Storage and peripheral vendor LaCie has increased the capacity of its Ethernet Big Disk network attached storage device to 2 TB, offering home and small office users a convenient way to back up or serve data to multiple computers—or just store a heck of a lot of movies, music, video, and other media.
“The LaCie Ethernet Big Disk with new 2 TB capacity is the largest network storage solution available for small office/home office customers,” said Marie Renouard, LaCie Product Manager, in a release. “No other solution on the market offers such large capacity in a single, compact device for easily storing your personal digital library.”
The basic idea behind network attached storage (NAS) is the the drives come with their own Ethernet controller and enough embedded programming to act as a network file server. (Of course, not all brains are the same: some NAS devices come with the own integrated BitTorrent clients, for instance.) Instead of adding storage to an individual computer on a home network, users just attack NAS devices directly to a wired network, and configure access using a Web-based interface. Viol´: the unit’s storage capacity is available to any device on the network, not just one system.
The LaCie Ethernet Big Disk offers a gigabit Ethernet port, 16 MB of cache, and SMB file sharing (for Windows and Linux) along with AFP sharing (for Macs). The unit also sports an FTP server, HTTP capability for browsing, a UPnP multimedia server, and compatibility with Apple’s Bonjour auto-discovery technology. The drive also sports a USB 2.0 port which can be used to connect the drive directly to a host computer, or to attach additional USB drives for even more storage.
The 2 TB LaCie Ethernet Big Disk will be available at the end of May with a suggested price of $1,099; the previous 1 TB remains available.
