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LaCie 4TB 4big Quadra

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Tommy

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Has anyone had experience with the LaCie 4TB 4big Quadra? What are your opinions of LaCie hard drives? I'm thinking of possibly getting 2x Caldigit VRs 3TB (RAID 0) drives for on set backup and 1x LaCie 4TB 4big Quadra (RAID 5) for editing. I found some reviews on the web but I'd really like to get some opinions from the Red community. Thanks, Tommy
 
Tommy said:
What are your opinions of LaCie hard drives? I'm thinking of possibly getting 2x Caldigit VRs 3TB (RAID 0) drives for on set backup and 1x LaCie 4TB 4big Quadra (RAID 5) for editing.
Click to expand...

I don't like le cie drives anymore (24 months+) . I had 5 (1 x 500GB and 4 x 1TB) and three of them failed due to their lousy power supplies I suspect and 2 of them were competely lost (640GB of clips on one).

I had TTP4 "safety" all over them every 4 hours over them as well so they would have been both recoverable however they failed mechanically. These were under 12months old. Another colleague has lost content on thise 500gb "big disks" - (aka "Big Fail") disks ... seems these are dreadful now. HAving them replaced under Le Cie Warranty ... this was also a complete waste of time.

Today they are in the Hong Kong land fill (I hope) for the new runway.

I would suggest you use options such as Cal Digit and at least have some other availability and dont rely ever on Le Ccie. (There are over 70 disk vendors from which to choose in all prices ranges and FABS!) Le Cie were ok once but it seems as their capacities increased fomr the 150GB days of old.

Look at something else other than le cie.

As always others on this forum will have good experiences to tell you.

If you can aaford it, get yourself a 4 or 8 x JBOD enclosure cage (SATA or SAS) and populate it with some 1TB WD disks and a PCI-E RAId HBA or JBOD controller. THis will be a great start and avoid those nasty el cheapo firewire disk enclosures for any work that your busines relies else...

fwiw
 
I've had quite a few of the different Lacie Drives. I would say about 80% of them failed on me due to their power supplies.

Best bet is to try G-tech drives. I have been using them now for the last 2 years and they are solid. Great for editing off and great for backing up RED Data on set with their Mini G-Raid Drives.

Hope this helps.

Z
 
If you buy Lacie, you need to have liability insurance, because when they die, and take your work, it will cost you dearly to have that data recovered.

I stopped buying Lacie over 5 years ago, when one of my 160gb failed during a bakup, and it costs $3000 to recover the work, less my deductible.

The problem with Lacie, is that they are not made the the best parts, they just look cool. Heat, the chipset, and cheap components, has been their weak points. I've had brand new Lacies, fail right out of the box.

I recommend G Tech drives (www.g-technology.com), I've been using them for 5 year, not one problem to date. I also suggest you built your own RAID system, start with a good enclosure, and add bare drives, preferably server drives made by Seagate or IBM/Hitachi (3 to 5 year warranties).

Wiebe Tech (www.wiebetech.com) makes great enclosures, but they are a bit pricey. I've taken these around the world on gigs, and they have performed.
 
which drives

which drives

Big post:

The lacie 4big is a nice system, but the only way to use it in RAID5. The speed over firewire800 or esata is a bit on the low side - only arround 70-80MB/s, which is relatively slow if you know that the RAID is using 3-4 drives. You could get these speeds already with 1 drive today... The RAID0 modus is fast - arround 200MB/s ,but you dont use the RAID0 ... The power supply is external and there is a nice cooling system integrated.

Anyhow whatever the harddisks you are using, you need backups. There is a saying that there are people who lost data and there are people that are going to lose data...

Lacie is nice brand, but you really dont know what brand of disks you get inside. Price quality wise, they are very good. As Lacie is active on a generalist market with lots of competition and where price is the most important element in choice, lacie is not using the best models of the best brands of harddisks in their units. If you look at bare drives you will observe that the pricing of desktopdrives is now almost half of the server-grade drives... There is a difference: desktop drives are made for 'normal' use - say 8hr/day, 5days a week, while server-grade products have 5 year warranty and are made to put in a server or raid system and will run under stress during those 5 years 24/24-7/7. You could of course argue that the server-grade drives are more expensive because they will fail more , and that is reflected in their pricing..

Brands we like : Hitachi Ultrastar disks as server-grade disks ( we already used 100's without much trouble . for the cheaper desktop grade we use Hitachi Deskstar and now more the Samsung F1 drives which are also very fast. But there are other brands that are also ok.
Pay attention of desktopgrade solutions with Seagate drives : there were some problems with failing of the firmware of the drives on some series. not a problem with their Enterprise - server versions. The Samsungs seem to be ok in our experience. Lacie uses them in the Quadra single disk housings- but the again, next week they could be using Deskstars or Seagate or WD ...

