LaCie Rugged Raid, Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 4TB (STFA4000400)

The item is well made and I love the rubberized edges so it stays put. I’m on a laptop, so it keeps it from sliding around when I move or change locations. Another handy feature (especially for someone like me that loses everything), is that the cord wraps into itself and stays attached so I won’t always be losing it like I usually do. Very convenient and it doesn’t get in the way either. I’ve only used this hard drive for a about a month so time will tell, but it’s solid and looks and feels like it will hold up nicely.The storage capacity is on the higher end which is very important for me since I’m a photographer.The rubber makes it stay in place which means it’s a little harder to fit it into my laptop bag, but it’s not too bad and it’s worth the minor hassle, IMO.This is a great hard drive and I would buy it again.

This drive is screaming fast. Worked straight out of the box. Has a utility included to reconfigure from RAID 0 (how it ships) to RAID 1 and vice versa. I switched it back and forth and tested it both ways. Feels very solid, and the bumper case is a nice touch. The built in Thunderbolt cable is great, and doesn't require any external power when used this way. It does come with a USB 3 cable and external power supply as well. After testing, I bought a 2nd one (I'll be setting up an off-site backup of one drive to the other). Great value for the price.

4TB Rugged LaCie Does Not work with Mac Time Machine: The 4TB LaCie works fine for the first 8 backups on Mac's Time Machine and then it goes into hardware failure. On the first drive received, called LaCie Support and they sent out another drive (for $12.67) and I returned the original one. The refurbished drive they sent me did the same thing i.e. it worked for a day or 2 on time machine, but then went into hardware failure. I am using a USB port in the back port of my MacPro using Sierra Mac OS. I then tried it on 2 other Macs, one a MacLaptopPro on Sierra, and one on El Capitan OS. The 4TB drive did the same thing on Autobackup on all 3 Macs i.e. went into hardware failure after 8 or 9 backups. I have used LaCie Rugged Drives for years and have 60 of the Rugged HDs, so am very familiar with the drives. The 2TB Rugged drive work fine with Time Machine. I again called LaCie and they contend that the 4TB drives are compatible with Time Machine, although the support person (Masa) indicates that the rugged drives aren’t intended to be on all the time i.e. which would mean we shouldn’t use auto backup. Somehow that seems inconsistent with the use of Time Machine. I then bought a Western Digital for Mac 4TB and it works fine with Time Machine in Auto Mode on all of the Macs. The LaCie support person said that the problem must be the environment I am using them in!!! She has to be kidding. Anyway, she refused to send me another replacement so I am stuck with a $350 paperweight.

Very fast read/write speeds for a bus-powered travel drive (which are typically just single spinning hard drives). I use this in the RAID 0 configuration via Thunderbolt. Hard to find this kind of speed in a mobile drive without getting an SSD, which, at this time is too much money for only a moderate amount of storage. Classic orange bumper design has stood the test of time, I've owned a number of different models over the years (maybe 15?) and have abused them heavily. I think only one has gone out on me, which is a pretty good ratio for a filmmaker on the road.PROS:-Fast (258 MB/s read, 237 MB/s write give or take, see photos)-LED status light on back-Bus powered with Thundberbolt (not USB)-Comes with an extra rubber port cover/bumper thing, which is nice since it looks like it's easy to lose-Good value considering the price vs capacity vs speedCONS:-No Thunderbolt passthrough, which means that this drive must be at the end of your Thunderbolt daisy chain. If you want to use two of these drives at once, you'll need a newer Apple machine that has two TB ports, or you'll be forced to use USB.-Additional plug-in power brick is required to use USB, so it's really only a "mobile" drive if you're using Thunderbolt.

Great product! Set up was relatively easy with the exception that to set up as a raid drive as 2 x 2 TB drives, I needed to source how to do this on the web, as the instructions that were included in the box were not clear. I love the thunderbolt connection as this is almost as quick as the SSD drive that I have on my Mac. So far very impressed with this product.

Gets extremely hot. Tried to get to to work with my apple as a time capsule. Constantly runs and gets extremely hot. I have to put fan on it when i first back up my mac book air laptop with it. It’s not as fast as I thought.

Great drive. I bought this drive and the WD My Passport Pro. Love them both; think this drive is less fragile than the Passport, but operationally it performs excellent. I like the LaCie utility; made 3 partitions, and was very easy. Quiet, smooth and durable!

You cannot imagine how slow this drive is. Think of the Thunderbolt and the USB 3.0 connection as simply how it connects, because it simply isn't fast enough to need much beyond a serial cable speed wise. For those that need hard numbers. BlackMagic reports 20MBS Write and 45MBS Read. If time is money then consider an SSD, which will be equally robust. Though the LaCie is a nice Orange.