By: I. Sahba

I. Sahba — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:02:40 +0000

Review by I. Sahba for LaCie d2 Network v.2 1 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301504 Rating: This Network Disk was purchased with the intension of being used in a Mac Only environment for professional graphic design and 3D modeling services. 4 macs on a gigabit Ethernet network.
Amazon packaging was done properly, arrived in perfect condition.
LaCie packaging was done very well. The package includes all cables and software needed.
SW Installation took 8-10 minutes and only requires to be installed on ONE machine.
It mounts very fast on each machine as I have named it; DA5-Netdisk
The files are generally reference Photos and 3Dmodels that are used and shared between these machines.

Transfer Speed:
Test file: A Folder containing 2 files; One 4KB (1,375 bytes) and the other 1,088,275,968 for a total of 1.01GB (1,088,277,343 bytes)
Test condition: The only file transfer done at the time.

On a G5 Dual 2GHz PPC:
From External FW800 to Netdisk, 31 seconds
From Internal SATA to Netdisk, 29 seconds

On a Macpro 2.93MHz Quad, 8-core
From External eSATA OWC to Netdisk, 29 seconds
From Internal dual RAID WD Raptors to Netdisk, 28 seconds

For testing I used a folder and NOT a file since that is a more realistic simulation of everyday use than one large file.
The speed is very good. It is NOT the fastest which is the IOCELL NETDISK NDAS 351 but the Iocell does NOT allow more than ONE Mac to write to the netdisk in NDAS (Multip[le READ, single WRITE). The difference is about 2-3 seconds per transfer on a 1GB file. That is very negligible for me or almost 99% of people who would use a netdisk.

Note that deleting ANY file or folder from the netdisk will NOT put the item(s) in TRASH but it DELETES the file(s) or Folder(s) immediately. While it can be a bit inconvenient for mistakes but it is great for the fact that the available space shown at the bottom of the window is always REAL. A warning window does pop up giving you a chance to cancel in case of mistake.

The drive enclosure runs silent, it runs cooler than almost any drive I have. The temperature normally is LESS than putting your hand under your arm.
The blue LED light in front is not very bright and not distracting. It does blink during file transfers.
The enclose is small and has a nice sturdy aluminum casing with a base foot that is very stable.

I consider the life of an external HD on FW800, 400 or eSATA to be about 3-4 years. I anticipate this drive to work this length like the other 7 externals that I have from LaCie. 2 of them are dead after 4 and 4.5 years.
I have also set up the information on this Netdisk to be backed up every night to another LaCie 2TB in case of any failure.

Comments on: LaCie d2 Network v.2 1 TB Ethernet Network Attached Storage 301504

By: I. Sahba