I/we have a large amount of data and also have a number of computers and personal files that need to be backed up. I have been debating the best way to accommodate our storage needs for quite some time and was eager to try out LaCie’s latest offering since it had almost everything I was looking for (I prefer FW400/800 as well as USB).
The Ethernet Big Disk is a terabyte drive with gigabit Ethernet and 2 USB ports (one for interfacing with a computer as a non-networked drive, the other for expanding the storage with additional units). It supports SMB, AFP, FTP & HTTP file access over the network. I plugged it in to power, plugged it into the network switch (just 100MB) and it DHCP’d and address. I didn’t use the utilities that came with it for configuration since I mapped an IP to the MAC address and planned on using the web interface to manage it. It does have tools that work under both OS X and Windows (I didn’t look for the Linux ones yet, but will) if you need to tweak the config before using.
I setup a few basic shares and users - the admin interface is dead simple - and started copying files. On my 100MB network, it does about 10GB an hour copying from USB or FW drives through my MacBook Pro over the network. Mounting the shares was as easy as browsing my local network with OS X’s built-in browser under “Connect to Server…”.
I noticed it has something called a “media server”. it will scan selected shares for media files and add them to that “media server” automatically, so I dedicated a share for just our media files (iTunes music and movies/shows mostly) and waited for it to scan the contents. I poked around trying to find a UPnP client for OS X (since it says that is what’s needed) when I noticed that the “media” share I created showed up in iTunes!
I haven’t fully tested it across all platforms and haven’t setup the system and user backup strategy yet, but am very happy with the performance and capabilities in my single-system, single-user test. Since it does not do RAID, I will probably be getting a second unit or a separate TB plain drive and configuring some type of backup system to ensure our data is safe in the event of a hardware failure.
You can grab one of the units here: LaCie Ethernet Big Disk
Technorati Tags: 
Sun, 2007-07-01 03:25
Hi there,
I have the 1TB version of the Lacie Big Ethernet Disk - very good NAS box in general. Have set up the media server and it appears as you said - directly in iTunes. However, it (Twonky on the LaCie) supposedly does support playlists? Only problem is - where do we put the play lists so that they show up in iTunes? I exported a couple of playlists into M3U format but they don’t appear in iTunes for the Shared Library. Shared Libraries do support playlists, as when I share other libraries in my network you can see the playlists from that library. You can’t create new playlists using the shared library though. So, if Twonky supports playlists, why do they not show? Strangely a playlist for ‘AAC Files’ is showing in the Shared Library from the NAS even though I don’t have it set up - so it obviously can handle playlists? I’m confused! Anyone help out?
»
Sat, 2007-06-30 10:02
Hi,
If it is running Twonky it should support playlists? They would have to be M3u I assume? I have the 1TB version of the LaCie Big Disk Ethernet, and it shows up as a shared library in iTunes no problems. I can’t make it work with playlists though? I exported some playlists and copied them to the media share on the Lacie NAS device, but they don’t show up. it MUST support playlists, as my share is showing an (automatic) playlist for AAC files. So the media server on the Lacie is getting this list from somewhere? I just don’t know how to make it work with playlists? Where do we need to copy the m3u files?
Hope someone can help me out.
Cheers
Alessandro
»
Tue, 2007-06-26 04:27
Hi!
I’m curious about the iTunes thing also. I got my Lacie yesterday, and didn’t really have time to tweak with it a lot but I still managed to put a few mp3’s on a mediaserver share. I didn’t see it popping up on iTunes at least in a few minutes. So did it appear instantly?
I might have a problem with my lan, since I have an wifi router between my lacie and mac (in 192.168.0.x and 192.168.1.x address space respectively).
»
Fri, 2007-06-29 07:22
The separate LANs will do it. It’s a broadcast-oriented protocol, with each service announcing itself on the local subnet. Lemme see what you’d need to do (or if it’s possible) to run a local ssh port-forward on the Mac your iTunes player is on so it can see the library.
»
Thu, 2007-06-07 00:15
It shows up as a shared library in iTunes, which means - as you pointed out - no playlist creation.
When I have AFP shares mounted and I either put the Mac to sleep or let it go on it’s own, they come back and are responsive immediately.
I think you are correct w/r/t LaCie’s other media-serving products, they all use Twonky’s software (which seems to be pretty good, at least from my iTunes playing point-of-view).
»
Wed, 2007-06-06 18:06
I’m curious about the showing up in iTunes automatically part: does it show up as a ‘shared’ library where one can’t make playlist, etc. with or is it like a local library where one can make playlists, etc. Also, do your mac connection automatically reistablish when the computer comes back from sleep? (e.g. I’m assuming you are using AFP.)
I’m thinking about the mini which I’m assuming has the same media server (I think it is Twonkymedia.com)
Nice review and thank you,
Tim
»