In the 21st century, not having a backup of your valuable data is almost like placing your computer in the middle of the highway and waiting for it to be destroyed. Thats why I purchased a LaCie Porsche 250GB external hard-drive to use as a back-up drive. Because I value my data.
Design
I had the option to buy a Maxtor 300GB drive $30 cheaper than the LaCie, but chose the LaCie over it for one main reason. It’s style.
The Porsche series cannot be beaten with it’s stylish aluminum inclosure, matching almost any Macintosh setup. It’s nice and clean looking, and there’s an option to stack up to four drives on top of each other if you want to create a huge storage stack.
LaCie has included a glowing status light on the front of the drive to indicate what the drive is doing. When it’s a solid orange, you know the drive is idle, and not currently being accessed.
Speed
I suggest you opt for the FireWire version over the cheaper USB 2.0 model. The speed difference is tremendous. After completing a few benchmarks in store while testing the drive out, and the FireWire model was continuously 3 times faster than the USB one.
Here’s a quick speed test, the applications Mail, Safari, iTunes, Handbrake, and SuperDuper when open at time of test.
Transferring 60MB File To LaCie: 3.3 Seconds
Transferring 60MB File From LaCie: 3.6 Seconds
Heat
One thing the LaCie Porsche drive lacks is a cooling fan. Usually it’s not a good thought when you mix a hardware object which will be connected to a machine all day long, with no fan – but the Porsche drives (lack of) heat when moving files will leave you with a cool head when you knock off at night – knowing your data is safe.
I was able to transfer over 100GB of files straight to the drive without it heating up too much, sure, it was warm to the touch, but nothing excessively due to the tasks I was running. 15 minutes later the drive was cool and quiet once again.
If you’re buying a drive without a cooling fan, make sure the capacity of the drive is not too high. If you need over 500GB of storage space – skip the Porsche drive as it’s far to much of a risk to take for the price you pay should anything go wrong. For the small form factor, and the great price, the LaCie Porsche performs well without the need for a fan.
Noise
Due to it’s lack of a cooling fan, I expected the drive to be relitavely noisy even when not being accessed, but to my surprise, after a few days of moving files back and forth and having the drive sitting idle for hours on end, I’m very happy with the (lack of) noise the drive makes.
I recommend you go into System Preferences, Energy Saver, and check “Sleep Hard Drives When Possible”. It’s virtually silent when idle – and whisper quiet when in use.
Overall, a great purchase to keep your data safe. If you haven’t already got an external hard-drive, the LaCie Porsche is the way to go.