Digital Trends

Lacie d2 Quadra 500GB

February 29th, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Software Setup

Once our drive was formatted, we opened it up and examined the included software. There were three utilities listed in the “software” folder, so we installed them one-by-one. The first was the LaCie 1-Click Backup, which is a very simple and straightforward backup utility. It just asks you what you want to backup and where it’s supposed to go. It’s called “1-click” because you have to manually trigger it either by clicking the desktop icon or by pressing CTRL-S from the desktop (get it?). We like this utility as it’s very easy to both use and configure.

Next we installed the “LaCie shortcut button,” or maybe we should say we tried to install it. Once the software installed we got a message asking us for a driver CD.

We closed the error box and continued installing the button, but once installed it told us there were no drives present. We looked and the drive was present and accessible, so we weren’t sure what its problem was (more on this later). 

Next, we installed Retrospect. As we stated before, the reason it’s called Retrospect is it allows you to retrieve files from saved checkpoints as if you were using Windows System Restore. For example, you could restore the copy of the file you have saved from last week, or last month, etc. You can either save the files themselves, or save an “image” of the files, which requires Retrospect to retrieve them. Overall we had no issues with this program at all, and our only complaint is that if you are configuring your backup routine and set it to backup by file type, the pre-selected file types do not include mail files. There’s an option to save “all other files not included in the categories above,” but since the program lists music, movies, pictures and such it would be helpful to include mail in that list. We are aware of the varying file locations for “mail,” but perhaps a simple question box of what OS you are using and what program you use for mail could accomplish this goal.

Finally, we returned to the elusive shortcut button. We finally got it working by going to the Device Manager and telling Vista to download a driver for it. According to Lacie, this should only happen in XP but not in Vista, and the company is looking into resolving this issue for Vista users.

Once we had the button working we had the option of customizing the button to launch a program of our choice, disable it, or set it to run our pre-selected Retrospect backup routine.

Throughout testing the drive ran cool and was dead silent. The big blue button on the face is a little too bright for our tastes though, and it’d be nice to have the option to turn it off. 

One final note: the d2 drives can be stacked in an optional cage that costs around $50 USD. We think this is pretty cool, and seems like a better idea than just stacking multiple drives on top of one another.

If you foresee multiple Lacie drives in your future, you can invest in this rack to keep things tidy.

Conclusion

The d2 Quadra is certainly a full-featured backup drive. It’s the only backup drive we’ve tested that offers four interfaces, which ensures maximum compatibility as well as maximum performance due to its eSATA ports. We also like that there are several backup options included, rather than just a single program like we see with most backup drives; and it works on Macs too. Our only complaints are that the button is a little too bright, we experienced a weird driver issue and that’s there’s no simple way to save mail files. It’s also a bit pricey, which isn’t too surprising given its four interfaces.


Pros:

• Four interfaces
• Several backup options
• Works with PCs, Macs and Time Machine


Cons:

• Expensive
• Doesn’t save mail by default
• Driver issue (with our test unit)