LaCie 8TB 2big Raid USB-C External Desktop Drive (STHJ8000800)

On the description it said thunder bold but wasn’t, disappointing when I received it, couldn’t return due to I needed it as a back up due to another drive failing.It’s the bottom drive. I won’t use it for work but the writing speed is slower I’m glad it’s a back up only.The description needs to be a lot clearer.

First up, I'm a 75 year old non-geek. My collection of 80,000+ photos and a few hundred videos (increasing by about 300/month) was getting a little out of control. My back-up's were on 8 portable drives chucked in a drawer and It all seemed a bit risky! Then I heard about LaCie 2Big RAID drives, did some research and finally took the plunge.It's a really well thought out piece of kit, though it took me a week or so to get my head round it. I now have it set up to perform weekly back-ups on my two internal hard drives. It is unobtrusive, being about the size of a house brick, & it runs in the background almost silently providing me with total peace of mind. Well done LaCie & bully for CCL

Definitely on the pricier end of things but this external performs. Unlike other "backup" drives which run on SMR HDDs that have abysmal write performance ~40MB/sec that drops after sustained writes to as low as 3MB/sec, This has sustained write speeds of ~440MB/sec throughout in its default config(striped RAID) out of the box.Management software was slightly confusing to install on the newer Macs with their higher level of security but this was just out of curiosity instead of a real need to do any management to the drive config. It works right out of the box, just feed it power and plug it in.Have had it running for a couple months 24/7 with about 50TB written and it's still humming along. Based on my experience with vanilla Ironwolf drives, these Ironwolf Pro ... MoreDefinitely on the pricier end of things but this external performs. Unlike other "backup" drives which run on SMR HDDs that have abysmal write performance ~40MB/sec that drops after sustained writes to as low as 3MB/sec, This has sustained write speeds of ~440MB/sec throughout in its default config(striped RAID) out of the box.Management software was slightly confusing to install on the newer Macs with their higher level of security but this was just out of curiosity instead of a real need to do any management to the drive config. It works right out of the box, just feed it power and plug it in.Have had it running for a couple months 24/7 with about 50TB written and it's still humming along. Based on my experience with vanilla Ironwolf drives, these Ironwolf Pro drives should not just match but also exceed them in reliability.

Buyer's Remorse in Full Effect...

While I was happy with the performance, capacity, and looks of this drive when I first bought it, that shine has all but completely worn off. The first issue I had was a complete failure of the drive. I was tasked with shipping it in for data recovery and replacement which took about a month to complete. Well, they managed to recover my data (great) but it took an incredibly long time (not great) and the refurbished replacement I received had physical damage in the way of some visible scrapes showing silver metal on an otherwise all black box (argh - are you kidding me!). Anyway, fast forward to the release of macOS Monterey and guess what - the drive will no longer go to sleep, randomly warns of improper ejection, won't sync mirrored files properly, and support ... MoreWhile I was happy with the performance, capacity, and looks of this drive when I first bought it, that shine has all but completely worn off. The first issue I had was a complete failure of the drive. I was tasked with shipping it in for data recovery and replacement which took about a month to complete. Well, they managed to recover my data (great) but it took an incredibly long time (not great) and the refurbished replacement I received had physical damage in the way of some visible scrapes showing silver metal on an otherwise all black box (argh - are you kidding me!). Anyway, fast forward to the release of macOS Monterey and guess what - the drive will no longer go to sleep, randomly warns of improper ejection, won't sync mirrored files properly, and support takes a painfully long time to respond. Beyond that, after jumping through all of tech support's hoops, they have the nerve to say its probably Apple's fault and direct me to them?! No. They need to update their firmware/software and work more closely with the biggest computer company that exists to make darn sure their $800 hard drive works - and works well. I do not recommend this, or any other of LaCie's products, after this miserable experience. Thanks for the headache, LaCie...

Can't set up RAID 1

I tried to set up the array for RAID 1 on Windows 11 using the supplied software but the setup failed. After spending some time with LaCie tech support, they advised me to send it back saying one of the disks was faulty. B&H quickly replaced it, but the replacement unit is having the same problem. The drive is visible to Computer Management but is unallocated thus not visible to Explorer. I opened a case with tech support and have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting...

Compact unit with lots of storage -- you need to be competent to set it up.

