LaCie 40 GB USB 2.0 Pocket Drive (300693)

Rating:
Summary: good design, good value
Review: I bought this drive to back up data and extend the life of a laptop that has a small hard drive (by current standards).

The drive has a very simple, albeit boxy, design. A pack of index cards is an apt description. "Installation" was a breeze - the plug & play worked fine (whew!). The drive needs 2 cables - 1 for data (USB) and 1 for power, and LaCie provides both a USB AND a PS2 cable (with pass-through in case you're already using that port). This is nice for people (like me) who only have 1 USB port on the PC and/or a hub that's already full...

So far, I'm really happy with the drive - it works fine, it's compact, & LaCie provided PS2 AND USB cable for power source.

Rating:
Summary: Very good!
Review: I just plugged in my drive for the first time. I'm on a machine running XP Home and USB 1.0. So far so good!

I'm copying 3.6 GB of music while I type this. It is slow, but what can I say ... USB 1.0. I'm glad the drive supports USB 1.0. (Note to self: buy a USB 2.0 port. They are cheap and easy to install. And 7 times faster!!!)

Perceptions thus far:
- The drive seems well made. It is not indestructible -- so don't drive your car on it -- but it definitely feels like it will be fine in the real world (which in my case means it will travel in a slightly padded case tossed in my bag of cables).
- Don't buy this just for the "Design by F.A. Porsche". The drive looks nice but is rather plain -- I guess I was expecting something that looked cool like a Porsche 911 :) Maybe a rear spoiler would help :)

Note that the Technical Details claim the dimensions are: 2.5 inches by 5.75 inches by 1 inch. This is wrong according to my ruler, which pegs this drive at 3 inches by 5.1 inches by .75 inches. For those that are visually oriented, this drive is the size of a 3x5 index card (OK, actually it is about the size of a pack of 50 index cards). Though this drive is slightly longer than my old Palm Pilot IIIx, it fits fine in the Palm's old case (which I will be using until I find something better).

In my view, a case should be included. It seems to me that LaCie & Porsche would rather have their name on my case than the "Rhino Skin" tag (that appears on the case from my old Palm Pilot) -- sorry guys, you didn't give me a case so I'm left to improvise :)

I will update this review after I get some real world experience with this drive. I'll be using the drive with XP Pro and Win 2000 shortly, and will update this review to share my experience.

But for now ... so far so good. I don't think you can go wrong.

Wish list: Longer USB cord. If you have a PC that sits under your desk and you want to put the drive on the desk top, the cable is pretty short. The solution for me was easy -- I plugged the Lacie cord into the USB cord that came with my awesome Bonzai (ASIN: B00006HYPU) keychain USB drive which I carry everywhere (though its 128 mb just isn't always big enough -- hence this Lacie drive for me :).

Overall: I'm very pleased with my Lacie drive and have no qualms recommending it. I truly suspect that I'll have this drive for a long time.

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Update - 8/14/2004: OK, I've now used this drive on Win XP Professional and Win2000, too. Zero problems. It works just as slick as my Bonzai flash memory drive (ASIN: B00006HYPU). OK, one exception: My Dell Latitude laptop seems to have insufficient power in its USB. No problem - I just plugged in the auxiliary power cable that comes with this drive. In fact, it comes with two -- one PS2 and one USB. I used the PS2 version (note that it has a much appreciated pass thru so you keep using your existing stuff, too). I deem this a laptop issue not a hard drive issue. The two desktop machines I used with this drive have ample power in their USBs.

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Update - 12/4/2004: Still happy! :)

Rating:
Summary: SP3 and this will be dead.
Review: Lacie are getting the wrong end of the stick from me. The fact that this company refuses to update drivers for old hardware for new versions of an OS is simply a farce in this day and age.

Lacie refuse to develop drivers to support a new OS or even an update. Back in the days of NT they would not even bring out Win2k support for the systems. When XP arrived most of their hardware the year before was simply left to dry up with age.

In short if you buy Lacie then it will only perform to your current system specs. Any changes to the OS and chances are you will be shelling out more doe for new hardware.

CON.