I use Mac OSX (10.3.9) so the disk format is HFS+. You're right, I didn't do enough homwork before I bought the drive. The other mac stores sell other brands, but I felt more convinced the lacie devices would be better. I was aware of a site in another state that sold various lacie models but I didn't trust the transport, even if they were cheaper. And as I stated earlier, I didn't seek lacie support until my warrantee had finished. I had read about issues with external drives (from years back) & so initially thought perhaps that's just the way it was supposed to be. But something still didn't seem right when it so unreliable. 'My mistake' for not seeking support earlier. I wasn't so sure support would be so helpful for hard disk drives.

My comment re: Maxtor, refers to comments by the no. 1 mac technician when I discussed HDD options with him & others. I've known of a couple of heavy p2p users who've had bad experiences with the Maxtor drive compared to others. There was more substantial evidence ... but I can't remember what or where I saw it. No I can't provide specific details of their setups, the specific drives, etc. Just that they ended their life(s) more quickly than one would expect or hope for. Some very quickly.

The original 5400 rpm drive in this computer died 15 mths after purchase. I use this computer for video capture & so need reliable drives. But those are internal drives. The issue of this thread was the la cie external drives.

My lacie 250 external drive copies large files & large quantity of files without problem (by large files I'm mean anything up to 30 GB. However I generally split the video files so I can backup onto dvd-rw.) The 160 drive is incapable of doing this. The 250 drive has never seemed to have any reading or writing problem. Which suggests I got a lemon. As suggested earlier, the drive itself had problems when purchased or the specific model offered has issues.

Well I would normally rarely reformat a disk for the same reason you suggested. But if there's constant errors, lossed data, etc. then a reformat can lock out any new bad sectors ... also using a HDD utility. And if all else fails, well a reformat ... ie: starting over seemed the only choice. I had had severe cases of inaccessible data during the 1st 4 mths of use. None of my file utilities could repair or recover. At best, Norton was able to repair the directory problems on later occasions. But why was this happening so often. As you suggested, not to use it for anything important. I don't have the money to be going out buying new drives all the time so I use it because my choices were small.