Side by Side Comparison of: Silicon Power vs LaCie

Just got it - so can't comment on durability and dependency. Design is good. Speed is good - they don't provide actual speed specification. I copied few hundred GB on it and the average speed was 60-70 MB/s. The only thing - I reformatted it to NTFS, while it was originally FAT32, as I think. Not sure if I was right about it but otherwise it didn't allow me to copy some of my files because their size "exceeded limits for disk's format".

I have dropped a few times and still working

This was an early Christmas gift for my hubby. He LOVES it. He said it was so small and easy to use. He backed up files from his lap top and then about a week later he had problems with his laptop. He was so pleased that he had backed everything up the week before so he did not lose much data at all. Great product.

A well designed, well constructed External Hard Drive. A nice feature is the activity light that illuminates Blue if the speed is USB 3.0 and Red if the speed is USB 2.0. More importantly, the notches around the drive for storing the cable is extremely useful. I highly recommend this product to anyone looking for a well-made HDD.

Running as expected after 2 weeks of use. Have this plugged in to my main computer; synchronizes with another 1TB internal hard drive as a backup; this is the drive where I store media and archived files. The drive comes formatted as FAT or FAT32 which can't handle files larger than ~4GB. A quick NTFS format would be very quick. FYI it took a few hours for a *full* NTFS format. That isn't really necessary for the first format since it's a new drive. I did it anyway. Took about 1 to 2 hours to fill it up with ~700GB of data from my internal drive. Search google for "freefilesync" for the free software to sync files easily. Be sure to "uncheck" the bloatware during the installation and you're good.This setup allows me to disconnect the external drive and basically have all my favorite stuff to take it to a friend's house or to my office whenever I want. The cord-holding corners seem to work fine. I haven't bought an extra carrying since it's rated to be shock resistant. I'm still wary of shock damage while transporting and stuff, but I feel a bit more confident in this design than a regular portable drive casing. Since it's a similar price, I thought it would be worth it.

Works great. Smaller than I expected, no bulky power cord to plug in. But if you are buying one of these do yourself a favor and reformat it when you get it to "NTSF". The reason being is when you get it and start putting files on it, it will work great. I had about 1TB of info on it and then it wouldn't accept a file saying that there wasn't enough room on the drive. The problem was it comes formatted to something different that will not accept files over 4 GB. So the file I was trying to add wasn't going to fit. I had to take everything back off and then format it to NTFS. Now it works great! These things are far superior to the "WD BOOKS" I've been using for storage!

Durable and easy to set up with a high storage capacity that is great for anyone in need, student or professional.

I use these drives for backing up my computer. They're small and easily fit in a safe for security purposes.

I've used LaCie Rugged's as my drive of choice for Time Machine backups for a number of years. I've graduated from the 250MB to the 500MB to the 1TB versions as I've upgraded my Macs. You just have to be certain that your computer has the correct ports, or that you order the correct adapter cables prior to setting up the drive. My backup stays behind for the day when I take my laptop to work, and the backups kick in again when I return home -- but the LaCie is rugged enough to travel wherever you go.

I have been purchasing these drives because of the Firewire 800 and USB 3.0 ports. We still have some of the older Macpro models with Firewire 800 and also have the newer model Macpro with USB 3.0 so these drives can work with both at decent speeds.

I've owned many LaCie rugged drives over many years and they're quiet, fast, and reliable.I'm a Mac user who uses SuperDuper! to back up daily and I reformat these drives with Apple's Disk Utility and use SuperDuper! to run smart backups. I use two drives: one lives in the basement in a fireproof box, the other in my desk. I swap them daily after backing up which takes all of 15 minutes (smart backup).I've traveled with these drives all over the world and they've never lost a bit of data on me. I continue to use Firewire 800 even though I have Thunderbolt as its fast enough for what I do and much cheaper at this point. At some point I'll move to Thunderbolt but until then I'm happy with the drives I have.

