BEST External Hard Drive for VIDEO EDITING Review 2022 | LaCie 2big 8TB Thunderbolt 3 Dock Review

[@RayBeliveau]

*Quick Question:* _What kind of hard drive are you using right now? Have you been looking into getting a new one? Do you have a better option?_

[@Ptpop]

Hi Ray. Great review. I am a film maker and have been tearing what's left of my hair out trying to figure out what RAID to buy. It seems all of them have flaws like crashing after only a few months of use, docking and un-docking issues etc. Has yours crashed? Can you edit directly from the drive itself? Thanks.

[@RayBeliveau]

Thank you! No, it hasn't crashed yet. I have been running it since August 2020. It has a 5 year warranty and gives you the ability to utilize different RAID configurations. I keep mine in RAID 0 though since I have 8TB on it. I do keep an external hard drive to locally backup data (almost mirroring the drive, not entirely though) and I also use Backblaze to backup my entire system. I do edit directly off of the drive but I also partitioned my laptop's internal M.2 SSD in half so my D: drive acts as my scratch disk and where my DaVinci Resolve databases are stored. All of my video files and other media (B-roll, music, images, etc) are on the 2big. I have noticed lag because Dell doesn't know how to properly cool their laptops but nothing related to reading or writing from/to the drives for editing 4K footage.

[@MyRackley]

Fun fact: "La Cie" s a pun. The parent company is Seagate, and La Cie is French for "The Company". What's more, the enclosed chip is called a "FireCuda", which presumably is some sort of mythical sea monster. Lol. 🌊

[@RayBeliveau]

That's really cool!

[@SarahThirkell]

This video is AMAZING! How do you not have like a million subs. Keep up the great content! Thank you

[@RayBeliveau]

Thank you!

[@lanielvenia5620]

Last year I too purchased this lovely in ( 2 x 16) 32 TB. Primary intended use will be to store photos/video pre/post production. Tired of dealing with marginal external drives I tend to believe inferior. SO, with years of .....work, immediately decided, before moving ahead too far (may need to temp transfer current data) it would suit best to purchase a second unit, daisy chain, then set up RAID(1)(?) for redundancy, to maintain original desired 32TB capacity. Does all this make sense and sound insanely reasonable albeit crazy expensive? My thought is to go with reliable option, protect valuables and not need to upgrade, like forever “right”😄 Looking at it as an investment.

[@RayBeliveau]

I think RAID 1 is smart. I'm assuming a lot of people would rather not deal with backing up their devices until something bad happens (because I used to be one of them). It's still not foolproof and having a tertiary method (like a backup USB drive you can throw somewhere), or using a service like Backblaze could also be useful.

[@framestold4985]

Look at that beast! Great intro!! Don't need the space yet but good to know about!

[@RayBeliveau]

Thank you! It took me awhile to decide to invest in it too. My laptop only has 1TB, so it became a no-brainer after a certain point.

[@isaacbedford3644]

Does it make a noticeable amount of noise?

[@RayBeliveau]

I think it depends on how quiet your environment and ambient sound is and how close you have it to your mic. It does produce some noise but it's nothing that noise reduction can't get rid of and it's not terribly loud. Obviously it's not as silent as an SSD.

[@bazinbali]

great video. i found with mine it is very noisy, typical hard drive sounds for spin and not ssd drives. it's loud. i contacted them to ask if normal or broken, they assured me normal. and yes, with the cable being so short, it is not great to have it so loud next to me. so i use it to store media i'm not working on, and moves a TB or two to my laptop

[@RayBeliveau]

I've grown used to it because my laptop's gpu fan sounds like a jet engine by comparison. When I've unplugged it I've definitely noticed a difference though.

[@mrz1342]

I used it by Mirror option (10tb+10Tb) and now is full! shall I replace and put additional somehow or I need to buy another one? thank you

[@RayBeliveau]

You could buy another one, but I think that if this isn't data that you're accessing on the regular you could invest in a NAS to help you conserve space (and money in the long-term). What I would do is keep whatever data that you're regularly accessing, or you're currently working with on the LaCie; anything that you're not currently working on could be offloaded to the NAS, or even portable hard drives.

