LaCie's 2big network ticks the right boxes for perfomance, looks and ease of use.
LaCie’s has long been a favourite provider of external hard drive units, particularly for Mac users. As well as delivering functional products, LaCie has been focused on making aesthetically pleasing hardware. The 2big network is designed by Scottish-born, Paris-based industrial designer Neil Poulton. The aluminium case of the 2big network is about as wide as two hard-cover novels with a single, large blue light on the front case.
Equipped with a pair of 500GB drives, the 2big network can run as either a RAID0 or RAID1 array or, to use LaCie’s terminology, “big” and “safe” modes respectively. Flipping between modes is achieved by simply turning a screw switch on the back of the unit and then using the browser-based utility to re-create the RAID and format the disks.
It’s worth noting that LaCie’s claim of 1TB of storage is based on using the 2big network in “big” mode which means there’s no protection for data. If you’re using “big” mode and one of the disks is lost, all your data will be lost. In “safe” mode, if one of the disks fails it can be hot-swapped. A 2TB version is also available.
LaCie’s Mac heritage is obvious as accessing the 2big network requires installation of Apple’s Bonjour protocol, which is supplied on the accompanying CD and LaCie’s Ethernet Agent. This is an application that runs from the system tray and monitors your LAN for the presence of a LaCie network drive. Once that’s done, the 2big network appears as a network device in Windows Explorer. Mac users already have Bonjour so the shared folders on the 2big network appear without any software.
The Ethernet Agent sits in the tray. Clicking its icon provides a list of shared folders on the 2big network. Click on a share and there’s an option to either map a drive or to launch the browser-based configuration utility. Adding and removing shared folders was simple with the ability to create user accounts and then assign permission to shares using those accounts.
The 2big network’s Gigabit Ethernet interface provided for zippy performance. We copied large files to and from the 2big network and found its performance to be very good with 350 MB of data moving between our test systems, PCs running XP and Vista and a Mac, in quick time.
There are two USB ports on the back of the 2big network for connecting other drives giving it some scope for expandability. However, unlike many other NAS units there’s no quick copy function so we needed to use the computer to copy data from a USB stick or hard drive to the NAS.
One of the issues many NAS devices face is keeping the disks cool. The life of a drive can be significantly impacted if it constantly runs hot. The 2big network overcomes this by using the aluminium body, with its finned top and sides, as a large heat sink. As well as being a clever design feature, it also means that the 2big network can reduce the number of fans it needs to operate. This helps make the 2big network one of the quietest NAS units we’ve tested.
If you’re looking for an easy to use NAS that’ll provide hardware redundancy, good performance and is easy to use then the 2big network from LaCie ticks most of the right boxes. However, if you’re looking at it as a potential component in a multimedia LAN where it’ll act as an iTunes server or similar then the 2big network may not be the best option for you. That said, this is one of the few NAS devices that actually quiet enough to work on a desk and it looks great to boot.