Review: LaCie 1 TB d2 Quadra Hard Drive

[I wrote this review, with additional revisions here, for a major electronics purveyor's Web site.]

“No problems so far,” written 3/26/2010

Pros:
Easy to setup, High capacity, Easy to use
Best uses:
Backup, Additional storage
Describe yourself:
Casual user
Primary use:
Personal

I know starting my review with the headline “no problems so far” doesn’t convey much confidence. But before I bought the d2 Quadra, I did a lot of research into an external hard drive for my ancient PowerBook, and it seemed like for every review I found praising a hard drive, another was posted in which the consumer complained the drive failed out of the box.

In the end I went with the d2 Quadra primarily because I felt it was the best VALUE. I thought the Western Digital and Seagate external hard drives were more aesthetically pleasing. But I didn’t like the idea of having to use the WD software (necessary, I believe, if one wants to take advantage of the drive’s energy saver option). And I didn’t like that the Seagate drive had only one orientation, according to a reviewer who wrote that the drive’s base doesn’t allow it to fully rest on its side.

The d2 Quadra was several dollars cheaper than the WD and Seagate drives I looked at. I consider LaCie a pretty reliable brand. I have another external LaCie drive, a small, portable model that’s a few years old now that I still use . And I liked the d2 Quadra’s PORTABILITY, or FUNCTIONALITY, with its four interface options (eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0). I expect this hard drive will be around when my computer meets its demise, so COMPATIBILITY with future computers I might get was a must.

The d2 Quadra is UGLY, however. The weight and noise, which other reviewers have mentioned, haven’t bothered me, however. I keep it upright and plugged in on my desk. I was easily able to create three partitions on it. Every few days I turn on the d2 Quadra, connect my laptop via FireWire 400, and do a Time Machine backup as well as a Clone update with SuperDuper!

Which reminds me of another great feature of this hard drive: its SIZE. I can’t comment on how much of the advertised space is actually accessible to me because I’m nowhere near reaching the limit. With 1 TB at my disposal, I don’t have to worry about running out of disk space.