LaCie d2 Thunderbolt 2 drive incompatible with Mac mini?

Thanks a lot for your excellent suggestion. Unfortunately, Other World Computing directerd me to return the drive so I can't follow up on your suggestion at the moment. I'll keep it for future reference if the replacement drive acts the same way. Thanks again - Randy

I have my HP 24" monitor being driven from the Thunderbolt port, yes. I had the LaCie first in the chain and the HP monitor 2nd. However I have a 2nd ASUS monitor connected via VGA, and tried the drive with nothing else in the Thunderbolt chain, and got the same result. I already talked to LaCie before posting here and they seemed unfamiliar with this problem. At any rate I have now returned the drive and await getting a replacement to test - hoping very much the problem is not present on the replacement drive. Thanks very much for your answer, - Randy

Thanks for your helpful suggestions. I did try swapping out several cables with others that work fine with my Seagate Thunderbolt drives. I tried 3 different replacement cables. I am using the AC power supply for the LaCie drive, so hopefully it's not drawing too, much power, but perhaps the power supply is bad. I'll have to meter it when I get the replacement drive back. I'll keep your 2 suggestions and try them if the replaement drive does the same thing (ugh). Thanks again for your helpful comments. - Randy

Thank you Erik, that is just what I was afraid of. LaCie claims that the disk works with Snow Leopard and higher, but your answer now makes me think they might be wrong. I'll post here when I get the replacement drive. I have a feeling I am going to be talking to LaCie a whole lot more …. 😟 - Randy

Thanks Erik -

I am familiar with those LaCie specs. However, I spoke to LaCie before buying the drive. They told me 10.8.5 was required for Thudnerbolt 2, but that the drive is backwards comptible with Thunderbolt 1 and will work with my mini and Lion, but at the sower speed of Thunderbolt 1. OWC also claimed the same thing re backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 1. I am not aware of anyone making Thunderbolt 1 desktop drives any more, so I sure hope there is some way to make this work or I am really stuck!! - Randy

Hello again -

Well I received the new replacement LaCie d2 Thunderbolt 2 3TB drive today. It behaves exactly the same way as the first one. During the time I was waiting for the new drive to arrive I did 2 things. 1) I did a PRAM reset; and 2) I was able to download El Capitan onto one off my other Seagate external Thunderbolt 1 drives. I have now tested the new LaCie booting into El Capitan. I have the Seagate drive (with El Capitan) first in the Thunderbolt chain, then the LaCie, and lastly my 2nd (HP) monitor. Everything works NORMALLY, no problem.

Despite that both LaCie and Other World Computing told me (before I bought the drive) that the LaCie drive is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 1, it appears that Erik is right, the problem seems to be in the Lion operating system. From what I have seen of El Capitan so far, it does not have all the horrible problems that I saw in Mavericks. Most (but not all) window sizes and placements are retained on shut down. It appears that all tags are also saved. So I guess I will start working toward changing over to El Capitan. Since I used migration with my previous 2 new computers, its time to do fresh, clean installs with El Capitan. Lots of work, but probably overdue. Once I am able switch over then I will have no more problems with the new LaCie d2.

In the meantime, I need to try to find some sort of workable partial solution while I am still on Lion. My next step will be to clone my internal solid state hard drive onto the LaCie d2 and see if I can boot from that as an emergency backup. I'll also be talking again with LaCie technical support and will report any results back here. Thanks all for your comments so far. - Randy