Before my Lacie Big Disk crashed, I had no idea what the hell RAID was. I still don't fully get it, but I do know that I don't like it. In a nutshell, RAID 0 is for speed, not reliability.

I CAN HAS 2?
So after failing with data recovery software, I decided to open my Lacie Big Dick and to my surprise, it has two hard drives! (I should have guessed that, as it weighs 20 lbs.) I was confused, so I started reading. As it turns out, the two drives are networked together for faster speed in a configuration called RAID 0 or "RAID Stripe". Now, if it was RAID 1 (which they are not) then the drives would be mirrored- and if one crashed, you would have a backup of it. Not the case with RAID 0, where if one stripe crashes, they all go down.

F*** YOU APPLE!
Apple will endorse anything with a FireWire port and for years, Lacie has been their top dog in hard drives. So you buy it because Apple says you need it. I'm not going to say Hitachi sucks (you know it, I know it, I'm not going to say it) but that's the drive they use! Good ol, high quality, reliable Hitachi!

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new orleans computer repair

Bid accepted, *Sold* you now own Hitachi corp

Don't despair, recovery is possible on RAID-0...

Lacie not entirely guiltless..known issues with power adapter and electronics on that model too. Easy recovery if both drives are healthy... Image the drives, watch for the master slave jumpers on the copies are the same as originals, buy a new enclosure (same model) and off you go

I have also recovered several of these with a JBOD configuration.