[X4U] External HD Reliability?

[Zane H. Healy]

> I can't speak to the latest LaCies but I had a couple of d2 drives  
> bought in '04 and '05. Both died - one at 15 months and the other at  
> 24 months. LaCie support wouldn't even talk to me about replacing the  
> drive that died at 15 months. In both externals, the power supply  
> circuit board died. I swore off of the LaCie and have been very happy  
> with the OWC Mercury Elite Pros.

This was exactly the failure I've had with the dual drive enclosure I bought
from WeibeTech.  The bridgeboard and the drives I have in it are just fine,
but the power supply board is toast.  I've used it on occasion by powering
up the bridgeboard and one drive using the powersupply from one of those USB
to IDE/SATA cables.

I'd really like to go with an enclosure that uses something like a standard
PC powersupply.  In other words a powersupply that can be replaced with off
the shelf parts.  Disturbingly one of the best solutions I've come up with
is a dedicated PC running FreeNAS.  I setup a proof of concept system,
basically the PC I use for the one game I play on occasion, a spare HD
inside the case to dedicate to FreeNAS, and am booting off of a USB flash
drive.  It works surprisingly well, and can provide disk space to most of
the machines I have at home.  The downside of the FreeNAS solution is the
increased cost to run it (a dedicated PC and electricty to run it).

Zane