LaCie's 2 Terabyte, 2big Quadra, way cool RAID External
Storage system
Reviewed by Robert L. Pritchett
LaCie USA
22985 NW Evergreen Parkway
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Tel: (503) 844-4500
Fax: (503) 844-4508 http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11140
Released: January
6, 2009
$300 USD (1TB) up to $600 USD (3TB)
Requirements: A
need for external storage and either USB 2.0, FireWire 400 or 800 or eSATA
interfaces. Windows 2000 or later or Mac OS X 10.3 or later. 512MB RAM.
Comes with:
LaCie 2big Quadra with two 1 TB drives
eSATA-to-eSATA (3Gbits) cable
FireWire 800 (9-to-9 pin) cable
FireWire 400 (6-to-6 pin) cable |
|
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable
Power supply kit
LaCie Utilities CD-ROM with User Manual
LaCie ‘1-Click’ Backup Software for PC or Mac
SilverKeeper Software for automatic backup and file
verification (Mac)
Genie Backup Manager Pro software with disaster recovery
for Windows 2000, XP, Vista
Intego Backup Manager Pro software with disaster recovery
for Mac OS X 10.4.
Quick Install Guide
Strengths: Time
Machine compatible. Relatively quiet. Power-use intelligent. 3-year warranty.
Weaknesses: LaCie
Shortcut Button is available via FireWire and USB 2.0, but not eSATA. Windows
Vista Ultimate 64 is not compatible with LaCie Shortcut button. |
Introduction
"This quadruple interface
professional 2-disk RAID delivers fast speed, large capacity and data security.
With eSATA 3Gbits, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 & Hi-Speed USB 2.0, it
provides complete universal compatibility with any PC or Mac. The easy-to-use
2big Quadra comes with two extractable, lockable and hot-swappable disks for a
user-controlled solution. With four RAID levels, it meets your storage needs,
whether it’s security, capacity, speed or a combination. With burst transfer
rates as high as 165MB/s** (eSATA), it’s ideal for audio/video projects (DV and
SD video playback or 2D/3D imaging). The sturdy heat sink metal design provides
60% more surface area for natural heat dissipation. The 2big Quadra comes with
Genie Backup Manager Pro software with disaster recovery for Windows users and
Intego Backup Manager Pro software with disaster recovery for Mac users. It
also features Triple Power Management and the LaCie Shortcut Button, which can
launch any application you choose in one push.
The 2big Network can act as a
file-sharing server, a backup server or an FTP server. Easily share important
files and make them accessible from your network via FTP or any web browser. With
this affordable 2-disk RAID solution with Ethernet interface, get maximum
storage capacity in BIG mode or maximum security in SAFE mode (RAID 1). If one
drive fails in RAID 1, data remains accessible and can even be automatically
rebuilt onto a hot-swappable spare drive***. With the 2 USB ports, easily
transfer files from a USB key or USB hard drive with the 1-Click Data-Sharing
Button or expand available network capacity. The new heat sink metal design
naturally draws heat away from the hard disk’s internal components to help keep
it cool and improve reliability. The user-friendly LaCie Ethernet Agent enables
direct access to shares, drive mapping, and easy administrator
configuration."
http://www.lacie.com/us/company/news/news.htm?id=10446
Specifications:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11140
What I Learned
This model is not the 2big Network, Dual or Triple versions
that are now available.
Time Machine works.
The unit comes as Raid 0 as the default (fast) using 2
drives and uses 100% capacity as one logical volume, but stripes the data
across both drives. If one goes down, you are SOL. But data gets loaded really
quickly. In this default mode,
data is lost on both drives, if either drive fails.
Another mode is "Big". Concatenation puts all data
on one drive, then after it is filled, it starts on the next drive. Both drives
are looked at as one volume. Also, 100% utilization for 2TB of space is made
available, but again, no "protection".
Next up is "Safe". It is Raid 1. The drives are
mirrored so only half the capacity is available. If one drive fails, the other
has the data. So figure 50% or only 1 TB of capacity. LaCie recommends Raid 1.
I would have thought that they would have followed their own recommendations
and set that as the default, but what do I know?
The next up is the "Mix". It offers a 75% capacity
or 1.5 TB of space, by splitting the drives in half and showing 2 drives on the
desktop. One volume is in Safe mode (RAID 1) and the other is RAID 0. LaCie
figures this gives a 75% capacity, where only 25% would be lost when/if a drive
fails.