This was the hard drive my Animation instructor recommended to the class and, having had good experiences with Lacie drives, I spent the extra money to get the Rugged-- with USB 2.0/3.0 for my personal Dell laptop and Firewire 400/800 for the iMac labs at school. I have had this drive for 3 months now and it has never given me any "cross-contamination" trouble between my PC and the Macs.My only real problem is that the USB 3.0 does not work on my PC. I use an expresscard adapter with a Y-cord (which works with my Lacie Porsche P'9230) but I cannot access the files before the drive dismounts. USB 2.0 and the Firewire work perfectly. I have made a backup of my PC and altered/saved files from a Mac on the same day with no trouble. No corrupted files.There have been reviews saying that the drive crashes after a few months of "intermittent use," but I use mine 2-5 days a week without trouble. I'll be sure to update my review if anything goes wrong.(PS - I hate orange. The 'rugged' band (which is rubbery to protect the drive if dropped) is an eyesore in my opinion, yet I am not willing to take it off and risk dropping my hard drive, as I have already done once this semester. I have seen extra 'skins' available around on Amazon in much more 'neutral' colors as well as the advice to spray-paint the orange band. Other students in my Animation class have spread the rumor that purchasing directly from Lacie gives you an option of colors, though I do not know if this is true or not.)

UPDATE - more than three years of use on the first of the two I have. Both have been used as file backup drives and normally protected in semi-hard shell cases. Both are still working fine. Like all the cool kids I've gone to multiple redundancy for important file backups.Original:Have used mine (I have two) on travel for more than two years and they have done well for multiple redundancy backup. When the prices for equivalent capacity SSD devices come down, I'll probably move that way. But for the time being these have been reliable and decently quick even with USB 2.0 interfaces.

This hard drive is very rugged it appears it is nice that it holds the cord. I returned mine because the transfer rate was slow and I couldn't figure out a solution. I decided not to take it apart and check the hard drive in another enclosure and just return it. I gave it four stars because I felt it is a good product just not sure what the issue was with mine.

Very nice external hard drive. Very slim, lightweight and portable. I first opened it, I thought it seemed a little cheap feeling but after having it for a little while, it is a pretty durable hard drive. The copying speed seems slightly under par and thats why I only gave it 4 stars. It shipped on time and came when expected. All in all I would recommend it. Couldn't expect more for the price, just wish I would've got the 2 TB.

I've just had this device for a few days, and it's working like a champ so far. I like the exterior design, and the (reputed) robustness of its shock proofing.The only bone I've got to pick with this drive is its interface -- it uses a USB 3.0 A-to-A cable, which is pretty unusual. So it's good that the case includes cable management clips, because if you lose the cable when you're on a trip somewhere, you may have trouble finding a replacement. Of course, they're easily / cheaply purchased on Amazon and other online sites, but I'd rather not have to carry yet another spare cable on my trips to the boonies.

I've had this a while now and it's solid. How perfect for someone like me who needs to capture every moment of their kids' lives. That's a lot of megabytes and gigabytes and now yes, terrabytes! Thank goodness. Don't go for the Transcend. I've bought 3 and all 3 have let me down. I have 3 of these SP drives and have had them for more than a year. So far they are doing a great job! Go this route for cost effective memory that's built with quality

This little backup drive holds a lot of data. It is easy to use - just plug it in and go to it. If one wants to reformat for an Apple Mac, that's easy too. Either way works on a Mac, but if one reformats it for a Mac, then only Macs will be able to read the data.I like that the cord can be attached to the device, but I'd prefer it if it was permanently attached and could be tucked out of harm's way like the cord on my portable Hitachi simple Tough.This SP 1TB Rugged Armor A30 Shockproof drive just survived a trip in my airline carry-on bag (both on the floor of the aircraft cabin and in the belly of a puddle jumper aircraft with other luggage) with all of my backup data intact.

very good

The FireWire cable would pop out and disconnect every time I moved! Really annoying . Changed to USB 3.0 after many aggravating times that issue happened . Hard drive is strong , fast , and stable ..

Haven't had an issue at all with five of these I've bought in the past.