For editing, i would recommend if possible the use a server-grade disksystem, but for archiving your 2 copies of R3D rushes, you could also use the cheaper desktop-grades. If you have more that 15 TB, you could also think about adding a LTO tapedrive for an extra copy.
For editing a lot of rushes, the new Sonnettech DX800 is nice and afforable single user RAID5/6 solution that is very scalable.

we use these for copying the RED files in the field:
http://www.addonics.com/products/enc.../AE25RDESU.asp
This dual-disk enclosure can be used in mirror or as 2 JBOD disks and uses only one esata port, so the clients esata-disk can still be connected over 2nd esata port of the Sonnet Tempo SATA Expresscard. Battery-use is possible, but you need two usb-ports for powering. Very usefull: during breakdown of the set at the end of the day, sometimes electricity is not always a given..
PS. dont use the 500GB Samsung 2,5" disks in this dual enclosure, it is not always 100%compatible. The Momemtus is always ok.

Still you can use the Samsungs in the Snap-in single disk version:
http://www.addonics.com/products/enclosures/25snap.asp
You need for each disk an esata-port and an usb-port for power.
We add the Lacie rugged sleeves for extra protection : http://www.lacie.com/be/products/product.htm?pid=10888
The single disk solution is sometimes very nice : at the end of the day, one disk goes to postproduction and the other stays with the producer as backup.

Addonics have also even more robust versions: http://www.addonics.com/products/ruby/ruby_exd.asp , but i like the easy replacing of disks with the Snap-in.
These new 2,5" 320GB and 500GB harddisks are relatively low cost and very fast - more than 50MB/s ! We used the Samsung's and the Seagate Momemtus.

If you rather work with 3,5" disks for archiving rushes, we also use this 'new' enclosure : http://www.ssi.com.tw/products.aspx?id=5
or other link with info: https://secure.ntv.ch/ntv/datasheets/ssi/si-1328rus.pdf - the taiwan website is sometimes very slow.
it's a trayless design, so you can easily swap with new disks of your quality/price choice: desktop or server-grade, For me the other best thing is that the powersupply is integrated, also with a temperature controlled big fan. There is no firewire800, but with the big R3D files, you really want to copy files over esata interfaces.. There also exists esata to firewire800 adaptors if you really need it - see firmtek -
 
Generally, although LaCie has nice design their quality is pretty low. My experience is similar to the above postings.

There are plenty of other drive brands (such as G-Tech). Other than the case LaCie is using off the shelf components that are available to other drive makers. Of course that also means you could pretty much make your own RAID drive sets (just with not so great looking cases).
 
Stay away from lacie unless it is a single drive enclosure.
 
Heat, the chipset, and cheap components, has been their weak points.
Click to expand...

Don't they use the Oxford chipset? That is better than the Prolific chipset. The Prolific chipset is pretty sketchy... the older firmware version sometimes would not write data, so eventually the MFT will get corrupted and you'll take several hours with data recovery software getting your data back.
The prolific chipset is also flaky... it has to have the firewire bus to itself. The USB side of it works fine... but you might as well just get a USB only drive.

2- I'm not sold on 'server grade' drives. Seems like a great way to create extra margins.

3- IMO, the reasonable approach is to look for an enclosure with the Oxford chipset and good cooling (e.g. 2 fans in case one fails).
And then have a good backup solution... any hard drive can fail.
 
GlennChan said:
Don't they use the Oxford chipset? That is better than the Prolific chipset. The Prolific chipset is pretty sketchy... the older firmware version sometimes would not write data, so eventually the MFT will get corrupted and you'll take several hours with data recovery software getting your data back.
The prolific chipset is also flaky... it has to have the firewire bus to itself. The USB side of it works fine... but you might as well just get a USB only drive.
3- IMO, the reasonable approach is to look for an enclosure with the Oxford chipset and good cooling (e.g. 2 fans in case one fails).
And then have a good backup solution... any hard drive can fail.
Click to expand...



Look for drives with the Oxford 922 chipsets, plus internal fan, or massive heatsink, and aluminum cases (which helps to dissipated heat).

Also, the multidrives (BIG) that Lacie makes, such as two 250gb drives in a RAID 0 config to give you a 500, or two 500, to give you 1TB, those I stay far away from.

I tell you, I teach digital capture workshops for still photographers, and from west to east, I hear horror stories about Lacie. Now I still own 5 or 6, that I bought back in the day, they sit in the closet, and I only store music, stuff I can afford to lose, if things go south, but NEVER will I risk again my clients files.
 
