LACIE d2 Quadra 500GB or OWC Mercury Elite-AL 300GB

I'm trying to decide on which scratch disk to purchase. What do you guys think about these two, or would you suggest something different. I need the firewire 800 for my setup.

I have quite a few Lacie drives and have never had a problem with them, including some 500GB d2 Quadras. Just remember that you'll never know ahead of time what make/model drive is in the box. Lacie did confirm to me that they are putting SATA drives in the d2 Quadra units, however. (You have to be careful, some of the off brand FW drives actually have old PATA (IDE/ATA) drives inside.)
Why not consider the OWC 320 GB Mercury Elite - it's got a Hitachi T7K500 drive inside. The 300GB version you mentioned has a Maxtor Maxline drive (not my favorite). Or, you might consider just getting the Mercury Elite Quad interface enclosure and put a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drive or a Hitachi Deskstar drive in it.

Similar Messages

Why is the Lacie d2 Quadra cheaper than the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Quad

I can find the Lacie as low as 178.99.
http://www.macworld.com/2007/03/reviews/d2quadra/index.php
The Mercury goes for $249.00.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEAQ7500GB16/
http://www.macworld.com/2007/03/reviews/mercuryelite/index.php
Is the mercury that much better? Is it worth the price difference? Do you know what chipset the Lacie uses?

You mean there really are people that like Lacie? I just thought it was because they don't know there are other choices, or don't know the difference.
I've also got more OWC Mercury style FW800 cases - all going strong.
The price of peace of mind? Too many people with problems with D2 units. I have never run into a power issue, or needing to "unplug to bleed trickle current" in all my years.
I do recommend you consider eSATA. Either PCIe or using the 'extra' two internal SATA ports with NewerTech kit. And if you go with FW800, Aaxeon $107 to add another bus. But there are eSATA for less.
http://www.macsales.com/firewire/

Audio dedicated HD: LaCie d2 Quadra, WD My Book Studio or OWC Mercury Elite

Hi, I'm choosing between the LaCie d2 Quadra, WD My Book Studio and OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro, pretty similar, looks like the only difference is the Lacie has 16MB cache, the WD is unspecified and OWC has 32MB... which had me leaning towards OWC's.
The lowest prices I've found are $150, $140 and $170+shipping (their website only) respectively. So although I was convinced about the OWC it is the most expensive one.
1TB using FW800 BTW

Theis PSUs die.
I had forgotten about my incident, I just avoid to buy their drives; but the other day I went to a "Mac service" and saw no less than 10 of them all broken. I asked and all were PSU fails.
Not BIG deal, but when you open it to save your data because otherwise you´ll have to ship it and pray you loose the guarantee. I´ll have to read A LOT of good things from Lacie to change my mind. They charge you for an enclosure and the enclosure fails... BIG DEAL
Just my experience and opinion. Maybe you buy one and you LOVE it.

Owc mercury elite external hard drive will no longer come up on my desktop

owc mercury elite external hard drive will no longer come up on my desktop?

Can Disk Utility see it?

My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine. I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything. The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago.`

My iMac suddenly can't read the backup hard drive I've been using for Time Machine. I tried unplugging the cord that connects the HD to the iMac and plugging it back in, but I still get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" below which are buttons for Initialize, Ignore and Eject. I was using a cord that went from larger square plug to larger square plug. So then I tried one that went from smaller square plug to what I think is USB (thin rectangular plug) of the sort that connects the keyboard and mouse. It's the type that my printers and scanners use to connect to the iMac. I did NOT just upgrade the OS or anything. The external HD is an OWC Mercury Elite All Pro. It's worked fine since I got the iMac 4 years ago. What else can I try before just trying to initialize and