It works great really rugged. I work in audio and i take this on live sound gigs studio gigs and it handles nearly everything. I have experienced problems running large protools sessions on it. Anytime i have a track count over 50 I'll get error messages and audiosuite plugins will crash the session. This is the only complaint I have. I'm thinking this limitation can be attributed to the 5400rpm drive. With that drive you cant get the full speed of usb 3.0. Great enclosure, rugged ports, slow drive speed.

The all time classic for music producers. I have been using them for years. A fast way to back up and especially travel. I carry them in my bag and on the plane whenever I travel to produce music. My to go to portable drive for years!

Good price, arrived on time, as described. My only disappointment was the spindle speed is only 5400. It works fine for digital video files, though I would have liked to have known before buying what the spindle speed was.

This is about the shockproof enclosure only! I wasn't dumb enough to buy that mystery disk.They bundle some kind of disk with this enclosure.Who makes it? Unknown.What RPM -- 5400 or 7200? Unknown.What interface -- SATA II 3 Gb/s or SATA III 6 Gb/s? Unknown.What **IS** known is that a lot of people complain about the disk's slowness, and unreliability. It seems to suffer from Sudden Death Syndrome.I bought this enclosure for my trusty old Western Digital Black Scorpio 7200 RPM disk (replaced it with an SSD). So I know and TRUST what's in the enclosure.Buy this enclosure by all means. But if you also need a disk drive to put inside, shop for that separately, and know what you're getting for your money.

Too early to tell long term operation. Only in use for two months and it is working fine. Time will tell.

As far as being a storage backup, seems to work find. Haven't really dropped it so I'll assume it works fine for that. My problem is that the cord isn't even remotely secure enough to stay attach to the drive. I even kept it in a makeshift case that was used for Bluetooth speakers so it wasn't getting snagged on anything, but it still kept popping off

I have two laptops. One recognized it instantly, however my other laptop will not acknowledge when I plug it in. No matter which USP port I use it will not come on, and every other Hard drive that I plug in is recognized instantly. I don't know if it is the computer or the hard drive.

mixed review...been a year since ive had it almost....worked splendidly but has stopped working on my computers for some reason but my TV can still read media of of it....now i cant extract the data from it to reformat and check....stuck in a bind...not sure if it was my mishandling or a fault in the product...if someone knows a way out please let me know

The shock proof orange knubs are cool, but the two sides have no rubber grip, making it easy for this thing to slide around on a desk. Other "rugged" hard drives are covered with rubber, keeping it in place when sitting on a desk or on top of a tower computer.

Bit expensive.......well built.

Did not come formatted correctly to go through the autosetup. Had to re-partition and format hard drive manually. LaCie software available is essentially useless. Probably 20% of the time it will not eject from the computer or takes sometime before it will let me eject it. Haven't had any problems with data being corrupted with it though. I got 2 of these, one is formatted for mac and never have had any problems, the other is FAT32 (the one I have problems with) but neither have lost any data. I use them for picture and video storage and moving from mac to pc and pc to pc.

So I have had this for exactly 28 months running it on my iMac 24/7 to update a few times a day via Time Machine. Over the course of using it there were periods of time were the iMac couldn't mount it to the computer. No big deal....I would format it and backup the computer as I really had no use for older backups (the most recent backups are what I have this for). Anytime my computer crashed and the hard drive had to be deleted was not an issue because when I tapped into the Time Machine and restored to the latest backup it would be like the crash never happened. Ok so what's with the 3 star? My computer recently crashed and it took down the backup drive with it. There has to be some type of separation between the backup drive and the hard drive. Fortunately I was able to manually get all the data back on my computer through the hard drive so not all was lost however it wouldn't let me restore through Time Machine therefore I had to install all the softwares over again and setup all the preference from scratch. Not the end of the world but a bit inconvenient (not to mention my heart started jumping when Time Machine couldn't initially restore). The other issue is the price. This is double to triple the price of competitors. I didn't mind paying it because Apple Store raved about this brand. But given the fact that it didn't do anything above and beyond the more mainstream backup drives I believe the price doesn't justify the product. Finally after some research it appears that its a good idea to replace these drives every few years anyway. I put in a order for a WD My Passport for $60 and will probably use for two years then replace. The casing on the Lacie is also an advance (just wanted to point that out) compared to the competitors but just get an aftermarket cover for $8 if you take the drive with you everyone.

