With Eco Management, you can set up how long the hard drive stays on after no activity and sleep mode. It provides users the ability to efficiently manage the drive’s power function. LaCie provided a nice feature on its 2big NAS with the Eco Management function.
If the main use case for the drive will be as a personal drive with an eye toward performance, users might want to setup the drive in RAID 0 for 6TB of storage and the performance increases due to the RAID 0 setup. This is an ideal setup for a network based drive to provide the added security for potential data loss or drive failure.
On the Dashboard, we have a wide range of choices to customize the device, ranging from Users setup, Eco Management to RAID Management.īy default, the device is set up in a RAID 1 providing 2.72TB of free space on the drive while the second drive mirrors the first.
The first time you log onto the 2big NAS Dashboard, you’ll be prompted to set up a logon and password for future access. Under the General tab, you can access the web-based Dashboard program to fully setup your LaCie 2big NAS or you can use the NAS IP address to access. The LaCie 2big NAS comes with a handy Network Assistant that provides general information and easy one click button to mount your NAS drive. In our review of the Seagate Barracuda 3TB, the drive is a SATA 6Gb/s interface and provided almost 200MB/s sequential transfer speeds, with very good performance in our HTPC benchmark. Inside our 2big NAS 6TB, LaCie is using two Seagate Barracuda 3TB drives (ST3000DM001) to provide 6TB of storage in either RAID 0 or RAID 1.
In addition, there is one Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000 Base-TX interface, along with an eSATA and USB 2.0 interface for additional storage, printer or media share features. LaCie provides a handle tool to unlock the drives but a simple coin can do the trick in a pinch. On the back of the device, you see two hot swappable drive bays that are locked. The 2big NAS takes around a minute to initialize after turning on before it is usable. On the front of the device, you see a large iconic blue light, which blinks as the drives are initiated then remains steady during use. Under heavier use, you can begin to hear the fan kick in, but it’s hardly out of place. Through our review, the drive remained almost inaudible over sounds of the fans with the computer case. It cools the components while reducing electricity usage by not running as often as some other desktop hard drives. To help with cooling, LaCie uses a thermo-regulated fan, which turns on and off according to internal temperature. The aluminum design serves two purposes eloquent visual effect and thermal heat dispensing. The aluminum casing provides 60% more surface area, which diverts and dissipates heat more efficiently. The 2big NAS is no exception with its solid-aluminum design by Neil Poulton. LaCie continues with its tradition of providing eloquently designed external storage devices.
Compatible with PC, Mac®, Linux, iOS, and Android.
Beyond the networked storage capabilities, the 2big NAS supports a slew of backup and media serving features including Time Machine and Windows Backup. For IT managers and basic users alike, management is non-issue with the NAS OS 3.0 Dashboard.
LaCie ships the 2big units either bare or in a two disk setup with either 2TB or 3TB hard drive capacities. It features LaCie’s NAS OS 3.0, which makes NAS management easy. Out of the box, the 2big NAS comes configured in RAID 1, but has support for RAID 0 configurations. The LaCie 2big 2-bay NAS system is no different, sporting solid-aluminum body. LaCie and beautiful design intuitively go together, thanks to years of LaCie regularly pumping out great looking storage devices.