Thanks, Michael! I do hear it at times spooling up and running. Just after I bumped the thread I looked for troubleshooting for this drive online and found the manual which suggested using Disk Utility which I've seen before accidentally (if I hit Command Shift U instead of Shift U to type "Unit" on a new folder for a student's homework ) but had never really noticed. Disk Utility does see it and also a sub-something (directory?) which might be the Time Machine archives on the disk, called disk1s2), sort of the way that my iMac's hard drive shows up as 640.14 GB Nitachi HDT7... and has a sub-something titled DB iMac, which is what I named my iMac's hard drive.
Anyway the owner's manual just shows the image under the formatting section, not the troubleshooting section, but as soon as I saw it in the manual I remembered seeing it accidentally a few times, went to it, and am now verifying the disk. Right now it's telling me that it will take 2 hours to complete the verification, so I guess I have a bigt of a wait. :-)
Does that fact that Disk Utilities can see it mean it's not failed, or just that it hasn't completely failed?
I can see the virtue in having multiple redundant backups, or at least two backups. What do you suggest? Two external hard drives? I had this one linked by ethernet, and but I also have a cord that could link it by USB (like a printer), so if this one is reparable I could get a second one and link it by USB. If this one is not reparable I could get two and do the same thing. I do have an Airport so I suppose it's possible to get some sort of Wi-Fi hard drive (my new printer/scanner uses only the network and not a cable, although it has a cable that I used for the initial installation), but I'd suspect a Wi-Fi hard drive might have a higher price.
What hard drives, if any, do you recommend? I seem to recall that when I was looking at external hard drives 4 years ago, Apple's were substantially more expensive, which is why I got the OWC Mercury Elite All Pro.

External HD (Lacie d2 Quadra 500GB) random disconnects

Hi!
I have a problem with my external HD (Lacie d2 Quadra 500GB). The problem occurs since the 10.6 upgrade. My external HD is disconnected every few minutes. Sometimes I only see one partition, but most of the time both partitions (one of them is my Time Machine partition) are being disconnected by OSX. I read that some Western Digital drives get disconnected, too. But as far as I know my drive is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 HD.
Any solutions?
I can plug it out of the USB2 port and back in again. It will appear for a few minutes and after that the next "Drive disconnected" message comes up (sometimes the message does not show, too!).
I would appreciate any help!
Thank you,
Markus

I have the same problem with an external SimpleTech portable HD direct-wired via USB. My drive is strictly used to hold music and photo files. The problem has started since upgrade to Snow Leopard.
It disconnects every few minutes and has to be unplugged and plugged back in again to my MBP to get it to reconnect. Sometimes the "Drive disconnected" error message comes up, sometimes it doesn't. When I plug it back in sometimes it doesn't get recognized and I have to repeat the procedure. The time it takes to become recognized, when it is, is much slower than before upgrading to Snow Leopard.

OWC Mercury Elite Pro External Hard Drive - Share with Windows Machine?

Hi,
Others on this discussion have recommended the OWC Mercury Elite Pro External Hard Drive. Dumb question: my live-in girlfriend has a Dell XP laptop, and I have a MacBook. If we purchased an OWC hard drive with both firewire and USB, can we both use the external hard drive?
Thanks, David

You can certainly use their drives between a Mac and a PC. As mentioned, either format it FAT32 witht he 4GB file size restrictions or partition it.
You can also use a program called MacDrive. It give a Windows machine that ability to read and wtite to HFS+ partitions. I have used it and it works nicely.
There is a timed demo, so you can try it out and see if it meets your needs.

My Time Machine backup keeps failing...how do I find out why?? MacBook Pro 5,1 OS 10.5.8, 6GB ram backing up to new OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 2TB

Forgive my clumsiness ---
My Time Machine backup keeps failing...how do I find out why?? MacBook Pro 5,1 OS 10.5.8, 6GB ram backing up to new OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro 2TB

Have you formatted the disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?
Caio.

OWC Mercury elite external

I have two OWC mercury elite external drives, one has a 250G drive and the other a 500G drive. OWC externals are very nice and sleep when the Mac does, nice advantage. Does anyone know if I could change the hard drive in the case to a larger one? I am thinking about the Hitachi 1TB drive. OWC now offers this unit but it is $395 where the drive itself is $250. Anybody tried to swap out drives in a OWC external case?

It shouldn't be any problem to open the case and replace the drive, then. A matter of loosening some screws, and when it's open, you'll need to disconnect a power connector, and the SATA connector. There may be another wire running to a power switch that would need to be temporarily disconnected.
Be sure to check on the position of any jumpers on the original drive, and make sure the jumpers on the new drive are in the same position.