It's large.

Own several.

okay, but having issues with the 3.0 USB port and my macbook doesnt have a firewire access...How do u advise i tackle that, are there adapters i can use to connect?????? advice pls.

It lags when watching a show from it. Runs on power from the laptop which may be the reason. Cable could be a bit longer also. It works though and was received on time.

Not very amused with these. Mine fell, running, about 2ft onto carpet and attached to the cord that I caught and slowed it's fall, but still died. They replaced it under warranty but I lost some work and was without my school drive for a couple weeks. All drives are shockproof when they're not running, I bought these because I thought they'd be safe from accidents while running, apparently not.

This thing has an Awsome cord. And wraps around itself. I haven't dropped it too hard but it's lasting so far.Update!!!!!After stepping lightly.on the drive it no longer works. Not rugged at all!!!

returned it due to not working with Windows 10, return process went smoothly!

Please be careful...problems galore. I copied almost all the data I ever had to this drive thinking it was good since this is "rugged" as they say and can withstand hand grenade attacks. BUT, after about a month, this drive is now almost useless. If I plug it into windows or linux it freezes the whole computer for about 5 minutes. It is becoming just about unusable. I will, for sure, be buying another drive, not the same. I am not bothering to call support since I see they clearly dont care. Its sad to see support just go to hell for just about everything. My SP Armor is plugged in right as I type and its taking me a few minutes just to type this out. Horrible.

I've had this for little over a year, I had my portfolio, videos, priceless photos, pretty much my whole life on this harddrive. It recently failed. It won't read. I can't move anything off it anymore. It just blinks red then will keep trying to reconnect. I've replaced my cable in hopes it would fix it to no avail. I'm really disappointed in this product. "Rugged" heh... Right.

bulky but that's what it's made for?

Inside the case, the USB port is attached by nothing more than a quick solder and of course after very few uses, it wiggled its way right off and disconnected itself! I am currently deployed and was unable to return it to be fixed by the warranty, so we popped the case only to discover it wasn't a simple click back in but a solder job. Now I am searching for someone with a solder iron. UGH!!

You know I thought a lot of manufactures would write the reviews of their products or have their staff do some for them . So all I have to say .Read a lot of reviews before you buy ,you'll be glad you did. I bought this for my daughter in college because her proffesor recomended it. Well after reading over fify reviews you will be glad you did. Most folks had trouble within weeks and a few months after purchase .Too many problems and lot data to even explain in this review.So I found the exact one with all the features this was had for the the smae price. I immediately had Amazon take the LaCie Rugged one back and bought the Mini Pro !TB mainly used for Macs and it has lasted longer than the other so far

I've used LaCie's in the past - in school - so when I finally needed to purchase an external hardrive for my Mac I knew this is what I wanted. I've never had a problem with any LaCie (knock on wood). I use it to store my psd's and photography, and it holds so much at such a great price that I shouldn't need to buy another one for a while.EDIT:January 2014The USB 3.0 doesn't work as well anymore, and a lot of times my Mac will "yell" at me saying I unplugged without ejecting when in reality I didn't. So far that's the only problem.EDIT:February 2014The LaCie barely ever recognizes ANY USB 3.0. I even tried using a different one and it recognized it for 2 minutes and the ejected itself from my Mac again. I decided to instead purchase a Western Digital 2TB My Passport Ultra because I was starting to worry I'd lose absolutely everything on my LaCie. Slowly, but surely, I backed everything up onto the Western Digital external. I used to adore my LaCie, but it's become nothing but problems. I don't even want it fixed, I just want to return it and get my money back.The one thing I will always say I love about LaCie's is the fact they are extremely protected. The design for keeping the hard drive safe is wonderful, but the ports do not work anymore.

I took this to Guatemala on a mission's trip because I needed somewhere to store videos and pictures I was taking. It got knocked around a little and now, if you slightly touch it when it is connected, it loses its connection and stops functioning completely.I am very disappointed in this product considering the cost.

