 15+ years. The four or five previous models all lasted at least two years of steady use. Apparently LaCie quality control has gone down hill. See other sites for similarly awful reviews

Pros: Works with Windows Server 2003 out of the box, many other USB drives do not.

Cons: none yet

Pros: New Egg is a great company!

This particular product was purchased elsewhere. But the warning about the bad product is warranted.

None

Cons: The alleged rugged drive failed upon taking it out of the box. On the first upload files of on it, it immediately failed. LaCie would not do anything to replace it. Horrible customer service. Please do not waste your time, files or money.

Pros: I've used it quite a bit for video editing with lab computers. I've stored it loosely in a backpack and it has proven quite durable.

Cons: Difficult to label.

Other Thoughts: The Rikke drives are worth looking at, too.

Pros: Looks cool

Cons: Not very reliable, unable to mount 80-90% of the time.

Other Thoughts: Don't know what chipset Lacie is using for this drive, but both USB and Firewire ports do not mount reliably. This drive looks nice, and the multi-I/O is a good idea, but when it doesn't work it's no better than a brick for a doorstop. And not really that rugged, 4 small/thin foam squares are used internally for shock isolation. The external rubber bumper is a nice touch if you drop the thing, but if you have as much luck as I have had with this drive you might be driven to throw it as hard as you can against the wall.