Mac going to sleep and improperly ejecting external USB2 OWC Mercury Elite

I am using Mac OS X 10.4.8 (PowerPC), all updates installed. Since I haven't yet upgraded to a new Mac (waiting for Adobe Creative Suite Universal Binary), I have installed a working PCI card that gives me USB 2 capability (from Iogear). I have an external hard drive 300 GB OWC Mercury Elite Pro that has eSata, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and USB 2. I haven't tried using the Firewire 400 with the external hard drive (my 400 Mhz PowerMac G4 is simply too ancient to have Firewire 800). So, I don't know if my problem extends to Firewire or not, simply because I haven't tried it. Obviously I don't have an eSata card installed in my mac either.
I am running OS X Tiger with the default Power Management settings. I had wiped my internal hard drive and reinstalled OS X and then did the upgrade to OS X 10.4.8 and did the rest of the updates.
I had backed up my music and my photos on my external hard drive prior to wiping my internal mac's hard drive. After reinstalling the OS X and updating OS X, I copied the music and the photos without a hitch to the iTunes and iPhoto libraries, using the USB2 interface. Anyhow, now that I've explained some preliminary background, here's my simple problem (since I'm too stupid to figure this out on my own, I thought I'd post a question here)...
After the copying was done, eventually my mac went to sleep (in about 20 minutes, from what I understand are the default settings). However, on waking, the computer warned me that the external hard drive had been improperly ejected.
This now has happened more than once, and the computer warns me that I might damage the external hard drive (I haven't changed the default formatting of the external hard drive, (Mac OS Extended). Since it has backed up irreplaceable family photos, I do not want this backup to be damaged.
What should I do? Do I really have to prevent my mac from ever going to sleep versus immediately ejecting my external hard drive before I ever walk away to do something?)
Thanks in advance for you help and advice.
P. S., Followup question regarding my external hard drive...
I notice my internal hard drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). My external hard drive does not say that it is Jounaled. Does it really help the integrity of my data to have Journaling turned on on my external hard drive? Do I have to reformat it to turn Journaling on???
Thanks once again.

Energy Saver and third party USB often don't go well hand in hand. I would though contact OWC and let them know you are having this problem, since they have a good track record of supporting the Mac platform. In the meantime, use Screen Saver instead of Energy Saver.
And always keep your data backed up at least twice as my FAQ explains:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

Can't get Mac Pro to recognize OWC Mercury Elite Al-Pro QX2 Raid on eSata

Hi Everyone,
I have a new OWC Mercury Elite Al-Pro QX2 Raid, set up as Raid 5, w 4 x 2TB Hitachi drives. I have been able to get it to mount on my Mac Pro via FireWire connection only, can't get it to mount via eSATA.
Since the purpose is video editing, I need the eSATA connection to work.
Any ideas on how to get the Mac Pro to see the eSATA?
I've tried switching eSATA cables to one that has been verified to work, still no luck.
Thanks!

I have a new OWC Mercury Elite Al-Pro QX2 Raid, set up as Raid 5, w 4 x 2TB Hitachi drives. I have been able to get it to mount on my Mac Pro via FireWire connection only, can't get it to mount via eSATA.
Dear Sunshine22,
The QX2 uses an Oxford 936QS chip that can require up to 45 seconds to startup all of the hard disks and become ready to accept eSATA controller commands. Usually, the QX2 enclosure will beep when it is finally ready.
The amount of time required to startup the enclosure can be longer than some eSATA drivers expect. There are two possible options you might try to get around this issue.
1. Unplug the QX2 eSATA cable from the controller. Turn on the enclosure and wait 45 seconds or until the enclosure beeps indicating it is ready. Next, connect the eSATA cable and the enclosure should show up in Disk Utility within the next 20 - 30 seconds.
OR
2. Turn on the QX2 and wait for 45 seconds or until the enclosure beeps. Now restart the Mac Pro and the enclosure should mount on the desktop or show up in Disk Utility.
Perhaps one of these methods will mount the QX2 for you.
FirmTek has updated our eSATA drivers so that these work arounds are not usually necessary when an Oxford 936QS based enclosure is attached to a FirmTek PCIe controller.
Good luck!

