Review: LaCie 320GB USB Hard Drive

With the release of Leopard this fall, and the exciting prospect of keeping all of their data safe with Time Machine, it’s likely millions of Mac users are going to descend on local hardware dealers to snatch up external hard drives.

It’s also likely that hard drive manufacturers will, foreseeing this trend, do what it takes to get you and I to purchase their drives and make the most money off it. It’s now more important than ever to be smart and informed when making your hard drive purchase. To that end, I hope you’ll let me share my experience using the LaCie 320GB USB 2.0 hard drive.

For the last 4-5 years I’ve been solely a laptop user so naturally I’ve relied heavily on using external drives when more storage space is needed. Based upon fairly good experiences early on with LaCie’s CD and DVD drives, I’ve only purchased said brand of external hard drives for quite sometime. The most recent LaCie drive I’ve been using is a 250GB Triple-Interface (Firewire 400, 800 and USB 2.0) d2, which I’ve been using via Firewire 400. Over all, it’s been great but it did cost me a fortune.

The price of the 320GB really caught me off guard though; it was actually pretty cheap. This truly startled me as a long time LaCie owner because they’ve never been offered at such a low price. The 320GB’s MRSP is US$149 but it retails anywhere from $100 to $130, which is comparable with other external drives. If price told the entire story of this drive, I’d stop this review now; unfortunately not everything else is complete sun and rainbows.

When I unpacked the 320GB I was struck by something that I should have seen coming. I knew this drive only had a single interface (USB 2.0), but still, as I peered down into the open box, I couldn’t help but be disappointed by the lack of cables. That’s not to say there were none; in contrast to my d2, one short USB 2.0 cable was awfully disappointing. How short of a Cable? It’s about 22″ (56cm).

My desk is relatively small and I’ve already got several drives around, so some unwelcomed shuffling around was necessary to make everything fit. To put it in perspective, a bargain brand external laptop drive enclosure I have included a 43″ (110cm) long cable. Each of the d2’s cable is a lengthy 5′ (152″)!

The drive itself is fairly attractive despite the case’s plastic construction. It sports a faux brushed metal look that works surprisingly well. Unlike many external drives, the 320GB thankfully lacks big ugly, superfluous lights and buttons – it’s front features only a single, small activity LED. On the rear you’ll find the power connector, a single USB 2.0 connection and an on/off switch. It’s a conservative, minimalist look and I think it’s pretty nice overall.

Setting up the 320GB was as easy as it could be. I simply plugged everything in and it worked without any fuss or configuration. My experience with the drive thereafter was smooth and pleasant. Although I didn’t notice any problems with its speed when using it to back up odds and ends, I thought it would be fitting to do a speed test to see how quick the USB 2.0 interface actually was. What I found surprised me quite a bit.

I used two fairly controlled, but certainly not scientific tests to compare the speed of the LaCie 250GB d2 connected via Firewire 400, the MacBook Pro’s internal Seagate Momentus 5400RPM 160GB drive, an 80GB 5400RPM Hitachi drive in a Coolmax bargain-brand USB 2.0 enclosure (my former internal drive) and the LaCie 320GB Porsche drive.

For the first test I used XBench’s Drive Test to determine a score for each drive based on XBench’s arbitrary score system. I ran the test twice in a row to compensate for the deficit that could arise from having to spin up to full speed for the first test.

XBench Disk Test Scores (Longer bar is Better)

As you can see the 320GB and the external laptop drive got pummeled. What’s strange to me was that the external 5400RPM laptop kept pace so respectably with the 7200RPM LaCie 320GB. To ensure there wasn’t anything else confounding the results I repeated the test a few times using different USB ports, but still ended up getting similar scores of about 16 – 18 for each.

To me at least, XBench’s arbitrary score doesn’t mean a whole lot so I did another test that I think is a bit more practical. This time I loaded the same 2.18GB MKV movie onto each of the drives and opened them one at a time in QuickTime. MKV movies (often used for storing HD movies on Mac and PC) are interesting because although you can play them in QuickTime with Perian installed, an MKV has to loaded completely before it can be viewed from start to finish.

This loading time is what I set out to record. I quit QuickTime between attempts to ensure that the video was completely flushed from memory between trials.

2.18GB MKV Video Loading Times (Time in minutes)

Again, the 320GB Porsche and the external laptop drive rounded out the bottom of the group but this time the 7200RPM LaCie 320GB did come out ahead by about 45 seconds. To be fair all of the tested drives loaded the 2.18GB MKV movie with sufficient speed that it could be watched without lost frames or skipping.

The LaCie 320GB USB 2.0 external designed by F.A. Porsche is definitely a good drive overall, especially for the price. As far as speed goes though, the 320GB will undoubtedly be a disappointment to prior owners of LaCie’s Pro line of triple-interface or new quad-interface drives. If the results I found were accurate I can’t see this drive being very popular with HD video editors or other high bandwidth requiring professionals.

The 320GB drive is billed as stackable but this ‘feature’ is all but nullified by it’s lack of an extra USB 2.0 port from-which to daisy-chain off of and the inclusion of a relatively short USB 2.0 cord. Still, as a consumer storage device for maintaining backups of media libraries or for use in the future as a Time Machine backup drive, I have a feeling this will be just fine.

I’ve used 320GB drive for several weeks and despite the test results, I have noticed no startlingly appreciable speed difference between it and the other external drives I use. The bottom line is that LaCie 320GB USB 2.0 external isn’t going to spoil you for it’s low price but it also isn’t likely to let you down if you know what you are getting.

Pros:

• Good Looking
• Perfectly easy to setup
• Fair price
• One year limited warranty (Two years in Europe)
• Transfer speed seems acceptable for daily use and backup.
• Runs silently (most of the time)

Cons:

• Fared poorly on XBench Disk Test and MKV loading test – results on par with an external laptop drive
• Makes an unnerving “clack” noise when the hard disk’s head parks
• Short USB 2.0 cable.
• Probably not fast enough for creative professionals or gamers
• Lack of Firewire means PPC users can not boot off this drive
• Intel users booting Mac OS X from this drive would have noticeably sluggish load-times on boot-up.

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