Let's face it, the world of storage has changed dramatically over the last few years. The increasing size of media has brought new need to the market and those needs are no longer being filled by CD's, DVD's, or external hard drives anymore. The limitations behind such media in a connected world have brought about a storage revolution of sorts. It is now commonplace for consumers to purchase the once business oriented NAS to supply media, data, and perform backups for the various devices we now have in our homes. There is no shortage of choices when trying to find a NAS, but some are better for users and some are better for power users. LaCie thinks they have the perfect NAS for someone that doesn't want to be bothered with tedious configurations and confusing setups. Enter the LaCie 2big NAS, a two bay NAS that promises to deliver on performance without sacrificing simplicity. LaCie has their minds set on delivering a NAS, offered in a diskless or a 3TB version, that nearly anyone can administer. This means having the performance you want and the ability to operate the NAS without having to have a computer science degree. This idea extends from the administration to the design; everything about the LaCie 2big NAS exudes simplicity. The 2big NAS is a two drive NAS with a 2GHz processor and 256MB of RAM. LaCie outfitted the 2big NAS with everything that you would expect from a quality Networked Storage Device: a built in FTP/SFTP server, iSCSI, Print Server, Gigabit connectivity, RAID 1 or RAID 0 arrays, and more. There isn't much to the 2big NAS. The front features only a bright LaCie branded blue orb that lets you know your NAS is on and serving up your files. The sides and top are an integrated aluminum heatsink that works in conjunction with an internal fan to dissipate heat quietly and efficiently. This dual cooling system helps to extend the life of your data by efficiently removing heat. The design, by Neil Poulton, provides 60% more surface area than conventional NAS enclosures. This dual action cooling also helps to decrease electricity consumption. The rear of the 2big NAS hides your drives in some elegant locking drive caddies, homes your power switch (which can't just accidentally shut off your NAS, instead when pressed starts the proper shutdown process), your Gigabit ethernet port, an eSATA port, and a USB 2.0 port. LaCie bundles the 2big NAS with NAS OS2, a "No-Sweat Setup and Management" operating system. Here you will find product highlights from the LaCie product page. From Problem to Solution in 10 Minutes: Don't lose your cool wrestling with a NAS built for geeks. NAS novices, get up and running in 10 minutes with the 2big NAS, powered by LaCie NAS OS 2. Its convenient, web-based interface, the Dashboard, is user-friendly and provides easy access to powerful features. Wizards with presets make advanced tasks such as RAID management, users management, and NAS-to-NAS backups astonishingly easy. No IT degree required. Seamless Network Integration: Mac, PC, Linux? No problem. The 2big NAS speaks all the necessary network languages. This makes it an excellent solution for an entire office, even if your sales force works on PCs and graphic design team uses Macs. Support for Active Directory means you can import existing users and groups with a click of the mouse. No more repetitive tasks. Complete Computer Backup Solution: The 2big NAS comes with everything you need to back up your office's computers. It includes three client licenses for Genie® Backup Manager Pro™ for Windows® and three licenses for Intego® Backup Manager Pro™ for Mac (additional licenses can be purchased online). Install the included software on computers to be backed up, or simply use Time Machine® or Windows 7 Backup. An employee accidentally deletes an important file or his hard drive fails? Restore it in seconds and get the employee back on track. RAID Security and Scalability: RAID 1 mode provides disk-failure proof, hardware-level data protection. If a single disk fails, you can replace it without turning off your appliance. Just swap in a new one without losing a single byte of data. Whatever the challenge, zero data loss, zero work interruption. You can even opt for the diskless model* and simply add more storage capacity as your business grows. This lets you reduce your initial investment while ensuring a long-term solution. Automated NAS Backup: Take the hassle and potential for human error out of backing up your NAS. The Dashboard lets you replicate the contents of your 2big NAS onto an attached USB/eSATA hard drive. Or vice-versa. Create automatic backup jobs tailored to each of your attached devices. Backups can also be configured to start automatically each time a USB hard drive is connected to the 2big NAS. You can also use your NAS to back up another NAS, whether it's on the local network or remote**. Even configure a nightly backup of your NAS onto a backup server in a completely different building. Faster Internal File Sharing: Boost your business productivity with up to 100MB/s*** transfer speeds. The 2big NAS is powered by a 2GHz processor and the highly efficient Ext4 file system. This combination optimizes file transfers between employees. Everyone in the office can share files quickly and easily, whether they are on a PC, Mac, or Linux system. Define whether a folder should be private or public within the company. For private folders, closely control access by setting user- or group-level permissions. It's surprisingly easy. Whatever your office's internal file sharing needs, the 2big NAS delivers fast and flexible accessibility. Mobility = Productivity: In an increasingly mobile world, your employees need anywhere and anytime access to their files. LaCie MyNAS revolutionizes NAS remote access, delivering the simplest setup in the industry. Just name your network storage without leaving the Dashboard, and it's ready to be accessed from the road. All you need is an Internet connection. From within a browser, employees can download, manage, and upload files remotely. They can even stream image and audio files. A free iPhone/iPad app gives them convenient, instant access to all your NAS' files and storage capacity right on your phone or tablet. iSCSI Target: You can set up an iSCSI share of your 2big NAS and mount it as a local share on your computer