LaCie 2big Dock 40TB External HDD - Thunderbolt and USB4 Compatibility, Data Recovery (STLG40000400)

I purchased 5 of these hard drives - three 8TB size and two 10TB size. These hard drives are considerably faster than my other external hard drives that run usb 3.0. I am very happy with my purchase and recommend these LaCie drives.Upon testing each drive works perfectly as expected. My upload and download speeds are within 5 MB/s of each other which is awesome. I ran my tests using usb-c to usb-c on my MacBook Pro M1. See my screen capture showing the upload/download speeds.All five of my hard drives were sold with as "Style: d2 Professional USB-C 3.1" . Every one I received includes a usb-c to usb-c cable and usb-c to usb 3.1 cable. The rear of the hard drive has a usb-c input.Some reviews mentioned the loud sound from the hard drives. I noticed that all 5 are quieter than my WD and Seagate drives. This is likely because the LaCie enclosure is a very heavy metal versus the vented plastic in my older hard drives. The thicker metal blocks some sound. I can say that my two 10TB LaCie drives are slightly quieter than my 8TB LaCie drives - but both sizes I consider quiet for platter hard drives. SSD drives will be silent because they have no moving parts - so comparing these platter drives to SSD drives is unfair.I bought these on Amazon Prime Day 2022 for a considerable discount. If I can get the discount again, I would purchase these. At full price, I would purchase these if I needed the fast transfer speeds. But if the transfer speed wasn't important I would just buy the cheapest price-per-TB hard drive at the time from WD, Seagate or LaCie. LaCie drives do have a premium price tag and have a higher quality enclosure but use a Seagate hard drive inside.

I purchased to 8TB of these.I haven'y had to call tech support so far.Pros:Slick designQuietGood speedImperceptible vibrationVery low heatStraight forward plug and playAfter weeks of research and much testing of several brands and models (Purchases & Returns) Best alternative value to SSD's which are stratospherically expensive.Cons:The cyclopean blue light is aggressive! Especially when it blinks! I just cannot have the drive facing me on my workspace, so I turned them around to face the wall, having the view of the back of the casing, with the power and USB connections facing me, thus defeating the beautiful design of these devices sitting on my desktop!The stands are attached to the casings, making their shape awkward for portability (packing and transport).

Tore my hair out trying to understand why 4 d2's in a row all failed on a new Dell Workstation. When backing up using Retrospect, numerous failures to read, write, position and loss of connection to the drive. The d2 specs are 10gbs as are the provided USB-C cables. The only USB-C port on the front of this machine is the new Gen 2x2 20Gbs standard which is what I used. 4 in a row failure is not likely, but backups from the same port to other 5Gbs drives with the same cables were fine. Also, the d2's disks tested fine with Windows, Seagate and WD tools. I conclude that LaCie may have a problem not with the drives, but with the software negotiating the USB protocols on the new 20Gbs standard. Loss of communication with the drive is consistent with other reviews here and may be related. Seagate support was of little help, but that was early in testing. Vendors have been helpful with returns and refunds. I've returned to the old standard MyBooks for backup. Even the newer SSD's seem to have reliability issues and speed is not needed.

I have 2 LaCie d2's in the previous generation with lots of options (Firewire, USB 3, etc.) I loved the first one and quickly purchased a 2nd. I would have been happy with a 3rd but that model has been discontinued. So I bought a 8TB d2 Professional as it held the value/size sweet spot. The latest incarnation is very impressive. It is so quiet, has a smaller footprint, it is fast, everything is solid including the cables and the way they snugly insert into the USB slot. (My MacPro does not have Thunderbolt). In a few minutes I had it operational, partitioning and formatting it to suit my needs. I will probably purchase another. The only caveat is that the new models do not have an On/Off switch so they are always on. I can live with it.NOTE: It is a shame how there is a trend in which companies SPAM review cites with lies. THhis is a quality product, in my experience over years and new versions.

The fan on my LaCie 1big Dock Thunderbolt 3 4TB HDD and Desktop Hub was not turning on and the top of the case seemed to be getting quite hot after one hour. I decided to return it for a replacement so I did a secure erase. The drive was left on for several hours during this process and after time, the fan eventually turned on. I missed it in the manual (page 22) but the fan is temperature controlled so It will not turn on when you first apply power. The unit needs to be on for a L_O_N_G_ time to generate heat before you will notice any fan activity. I cancelled my return and am quite happy with it. This is a very heavy and well built external HDD and has been working well with TimeMachine for Mac.