[@mrz1342]

@@RayBeliveau 1. What is NAS? Which model? Better than LaCie? 2. This 10tb is daily use, do you think if I change mirror which is 50% of total capacity to 100%, is dangerous?

[@RayBeliveau]

NAS stands for Network-Attached Storage. It's basically an array of hard drives that sit on your network. There are many different ones. Mirroring is a good way to maintain data. There are other ways to backup though. They all have their pros and cons. NAS and portable hard drives are just two different methods. I think having at least one (if not two) backup methods are important.

[@Bisbeatle]

I'm looking for a drive with at least 5TB of storage to use for editing raw 6k video from a Red Komodo, but I don't have a dump truck of money to spend - Do you have any recommendations for this scenario? I've been looking at the LaCie d2 and 2big drives, but I am feeling very indecisive as hard drives are not my area of expertise. My ideal budget is no more than $500.

[@pavolpekar9888]

super video bro. is able to write lacie 4K 10b 4: 2: 2 video without problems? sorry for my google english: D well thank you

[@RayBeliveau]

I understand for the most part. The hard drives keep up with my uses, and as long as you're using a Thunderbolt 3 cable you shouldn't have an issue. I think system configuration may be more of a factor.

[@Arterium]

I bought a 16TB. I also thought too loud. HD going to sleep very annoying. And fact that 3.1 does not work when using thunderbolt is also a frustration. Trying to find a better product as I would like to return this one.

[@RayBeliveau]

The first two I understand, and everyone's tolerances will vary. Unfortunately it's a technical limitations of HDD over SSD because of the moving parts. This would happen in my old computers too. I think I mentioned one possible solution would be to replace them with SSDs (which would be expensive). It's something I may explore in the future. The solution that I'm using in the video is with the longer cable to help reduce the noise. I don't really understand your last point. Let me know what other solutions you find though!

[@Arterium]

@@RayBeliveau well the USBc 3.1 seems to not work if I am using thunderbolt 3 as well. (?) Can’t remember exactly. I sent away for warranty believing it was faulty and have not opened new box. I am looking at the G-tech g-raid as an alternative now. Apparently very quiet.

[@RayBeliveau]

Oh yeah, they hid that detail in the manual like anyone was ever going to read it. I agree that it would've been nice for it to work.

[@Arterium]

@@RayBeliveau would be very handy. Apparently same story with the g-tech unfortunately. Never enough ports.

[@RayBeliveau]

OWC just came out with a TB4 dock which I've been looking at for months. That might be a good option.

[@skaramicke]

Your affiliate link for the drive doesn't work! Fix it, so I can click it!

[@RayBeliveau]

Thank you for the heads up! I fixed it with a working link. It's so weird that listing isn't there anymore.

[@Curiouslyone1]

This Is one unreliable drive . My LaCie 28tb stopped working after 3 months of usage - it would not mount. Customer service is awful - you would have to return the product to the head office in Netherlands to recover any files and it would take between 30/90 days for them to try and recover your files or you can use ; recovery software which only becomes effective if you have another external to transfer the files. They refuse to pay for repair if I use a third party recovery service even when the matter is urgent! And the customer service dont seem like they really care or have concern over the bad impact it's had on me (over one week of trying to find a solution) I'm afraid to use any LaCie products for any professional film projects . I would of lost two feature length documentary projects if I did not have back up externals!

[@hoonmedia7883]

What did you buy instead?

[@Curiouslyone1]

@@hoonmedia7883 I’ve just brought two seagate 18tb one drive externals which perform just as well for half the price but planning to switch to a nas system in the future . This experience has created much anxiety thats made me think about all the best ways to create backups . So disappointed and shocked by a respectable brand like Lacie .