I always wish reviews of external disks mentioned how loud they are - this is pretty much my main consideration when I buy them. I'd much rather have a reviewer say he can hardly hear it than some measurement in dB on the manufacturers site...

Is it me, or does that drive case look stomach-churningly foul? Presumably the target market is bling-hoarding magpies or those registered blind.

Given that the regular, silver-grey 500Gb 'Designed By FA Porsche' version of this drive is available for sub-£90 if you shop around, it seems to me you're paying a significant premium for something that Helen Keller would find visually offensive (yes, I know she's dead, but I think the look of the thing is so bad it could effectively reanimate the dead)

Looks aside, the functionality can't be faulted though, and LaCie are my first choice if I'm on the lookout for an external drive, providing it's housed in a gunmetal-grey case, that is.

you can get the grey version for £64.99 from amazon.co.uk with free delivery

The shiny is, well... Shiny. But it's *begging* to be lifted. This would NOT be the device on which to store one's grotty pics, financial data, evidence of fraud, or government secrets. It's a theft waiting to happen.

I suppose you might buy one as a very tempting decoy, though - load it up with usless crap, and your boring grey boxes with real data will be ignored.

We've had a number of Lacie drives in these Porsche-designed plastic enlosures and not to put too fine a point on it: they fry. And getting a replacement or refund from Lacie for drives that have failed in a matter of weeks is like pulling teeth.

Of course they look nice & tidy (I expect that's why the admin-wallahs chose them) but they just don't cool today's big, fast and hot hard drives effectively.

do they tile?

That is all.

...does it blend?