| Article Index |
|---|
| LaCie 2big network Review |
| Specifications |
| External Appearance |
| Basic Functionality |
| Advanced Functionality |
| Performance |
| Is The LaCie 2big for me? |
| Conclusion |
| All Pages |
The LaCie 2big also has some advanced functionality, such as participating in a Windows domain, streaming media automatically from the shares on the device, and acting as a low power download server for torrent files (for example, many Linux distributions are distributed today as torrents, as are copyright-infringing files). It can also automatically copy data from a USB thumb drive or backup its own data to an external disk.
The System tab is where the device is configured - its network name, the Windows workgroup and the date and time are set here, along with the network configuration, RAID configuration and any connected external disk drives (format and eject are found here - sharing is automatic). There is a useful Status tab, that also gives access to the (viewable and downloadable) system log, and the maintenance tab for backing up or restoring the system configuration, or uploading patches and new firmware.
Curiously, the LaCie was unable to format the external disk I plugged in - it was previously NTFS and all attempts to format the drive failed with nothing obvious in the log - so if you want to use an older drive with the LaCie, and write to it, you'll need to clean it off first. Reading the NTFS volume worked just fine.
The Multimedia tab is simple; it specifies the folders to be indexed and then the LaCie 2big makes those files available using UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance).
The Download server (BitTorrent client) can be used to download items directly to the NAS without the need for a hot, noisy PC to be left on. Adding a new torrent to download is a three step process; specify the torrent file on the administration workstation, optionally specify a new name for it, and specify where to save the files. The configuration is simple - you're not expected to be using this as a full time commercial quality client, just a simple client for overnight use.
The LaCie 2big can schedule backups of shares to other shares, providing an easy way to protect data without needing to resort to external devices. Failed backups turn red; but there's no backup log to tell you that everything (or nothing!) was copied - it's all in the one System log accessed from the Status page.
And last but not least; not only does the Web provide the administration console, it also provides direct access to the data.
There was one major let down with the administration UI - and it's glaring enough that we'll call it out here and now. Folders with many sub folders (for example, a music collection) take an inordinately long time to be displayed. It's not the fault of the device, despite it being a low power ARM chip; it's the method of rendering the data (using Javascript within the web browser). Many times when simply selecting a share, the browser would display a warning about the long running script. Small folders (less than 100 or so entries) were fine.
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