I'm computer literate but not an expert, and I was able to configure this for Raid1 (14 TB total storage) and get the discs initialized and formatted. I had to download the updates from the LaCie website (which is not that easy to navigate, but if you take your time, you can find the necessary info), install the Toolkit and Raid Manager software, and follow the online instructions, and then I had to do some basic internet searches and follow some tutorials to initialize before I was able to format. I used the included software to configure for Raid 1. The whole setup took maybe 90 minutes and I had to be patient and keep looking and reading until I found what I needed. I had a friend who was an IT expert 'on call' in case I needed help, but I figured it out myself. ... MoreI'm computer literate but not an expert, and I was able to configure this for Raid1 (14 TB total storage) and get the discs initialized and formatted. I had to download the updates from the LaCie website (which is not that easy to navigate, but if you take your time, you can find the necessary info), install the Toolkit and Raid Manager software, and follow the online instructions, and then I had to do some basic internet searches and follow some tutorials to initialize before I was able to format. I used the included software to configure for Raid 1. The whole setup took maybe 90 minutes and I had to be patient and keep looking and reading until I found what I needed. I had a friend who was an IT expert 'on call' in case I needed help, but I figured it out myself. If you are a complete novice, this might not be the product for you. If you have even average computer skills and some experience installing/removing software, and know how to navigate the Start menu, Control Panel, dropdowns, going into properties, and can read some basic online tutorials to answer your questions, etc, it shouldn't be a problem. It also took me a couple minutes to put together the electric plug, which was not immediately obvious, but don't force the pieces together.I'm using this with Windows 7 and a USB 3 connection, and have had no problems. I like the fact that it has an on/off switch, though it seems to be smart enough to go to sleep when I turn off my PC. I've had it for a month now, and there have been a couple of instances in which it had trouble waking up, and I had to pull the plug and re-start, but it worked just fine after that. You can hear the discs humming from a few feet away when data is being transferred, so it's not totally silent, but the noise is not a problem.The big blue eye seems to have gotten a scrap of plastic trapped inside it during assembly, which looks a little annoying, but does not affect functionality. I'm just using this for data storage and am not editing Blu-Ray, so I don't have much to say about data transfer speed. I wanted a single device with a lot of storage space and redundancy in case of a disc failure, and in that respect this device is just fine.

Feature Film Drive

My partner and I shot a feature and have used these drives (3 for redundancies) to store our precious footage. Wonderful drives. The only knock is that sometimes duplicate clips were lost during the upload. Easy fix but figured I’d mention it. Overall will absolutely use again.

Good Backup Storage with a Few Cons

I bought this storage to have a Raid 1 backup for all my video project files and footage. I've also been able to edit off it in Premiere using proxies and haven't had a problem yet.Pros:Writes fast in Raid 1, particularly with a thunderbolt cable instead of USB.Easy to set up. Installed the Lacie app to configure it for RAID 1 quickly.Nice looking and Compact. Sits behind my external monitor and doesn't have a huge footprint, saving precious desk space.Cons:Somewhat noisy, but I kinda expected that.When the drive is plugged in on my Macbook Pro, If I don't access it for a while the computer will say it's there, but then when I go to click on the drive the computer will say the disk was ejected improperly. It can be kind of annoying. Not sure if it's a ... MoreI bought this storage to have a Raid 1 backup for all my video project files and footage. I've also been able to edit off it in Premiere using proxies and haven't had a problem yet.Pros:Writes fast in Raid 1, particularly with a thunderbolt cable instead of USB.Easy to set up. Installed the Lacie app to configure it for RAID 1 quickly.Nice looking and Compact. Sits behind my external monitor and doesn't have a huge footprint, saving precious desk space.Cons:Somewhat noisy, but I kinda expected that.When the drive is plugged in on my Macbook Pro, If I don't access it for a while the computer will say it's there, but then when I go to click on the drive the computer will say the disk was ejected improperly. It can be kind of annoying. Not sure if it's a setting I need to change or what, but I have to unplug it and plug it back into the computer.The thunderbolt cable the unit came with it looks solid, but I noticed if I move the computer at all or just barely touch it, the drive will disconnect. I think it was loose in the port so I ended up buying an Apple cable and it worked fine.

I've only had issues with this drive.

The drive randomly ejects from my Macbook Pro without any warning and gives the error message that says “Disk Not Ejected Properly”There is no rhyme or reason to when the drive will mount. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't show up in the finder at all. It will be visible in Disk Utility but doesn't allow you to do any function like repair disk etc.When the drive works is quite slow and very noisy!

Lacie 2Big Raid 16TB doesn't work with Catalina 10.15.5.

Learned the hard way that by upgrading my IMac to the latest firmware 10.15.5 my hard drive disconnect all the time.Not easy to set computer back to earlier version. Lacie (Seagate) claims to be working on a fix but 2 weeks later it still not been fixed.