Connecting OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual-Bay (RAID) Enclosure help setup

System info:
Enclosure: OWC Mercury Elite-Pro Dual Bay (RAID Enclosure)
Comps: Mac Pro & MacBook Pro 13"
OS: 10.6.4
Connected enclosure via firewire800 with 2x 2tb hitachi drives.
So I picked up an Open Box version of essentially this enclosure:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW936AL2/
(the differences is, the light is not in the direct center of the enclosure as pictured and the little blue switch is not on the logicboard under the fan like it was pictured in the instructional booklet).
Now going through the instructional manual, and wanting to set it up as a RAID 0 i noticed that on my enclosure there wasnt a place on the board for it to switch it to proper type of configuration i wanted.
And their site is a little messy (imho) to find the proper info and so many variants of their enclosures.
So heres what my enclosure board looks like:
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/7708/owc.jpg
I put two 2TB drives in the enclosure (2 Hitachi Deskstar 7200s).
plug it in via FireWire800 to my MacBookPro and get the initialize the drive alert and thats where iam at. I havent set up this particular enclosure before so im not sure if its all software controlled now and the best way to go about configuring it the way I want it to (RAID 0 for now).
and how to go about in the future changing it if i say wanted RAID 1 or JBOD.
any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!

thanks, though the problem has been resolved courtesy of Loudspeakermusic's link.
The problem is that the manual doesnt state anything about this particular drive.
As you can see from the image:
mine does not have the actual jumper settings like indicated of Page 5 of the PDF Manual (the same Manual i got with the actual enclosure).
So the firmwire utility helped as I was able to create the RAID or RAID 1 or SPAN/JBOD properly.
According to OWC if there drive was over 1TB in size I must click on the Enable Large Disk box to allow me to use 2x2TB drives then once I set the firmware to RAID 0, i can format them properly in Disk Utility.
So far I'm running the 2x2TB (4TB) in RAID 0 on my enclosure fine and can transfer just well.
Like Loudspeaker stated, i have to have the drive directly connected and not daisychained as I did not know why I wasnt able to change the firmware settings.
as shown:
Thanks for all the pointers!

Sup guys..i cannot open my owc mercury elite extended hard drive i tried to repair permisions but it sill did not work wat do i do

sup guys..i cannot open my owc mercury elite extended hard drive i tried to repair permisions but it sill did not work wat do i do

It's tough to help you without any information, such as how is it connected. Have you done some fundamentals like checking the cables, disconnecting and reconnecting, SMC resets and PRAM resets? If not start looking at cables, don't forget to switch them out. If you're not familiar with the resets instructions are below and don't forget to reboot in Safe Mode.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
PRAM RESET
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

G-Tech G-DRIVE Q 500GB Quad Interface Hard Drive or LaCie d2 Quadra 500GB?

Hi,
Okay I was all set to get the Lacie d2 Quadra 500 GB drive for $296.00 Canadian as I'd heard from people on this site and others it was a good one to buy.
Then I was on apple.ca yesterday and saw the G-Tech G-DRIVE Q 500GB Quad Interface Hard Drive for $319.00 Canadian and I get Macworld and that is always on the Top Product list. Should I get the G-Tech one instead for only $23.00 more?
Thoughts? Does one have more features then the other? I see the Lacie has a one button backup option but not sure about G-Tech.
S.
Message was edited by: spiralgirl
Message was edited by: spiralgirl

spiralgirl wrote:
Thanks for the tips. I don't really know what I'm doing as far as cases are concerned.
Yep, I understand, hardware geekdom can be very confusing.
Amazon.com has a good prices on LaCie -- 500 GB D2 HD Quadra @ USD $183
that's price-competitive with any of my home-grown specials.
http://www.amazon.com/500GB-Lacie-Quadra-7200RPM-16MB/dp/B000MEX7CC/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1196222936&sr=8-1
...favorable customer reviews, too,
Looby

LaCie d2 Quadra or OWC Mercury Elite Pro for external hard drive?

Using Intel IMac,10.8.3 and replacing my external hard drives. Had posted before and had some issues with other drives and narrowed things down to these two drives. Using one for Time Machine and the other for CCC.
I would appreciate any and all comments from users of either of these drives and any suggestions!?
Thanks,
Don

I vote for the OWC drives. I have 5 of them and am very happy with their performance. The one LaCie drive I had a couple of years ago had to be replace. It was replaced with an OWC drive.
OT

LACIE d2 Quadra 500GB or OWC Mercury Elite-AL 300GB

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