Tabs are provided for the remaining features, where you can plump for workgroup mode or AD authentication, create users and groups, add shares, define access restrictions and view hardware status. Your next stop is the appliance’s web interface, which offers a quick start wizard for creating new public shares. LaCie’s Network Assistant installs as a background task accessible from the System Tray, where it spots the Ethernet Disk as soon as it has loaded and provides a basic screen for selecting DHCP or a fixed IP address and accessing shares for mapping. If one drive fails you lose everything, and the chassis can’t be opened without invalidating the warranty. The review model has 2TB of storage provided by a pair of 1TB Hitachi SATA drives, but RAID is not an option. The admin users can add more accounts and can also change access restriction to the public share folder.This in turn reduces hardware demands, and the appliance employs a simple 1GHz VIA processor backed up with a modest 256MB of DDR memory – 64MB of which is shared with the embedded graphics adapter. The second one is private to the owner of the account that's currently used to access it. One of them is public with no access restriction. Most of the time, all you have to do is a few clicks.īy default the LaCie 5big Network 2 comes with two shared folders. This is especially helpful when it comes to enable the server's features and changing the RAID configuration. Most users will just need a few minutes to familiarize and know what to do without much help. We actually like the way the server's interface is organized as it's intuitive and self-explanatory. Since there are only so many buttons that can fit on the two sides of the page (three on each side), the lower right corner area of the page contains little icons of other categories that you can drag out to replace any of the buttons that are currently displayed on the sides. Each button is a category, such as Users, Shares, RAID Management and so on, and when clicked on shows all the functions and settings of that category on the main part of the webpage for users to customize. It consists of two lines of big buttons on the bottom and the right side of the webpage. Similar to the previous version of the NAS OS, the interface of the version 2.0 is simple and straightforward. You do need to turn the support on via the Web interface, however, as support for Time Machine is by default turned off. We tried this out and it worked as intended. The LaCie 5big Network 2 runs the newer 2.0 of the NAS OS, which, among other things, offers full support for Lion, including its Time Machine. The software also helps launch the device's Web interface that helps further customize the NAS server. The device includes the LaCie Network Assistant software that helps identify the NAS on the network and maps the network drives, so you can use them as connected hard drives. Like the Network Space 2, the 5big Network 2's setup process was fast and easy. Unfortunately they can't be aggregated to increase the data throughput rates of the server. These ports can be used at the same time to either balance the load or for failsafe purposes. There are also two Gigabit Ethernet ports. This is a little counterintuitive, as the server's design is clearly intended to let users service its internal storage easily.Īlso on the back of the server, there are two eSATA ports and two USB 2.0 ports to host more storage. Note, however, that the servers come preloaded with five hard drives if you decide to replace any of them, it voids the warranty. You do need a screwdriver to install or remove the drive from the tray. Once opened, each bay can be pulled out easily in case you want to upgrade or replace the hard drive. These bays are locked in by a latch that can be opened with a coin. On the back, you'll find five drive bays that host five SATA hard drives. The almost perfect cube-shaped device has nothing but a big round LED on the front that shines solid blue when the server is turned on or flashes during data activities. Those who want to get the most out of a NAS server, however, should also check out the Editors' Choice DS1511+ from Synology.Īt a glance, the LaCie 5big Network 2 looks more like a black box of a spaceship than a storage device. If you're in the market for a high-capacity, easy-to-use network storage device, with the prices that started at $750 (for the 5TB version), the LaCie 5big Network 2 will definitely get the job done.
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