in the same way that external hard drives are mounted when connecting to your PC/Mac. An iSCSI connection will bring you performance and flexibility for professional applications, such as backup or virtualization. Dual Cooling for Long-Term Reliability: The 2big NAS's advanced dual cooling system ensures long-term reliability by preventing overheating. Its solid-aluminum casing provides 60% more surface area, which diverts and dissipates heat more efficiently. In addition, its thermo-regulated fan turns on and off according to internal temperature. It cools the components while reducing electricity usage. Centralize Printing: Simplify your office's printing scheme by connecting a compatible printer to one of 5big Network 2's USB ports. Instantly your employees will be able to print from any computer on the network. Energy-Saving Innovations: The LaCie 2big NAS helps you to reduce power consumption by letting you control its energy usage. In eco mode it uses one-tenth the energy of the previous generation of LaCie NAS. Without reducing employee access to data. You can also schedule shut down/restart depending on the day of the week. So it's possible to configure your NAS to power on at 6:00 am and off at 7:00pm on Monday through Friday, and stay off all weekend. It also supports wake on LAN protocol, so if your NAS is asleep and using zero electricity, you can easily wake it up from your computer without needing to be physically next to the NAS. If you are unfamiliar with complicated setups and an endless onslaught of options then the 2big NAS may just be the NAS for you. The web adminstration in LaCie NAS OS 2.0 is so clean and simple that you can find everything you need in just a few mouse clicks. Almost every important element is facing you at all times and if you find that you use some more than others, you can remove them from the dashboard and replace them with the elements you use more often. The home screen features a quick display of options in the center of the screen that is broken down into two major sections. The center of the page is home to all the administrative functions for the NAS and the outer section is the configurable widgets. You can choose from a list of nine different widgets: General Settings, Network, RAID Management, Users, Groups, Shares, External Ports, Backup, Download, ECO Management, Support, and Drive information. The simple administrations allows for quick installations. Here in the lab, we were able to unbox the NAS, setup RAID 0 (most disk space), add a Group, Add a User, and finally add a Share in a matter of minutes. Soup to nuts configuration, adding 5 users, adding them to shares, configuring backup schedule, upgrading firmware, setting power options, and enabling Remote Access all took under 15 minutes. For testing the transfer speed of the NAS, we transfer a 46.6GB Blu-Ray ISO (Avatar) from the the workstation to the NAS and back five times. We pipe the transfer speeds during the benchmark to a .csv file for charting. For more on our Avatar Benchmark please see our Benchmarking application: COD Benchmarking Utility New for the 2big NAS benchmarking we are introducing our C.O.D. MP3 benchmark. We use the same method for the avatar test and create two hundred MP3's and specific file sizes for repeatable results. The files are copied from the workstation to the NAS and back 5 times. We pipe the transfer speeds during the benchmark to a .csv file for charting. For further benchmarking, we test each NAS using Intel's NAS Performance Toolkit to rate 2 key areas of NAS performance. We measure File Copy speeds to and from the NAS and the Directory Copy speeds to and from the NAS. We conduct our power consumption using a Kill A Watt EZ P4460 Power Meter and measurements are taken every minute for 10 minutes then averaged for the results. Bench System: Motherboard: Gigabyte 880GA-UD3H Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Sector 5 PC3-12800 Hard Drive: Crucial M4 SSD 128GB Chassis: Lian Li PC-6 (click to read our review) Power Supply: BFG LS-450 Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Our C.O.D. Benchmarking utility revealed that the 2big NAS can transfer a large file (46.6GB) to the NAS at 40.40MB/s in RAID 1 (mirroring) and a slightly faster 45.06MB/s in RAID 0 (striping). Read speeds were far closer and much faster with RAID 1 coming in at 92.43MB/s and RAID 0 at 91.58MB/s. Our new MP3 Benchmarking utility copies two hundred MP3's back and forth to the NAS to test how well the device can handle medium size files and large batches. Our benchmarking revealed that the 2big NAS is capable of sending at 34.13MB/s in RAID 1 and 45.07MB/s in RAID 0. Copying back from the NAS we experienced read speeds of 44.45MB/s in RAID 1 and 45.05MB/s in RAID 0. Our NASPT showed that the drive performs well in both RAID 1 and RAID 0 tests. With "on demand" data needs in organizations or homes, it is not uncommon for devices like this to be running 24/7. With energy on our minds, most of us will not want a power hungry electric consumption monster on our network for streaming music, videos, or storing documents. Today's NAS will usually consume less energy than a PC or a home built server by a good amount. In testing, we were able to determine that the N5200XXX used more electricity than its smaller four bay brother. Considering the fact that there is another drive spinning, this increase is negligible and still consumes far less energy than a PC. Testing was conducted using a Kill A Watt EZ P4460 Power Meter and measurements were taken every minute for 10 minutes then averaged for the results. LaCie claims that the 2big NAS will operate at 6W during HDD hibernation and 22W during heavy usage. Our results validated their claims. LaCie's introductory NAS, the 2big NAS, proves that function and simplicity can combine with performance and affordability to serve up one file loving sandwich. The 2big NAS delivers on LaCie's promises for simplicity and ease of use. LaCie has brought sanity to those that don't have the patience or the IT staff to setup an overly complicated device; this NAS can be unboxed and fully configured in less than 15 minutes making it impossible to overlook. If you are looking for a NAS and don't want a complicated setup... the 2big NAS may be the one for you. 0TB (diskless) $299.99 6TB $649.00