I had a 500G LaCie rugged for 3 years now, and it worked flawlessly. I bought this for I outgrew my old one. It does not come with a power source other than the usb cable and it slowed way way down when trying to back up the first time. I called LaCie and they tried to help but to no avail. LaCie folks were very helpful. They steered me to a different back up drive that was built for macs, the LaCie Porsche Design P?9233 2TB. It was cheaper and had its own power source and is very quiet, no fan. I returned this one.

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY! I bought this in March, and 5 months later (of barely using it except to copy all my back up files onto it once) it's stopped working. Slow and won't let me see my files. Had to take it to my IT guy at work and he was able to salvage my files for me. Explained it had a spinning disk inside which is older technology. Spend more money and go for one without the spinning disk. This product is useless.

Had it for 3 months and stopped working. Figured the cord was defective but after buying a new cord I realized it was the hard drive. DO NOT BUY!!!! You will waste your money!!! I lost movies, pictures, music and home videos. The customer service for this product in nonexistent.

This item is defective. Its not a product. It will not load, stalls and even crashes. And this is only when putting about 80 photos on it. I have had my IT guy look at it and it is simply a bad product. This is a shame as it looks good. I am trying to save all my family photos so I really need something that is reliable and works. After spending time putting this together, trying to solve this I have gone past the return date and have to buy another product for my project.

this product was good for a couple of months and the suddenly stopped working. The light is on, but the drive is not recognized by a computer. I thought the cord might be an issue, I used a different cord and still was no luck. The is no way to reach anybody in customer service either. Don't buy it, it's a waste of money.

I bought two of these 2 months ago to use them as back up drives. These are very compact and doesn't need external power. However, for no apparent reason one of them stopped working, all the data is lost. I am unable return or get a replacement because of Amazon's return policy. I would not recommend this.

HD lasted for three or four weeks then the problems started. The HD began having problems randomly recognizing the 3.0 USB on my PC. I thought it might be the drivers. I uninstalled and reinstalled to no avail. I then tested the HD on my laptop 3.0 and the same thing occurred. I attempted to contact SP twice by email and once by phone (phone contact was such a joke). I'm going to attempt a final time before contacting Amazon to request a refund. This drive has given me so much grief. I formatted twice, backed up content and then transferred twice. Both times this drive failed to either stay connected or would randomly disconnect. I have a Western Digital 1 TB that is nearly 2 years old and is used specifically for video and music with continual use as a direct play drive and it works flawlessly. I ultimately will be going back to a WD Passport for a secondary drive.

I finally got bitten by the LaCie hit or miss bug. This one was a bust. Stopped working about 2 weeks after delivery.

3rd generation of LaCie I've purchased, and I'm still using the first gen from 2007. My 2nd gen 250GB gets so much use, it's insane. I carry it in my work bag every day, and while I'm relatively gentle with it, I know its getting jostled quite a bit. LaCie for Life.Update 11/10/2015 - Spoke to soon. Out of nowhere, this drive went kaput and kept running into write-errors and bad sectors. My 1st and 2nd gen Lacies are still ticking, so this is unfortunate. Time to look for a different brand.

I have had two of these go bad on me with in the time span of one year with normal use, one almost immediately and since I was out of the country couldn't make a claim. I depended on these for backups and will not be purchasing another LaCiie Hard Disk. Looks rugged but it's really not.

Ordered this Jul 22 and less than 2 months and it's already not working. I have always purchased Lacie product (6 external HD) and this is my 2nd Rugged HD and already it's not working!!! Will not mount on my desktop.

The Lacie died after one use . Unfortunately my daughter did not use it When she can return to Amazon. It is still in warranty but Lacie support is bad. No email address was provided for support . I sent email to Sales email address but no response.

Bad Product, Worse Company!Drive failed in a less than a month (used for backups only, iMAC). Tried company support, but after multiple calls during 7am-5pm PT, no one ever answered (17-30 minutes on hold each call).I've lost all of my backups and no support. I've wasted enough time troubleshooting and will purchase a backup drive from another company.