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1. Paul Huang

   Dedicated MacNNer

   Joined: Sep 1999

   -17
   02/24, 05:46pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   What a joke

   The bottleneck in the "little big disk" is in the 2.5" drive, not FireWire/800 or eSATA.
   
   Thunderbolt is not going to do much good.

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1. nowwhatareyoulookingat

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jul 2009

   +5
   02/24, 05:49pm | report spam | (2 replies) close | reply

   Really? LaCie?

   Do they just keep finding new suckers to buy their stuff? The hardware looks beautiful, and generally works great, but then they throw in the cheapest power supply they can find and hope it goes out of warrantee before the supply goes, so they can sell you a replacement.

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1. DiabloConQueso

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jun 2008

   +13
   02/24, 06:04pm | report spam | close reply

   While these products probably...

   ...won't change the landscape in reference to the usability/usefulness of Thunderbolt, we must not forget that the future looks bright for SSD drives and their eventual replacement/enhancement of spinning-platter drives.
   
   As SSDs get faster and faster (and hopefully cheaper, too!), simple USB 2.0 (or even 3.0) and FireWire connections may not be fast enough to fully carry the bandwidth that the SSDs are capable of producing. RAID a few SSDs up as well, and now we're approaching a theoretical 1GB/sec -- something that Thunderbolt would be more than suited for that other interconnects wouldn't.
   
   Thunderbolt may be overkill for what's available TODAY, but then again, when has any new technology been invented that is 100% taken advantage of the day it's released? It's TOMORROW I'm most interested in...

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1. Feathers

   Grizzled Veteran

   Joined: Oct 1999

   +8
   02/24, 06:30pm | report spam | close reply

   OWC

   I'm waiting to see what Other World Computing comes out with. Solid gear at decent prices. I have had bad experiences with both Promise (aptly named) and LaCie in the past. The best thing LaCie ever did was displays and that was quite a while ago!

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1. Paul Huang

   Dedicated MacNNer

   Joined: Sep 1999

   -2
   02/24, 06:42pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   So...

   I only buy LaCie products that do not require a power supply.
   
   Thunderbolt is a viable product that blows the doors off of other methods. However, the 'Little Big Disk' is really a silly 'anchor' product. In reference to my first comment, I meant Thunderbolt is not going to be much good to products that are unable to even saturate the bandwidth of eSATA and FireWire.
   
   The speed may be great, but it's going to take at least six months or more for them to become common place. For desktop units...the integrated mini DisplayPort design is going to be a roadblock. Who is going to unplug the display just to connect/disconnect a Thunderbolt device? I'd say a separate port is in order. Fortunately, this first round is on the portable, so they will discover the short coming soon enough.

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1. Hillbilly Geek

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2006

   +4
   02/24, 07:48pm | report spam | close reply

   adapters?

   another business opportunity?

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1. Paul Huang

   Dedicated MacNNer

   Joined: Sep 1999

   +1
   02/24, 08:24pm | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   not to mention hubs

   Yes, a lot of $$$.

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1. MyRightEye

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Apr 2008

   +4
   02/24, 08:40pm | report spam | close reply

   Excuse me...

   LaCie has tiny share of the market, and by FAR has the greatest failures. So go take your B$ elsewhere. LaCie used to be a top brand, but today is the single most stupid purchase anyone could ever make. Using LaCie is a recipe for disaster and very $$$ data recovery.
   
   So don't vote the guy's comment down - he's obviously learnt first-hand never to buy LaCie again.

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1. bobolicious

   Junior Member

   Joined: Aug 2002

   0
   02/24, 08:47pm | report spam | close reply

   I have a flawless LBD...

   running on 3 years in striped raid (touch wood) now... It is quiet, fast, seems well crafted & has a security slot unlike many smaller drives...
   
   I was even thinking of upgrading the drives to a couple of hybrid xt however this new option may be far better, albeit costlier...

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1. chas_m

   Moderator
   

   Joined: Aug 2001

   +11
   02/24, 09:05pm | report spam | close reply

   Dear USB3

   THIS is how you make a successful new connection technology.
   
   Signed,
   The Market

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1. ClevelandAdv

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Jul 2004

   +3
   02/24, 10:49pm | report spam | close reply

   Bring back PLI....

   The most storage products I ever owned were from PLI.
   Back in the Syquest disk days when everyone else's 88MB drives has error issues,
   my PLI drive would perform flawlessly. Problem is they were 50% more than the
   competition and they finally went under.
   
   The morale of the story....people are cheap and will buy cheap gear because it is cheap.
   This make c*** thrive and good products fail - it worked for Microsoft for 20 years.

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1. testudo

   Forum Regular

   Joined: Aug 2001

   -3
   02/25, 12:23am | report spam | close reply

   Re: Dear USB3

   THIS is how you make a successful new connection technology.
   
   Signed,
   The Market
   
   
   'Successful'?
   
   Um, it was just released, and is available on just one computer system. There are no peripherals for it yet, except a bunch of 'announced' products (you know, the kind that you would call vaporware if it was an android tablet, not some hard drive that features some new apple tech).
   
   How does that make it successful?
   
   And how is USB3 not successful? Because Apple refuses to add it to their system?

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1. darkelf

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Nov 2003

   +3
   02/25, 02:56am | report spam | close reply

   different experience

   just to add my 2cp, i've had less problems with my lacie 1TB drive (time machine backup) than i have with my WD drives (media storage, on my second drive over the same timespan). it's all commodity hardware, quality is going to be hit or miss with any manufacturer.

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1. tundaman

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Mar 2010

   +5
   02/25, 08:04am | report spam | close reply

   Testudo Nostradamus

   Well...
   
   I remember sometime last year there were rumors of Apple showing a lightpeak implementation in it's products by 2011, and our dear testudo laughed saying there was no way it could be done in that timetable.
   
   And I thought that after stepped on his big tong, he would remain silent on the subject, but seems that's not the case... silly me.
   
   One can only hope, for his own sake, that he doesn't make a living of predicting the future!
   
   

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1. testudo

   Forum Regular

   Joined: Aug 2001

   -4
   02/25, 02:24pm | report spam | close reply

   Re: Testudo Nostradamus

   I remember sometime last year there were rumors of Apple showing a lightpeak implementation in it's products by 2011, and our dear testudo laughed saying there was no way it could be done in that timetable.
   
   And it couldn't have been done, since Intel themselves said it wasn't going to be done.But we didn't get LightPeak as described last year. We got a fudged lightpeak, not using fiber but using copper for the implementation.
   
   Oh, and what about all the fanboy idiots who thought last April's new MacBook Pros would have LightPeak? You know, the grand Intel technology revealed a few months earlier. Were you one of those?
   
   But that has nothing to do with the point at hand. The poster stupidly proclaimed this to be a 'successful new connection technology'. You can't judge a success on day one. And if you judged it on day one, you'd have to say it was a failure, because Intel has said Apple's the only one using it, no one else will probably have any implementation for a year. On top of that, the only product out there that can use it are Apple's miniDisplayPort devices. There isn't a single peripheral, cable, hub, or device that you can use with it.
   
   That doesn't sound like a success at the moment.
   
   I'm not saying it won't be a success. But the reasons it will be have little to do with Apple. Intel is the developer of it. They currently control the whole thing, and, convenitly enough, they also make a majority of the motherboards out there. Gee, what makes me think that Thunderbolt is going to take off?
   
   BTW, one of the main reasons USB 3 hasn't taken off is because Intel hasn't shown a lead to implement it on all its motherboards. Why? Not because they have a belief that something is better, but because they have something that THEY OWN that they want to use instead.