All five of our Lacie drives have failed at one time or another. We will never purchase one of their products again. G-technology and Sonnet have both provided us with very good drives. Best of luck.

Nick.
 
woah man! I guess that answers the lacie question. I personally have never had a problem with mine but I have the older 250gb drives (you know the porsche design) of yesteryear. You could always get a drobo. Leo Laport is like the go-to tech guy and he's always raving about the reliability of drobo. www.drobo.com/macbreak (for discount)

I do not work for drobo, nor do I own one, but if I was looking for more hard drive space I would go this route.
 
Lacie Failures

Lacie Failures

Yeah,
I crashed quite a few d2 500GB Lacie drives a few years back.
I stayed away from them since. It seems they fail way too fast.
The posts on this thread make it very clear.
The more expensive drives as G-tech are lasting much longer.
Pay what you wish for...
 
I've had 4 250's that crapped out including the big 1TB.

Long story short...

Garbage, don't even waste your time. There are plenty of other companies out there that are much better.
 
steer clear of Drobos - they are dreadful

steer clear of Drobos - they are dreadful

JNFilms said:
woah man! I guess that answers the lacie question. I personally have never had a problem with mine but I have the older 250gb drives (you know the porsche design) of yesteryear. You could always get a drobo. Leo Laport is like the go-to tech guy and he's always raving about the reliability of drobo. www.drobo.com/macbreak (for discount)

I do not work for drobo, nor do I own one, but if I was looking for more hard drive space I would go this route.
Click to expand...

I can't agree.

Instead spend your money more wisely as stated by other posters and ,.Go buy a 4 x JPB SATA enclosure and an express34 eSATA (MBP) or PCIE SATA | SAS PCI HBA (or raid card). Youwont look back. Dump those Le Cies.. as most have said they are also bad news.

Drobos - these are dreadful for any serious video work. Loads of reason from my own personel experience are documented on these forums below.

I bought a V2 FW drobo... and my experienced was tears , sadness and overall underwhelming...

advise you dont buy or consider drobo unless it for light work such as you Mum's photos or similar. Mine was destined for the Hong Kong Land fill at new airport runway after 3 weeks of $USD500 (total waste of money).. one was DOA...until my windah's mate took it from me including some sata disks..

they really suck for the sort of work we do.

Here's the links.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9012107#9012107
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=158362

don't waste you money and steer clear of DROBO.

Yes and it was Leo's TWIT that alerted me to it as well. LEo's advice is cool but I'd expect he did not mean drobo for the heavy lifting we do.

HTH

w
 
unlike most people, i have had fine experiences with lacies. i have bought over 50 of them in the past year alone, without one failure.

i also like other manufacturers. for some reason, i had a terrible time with four of the 10 or so caldigit drives i bought. i used to love caldigit/sonnet, etc. and hate lacie but lately, strangely enough, my lacies have been the most problem free for me.

i am looking forward to the sonnet fusion f3 though....it's been 'coming soon' forever....
 
I had nothing but trouble with a LaCie Firewire Raid. Raid 5 makes you believe that your data is safe. It's not. In my case the controller started to rebuild the raid and screwed all up. You get what you pay for. This happend 2 times I dumped the devices.

Luckily I never use this Raid for anything other than a walking disk.

I have a 6 year old FC Raid with 12 HDs. Its running since 6 years all day and night, never gets switched off. If never let me down and worked as advertised. When I purchased it cost me 10k.

A 6-8 TB FC Raid of a well known manufacturer with a at least 10 years of successful history in the industry would be my bet.

There are many out there which advertise lightning fast specs but cannot deliver Raid6 plus hot spare, a spare controller and spare DC adaptor, not to mention spare discs. Your hopefully will never need those items but in the unlikely case it's great to have them.

Hans
 
Not to repeat what has been said... but... Don't buy Lacie!! We've had about 25 Lacie external drives over the years, all but about 4 of them are dead(with data loss). Their new products are getting better, we actually have two Lacie 4TB 4big Quadras. They work, sometimes. The fire wire controller goes out on them every couple hours, so during bigger transfers we have to restart them and try to figure out where it left off. Overall, I wouldn't recommend Lacie at all.

Gtech is quality, I trust their gear at my home studio and have never had a problem.
 
I'll echo the "don't buy Lacie" theme of this thread. I had one die in the middle of a time sensitive project and that wasn't fun at all.
Gtech drives have given me far fewer problems but even those will die after a while. If you're going to use the external FW raid0 drives only put footage on them. Keep project files and anything else you can't just re-capture elsewhere. It wouldn't be a bad idea to buy 2 external FW raid0's and mirror them so if one goes down you can plug the other in right away and keep going.
 
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