My MacBook Pro (MBP) has a 280GB of usable space on the hard
drive. Doing video production is what is justifying the purchase of this unit,
because I am rapidly running out of space on the MBP. Instead of
"Fast", I think I'll go with "Mix" using the "don't
carry all your eggs in one basket" concept.
I was told the system would be whisper quiet. Not. When the 2big feels it needs to cool
down, it turns the fan up and the unit sounds like a mild DustBuster, sucking
in air to cool down the drives. They could have put a filter over the outlet
and the noise level would have dropped appreciably. I put my finger in front of
the 6 holes seen above the business end of the unit and the blowing sound goes
away. If the vent holes had been smaller, it would have been whistling a tune.
I installed the Shortcut Button app. It is good for FireWire
and USB 2.0, but not eSATA. The big blue sphere is a button. It lights. When
pushed, the Shortcut Button dialogue box appears on the screen. When changing
the mode, the blue light blinks red. In back, the "tool" (a large
paperclip would have done the job) is used to set one of four modes. Each of
the four modes blink blue when selected.
The front and back LED indicators have about 8 modes between
red and blue. Blue is good. Bad, not so much. When the front is solid blue and
the back has a blinking blue light, all is good with the world. When the front
is strobing, the drives are spooling up. When dimming, the unit is in standby
(thus the auto power switch). When alternating between blue and red, the RAID
is rebuilding, depending on which mode was chosen (Safe or Mix). Alternate
blinking indicates the unit needs air. If the front is red and dims down, we
have a problem, Houston. If all
the lights are off, the system is off or in standby mode after 30 minutes or
there is an electronic board failure. I like the fact that the lights go off
when the unit powers down and back when it spools back up in "Mix".
By the way, the on-off switch also has 3 modes, on, off and
auto. Auto-mode is good.
I had to erase the drives, because they came as MS DOS. I
had to make them "Mac Extended Journaled", once I switched from Fast
to Mix. Guess what? The drives quieted down and the fan seems to be settling
down too. This is good too.
Time Machine finally saw two drives and sure enough, one had
half the capacity as the other. Over 1.5 million items were being backed up on
the 1st partition using Time Machine. I have also been able to store
other files independently on the 2nd partition. This is more than
good. I like it!
The drives are 7200rpm units. My MBP has a 5400rpm unit.
With FireWire 800 cables installed it will run at 800Mbits/s or 100MB/s. If I had an eSATA interface, I could
transfer up to 3Gbits/s or 300MB/s. Apparently, the unit would like 600MB of free space for caching purposes
on the MBP.
The Intego Backup Manager Pro provides disaster recovery.
SilverKeeper Software is included for automatic backup and file verification
for the Mac. With all that Murphy's Law functionality, there is also a 3-year
warranty for the 2T 2big Quadra.
And all that gray ribbed surface is really a large metal
heatsink. So far, it has kept its cool.
The unit weighs 5.95 pounds.
The RoSH-compliant (hazardous materials standard), 3.5-inch 1TB drives are made by Hitachi
and uses "perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) with 8.5ms read and 9.2
write times, using 5 discs and 10 heads and a 32 MB memory cache –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpendicular_recording
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html (Schoolhouse Rock-like video)
So far, I've been surprisingly impressed by the thought and
effort LaCie has devoted to this excellent external storage device. I never,
ever dreamed I could have Terabytes of storage on my desktop. It is real. Very
real.
Conclusion
Yes, if you have a PC and are a shade-tree mechanic for computers,
you can get large drives, gang them and roll your own for less. But they won't have a 3-year warranty
and you will have to find your own backup management software. I thought the whole purpose of doing
this was to reduce power use and wear and tear on equipment. Using
under-utilized PCs to accomplish external storage is counter-intuitive. I don't
recommend it for mission-critical processes.
Do more with less and do it in a "green" manner,
with an auto-mode device like this one, so the system shuts down until it needs
to be used and spools up when a backup is needed. To me, that's
"green"! Gone are the days of 24/7 hard drives running all the time,
wasting lots of power and reducing the life of the drive bearings.
And if you need more storage space, these units do have two
Firewire 800 ports in back, so they can be daisychained, if necessary. There
are also 3 TB systems that use 1.5 TB drives or if you insist, you can always
go for the more expensive 4big Quadra.
Recommendations
I would not hesitate to recommend this RAID device for
external storage. It nicely exceeds my current requirements for video editing
purposes. I can feel good about off-loading gigabytes of files, without feeling
the need to "port them to plastic" (DVDs). Don't forget the 3-year warranty.
How valuable is your work?
Other Reading
1TB Drive Comparisons
Drive Data Specsheet link
