LaCie D2 Quadra drive replacement
by init6 on Mar.13, 2009, under Apple, Hardware
Quite a while back I bought a LaCie D2 Quadra (500GB model) for my iMac. It has a lot of very nice features and in my opinion is worth every dime I paid for it. For anyone not familiar with the LaCie brand, they have been around since 1992 and they typically produce very high performance and high “design” related storage solutions. Of course they also tend to be associated with Apple/Mac. On the D2 Quadra model in particular LaCie outfitted it with a very nice set of connection options. It can be connected to a Mac or PC via USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and eSATA. That combination of connection options makes it a great choice for PC or Mac users alike. It of course also raised the price a bit.
Shortly after receiving the D2 Quadra, I decided to upgrade the drive in the external enclosure to a 750GB Samsung. That drive recently gave out on me and I needed a replacement. I decided to go with a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) from NewEgg despite the negative press recently I figured I was safe because any firmware issues are most likely resolved and already in the drive. Regardless, I thought it might be handy to document the procedure for upgrading the drive in the LaCie unit.
Keep in mind that as far as I know, this does void your LaCie warranty. However, if your looking to upgrade the drive inside D2 Quadra you’ve already run out of space and are looking for a cheaper alternative to buying a new external drive.
Drive Replacement Procedure:
1. Obviously we need to shutdown the drive and remove all the connections before starting. If you look at the back of the drive you’ll need to remove two screws. One is beneath the “warranty voiding” silver sticker at the bottom back of the drive. In the pictures below it’s on the right. You can see a slight amount of the sticker that stayed adhered to the surface of the drive. So “they” will know if you remove it!
2. Once the back panel is removed you’ll be able to pull on the front panel of the drive and slide the internal chassis out of case.
3. If you turn the internal drive chassis upside down at this point you’ll see the SATA connections to the current drive. You’ll need to remove both the power and the SATA connection from the drive. You should be able to fold back the SATA cable however if yours is in the way you can also remove it from the board. Keep in mind that you may need to keep track of the orientation of the cable since it has a fold in it that seems to allow a good fit when sliding the chassis back into the outer cover.
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- LaCie D2 Quadra Front Panel
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- LaCie D2 Quadra Back
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- LaCie D2 Quadra Ports
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- LaCie D2 Quadra back panel removed
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- LaCie D2 Quadra Disassembling
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- D2 Quadra insides
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- LaCie D2 Quadra internal drive connections
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- Chassis mounts for the HD
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- LaCie D2 Quadra with drive removed
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- Replacement drive installed
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- New drive info
4. After disconnecting the SATA and power connections turn the whole internal chassis over and you’ll see the mounting screws for the harddrive. Remove these with a screw driver while holding the harddrive on the other side.
5. Place the new drive in place of the old one and use the chassis screws removed in the last step to re-mount the new drive. Make sure you mount the new drive with the SATA and power connectors facing the right way.
6. Hook up all the connections and gently slide the internal chassis back into the outer cover.
7. Replace the back panel with the two screws removed at the beginning and you should have a newly “resized” D2 Quadra.
NOTE: I used a 1.5TB Seagate drive for my upgrade and it seemed to work great. I can access the full size of the drive. I am not aware of what the max harddrive size is (if any) for the bridge circuitry within the LaCie drive. Keep that in mind as drive sizes grow.
May 17th, 2009 on 5:53 AM
Nice. I’m about to do the same produre, with exactly the same drive. I was worried I could hit some incompatibility, so it is nice to find someone who already did it successfully. Cheers!
June 22nd, 2009 on 7:29 PM
The screws on the back of mine are increadibly difficult to remove. Did you have any problems?
August 19th, 2009 on 12:53 AM
I didn’t seem to have any problems. They did feel like they had a bit of Locktite or something, but they broke free relatively easy.
October 17th, 2009 on 10:43 PM
Thank you so much
I had this mystery plug on the board which i thought was for a fan and your pics prove that theory, I guess mine did not come with a fan. I might look into a fan and is there any advantage?
January 27th, 2010 on 10:41 PM
Anyone have any suggestions as to where I might get a non-LaCie power adapter to run these d2 enclosures?
I like the case but I’m on my third dead adapter now and LaCie doesn’t offer any suggestions other than to buy yet another replacement from them (out of warranty – hence my desire to crack them open and upgrade the drive, but not if the cheaply made power supplies from LaCie keep dying). I’ve got a few of these d2′s so I’d really like to find a more reliable solution…
April 21st, 2010 on 9:43 PM
Google can find some cheaper options for power supply brick replacement. Buy an extra to keep a spare on hand if it’s critical.
I’m gong to crack one open to see if it’s possible to repair/upgrade the brick. I have two dead ones on hand now.
April 21st, 2010 on 9:46 PM
I pasted the Google search URL in the “Website” blank which apparently makes my name clickable. Here it is in case that’s too obscure.
http://www.google.com/products?client=safari&rls=en&q=ACU057A&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=4ajPS7ntF8GBlAelgNmhCw&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&am
The part number for Quadra D2 PSU bricks is ACU057A.
April 21st, 2010 on 10:49 PM
Alternatives?
JTA0707 looks like a better match for output ratings of the ACU057A than JTA0202.
Joe Maller found OWC parts that apparently changed from SunFone ACU057A to a Jentec part because of this hissing failure problem..
http://joemaller.com/category/misc/page/2/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/ELITE4SAUS/
August 7th, 2010 on 1:42 PM
i am trying this with the more current d2 Quadra V2, which looks a little different.
However there are no cable connectors, and it seems the chipsets interface is directly connected to the SATA of the Hard DRive (Barracuda Seagate). Have you tried this with the new model? CAse looks similar, but is built differently (this is the one with the HEat Dissipating Form Factor, Ribs).
Unscrewing the drive does not make it removeable, that’s where I am stuck right now.
August 10th, 2010 on 2:05 AM
well i answered my own question. it’s a different design (current model). inspired by your photos i decided to do the same , and take a video of it for you guys… here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20f_mlHAkQ , and I will also post it later at http://www.macreviewz.com
January 15th, 2011 on 8:17 PM
Thinking to replace the drive inside my
Lacie D2 Triple interface 250GB,
Any advice on which drive to put it?
Do you think it will work with:
Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ, 1TB
or a seagate or WD 1 – 2 TB drives ?
The maximum drive at the time you could have as a Lacie triple interface was a 500gb drive, is there a limit?
Thanks for the tips!
March 17th, 2011 on 1:07 PM
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Guys like you are what makes the internet such a great resource! I’m about to do the same thing and came up with this on a quick search. Invaluable. Thanks so much you star!!
March 26th, 2011 on 9:55 AM
All done now … for anyone else – dead easy, less than 5 minutes – anyone can do this with ease – just another 2p, just formatted as journaled and have partitioned into 2, so one is a back up drive and the other is spare space – took under a minute in disk utility. This was soooo painless
Thanks again!
March 26th, 2011 on 10:10 AM
Should have said – replaced with a Hitchi Deskstar 1Tb – boy is it quieter than the Samsung I just took out – here’s hoping it’s more reliable, have heard a few bad things about these LaCies if used hard (one example was intensive photographic work), supposedly fine for backup though.