LaCie 301138U Ethernet Disk Mini 500 GB Ethernet/USB 2.0 Network Attached Storage Hard Drive

Amazon Customer Reviews

(2 out of 5)

A Product With Problems

Review of LaCie Ether Disk Mini 500GB (edmini)

Summary

This is really a little, special-purpose Linux box. The unit seems physically very sturdy, is reasonably small, and runs cools and quiet. It has a factory-installed version of Twonky, and as a media server accessed over wired Ethernet it functioned well - for instance it served HD video encoded at up to 25Mbps CBR (that is Constant Bit Rate HDV from a Sony cam) to my Ziova CS505 media player without any visible problems (3 1/2 stars for this). The edmini's performance when writing files to it via the Ethernet cable was IMO not great - its best write speed in my testing, using a crossover cable to a 3Com on-board gigabit Ethernet on PC, was about 640MB per minute (in contrast to a Maxtor SS II, which initially gave 800MB per minute write throughput through a Netgear switch, and that I've since optimized to over 990 MB per minute; and in other testing I've moved as much as 2600MB per minute over my home network). And I found the edmini's USB2 interface to computer not at all useful - it crashed my PC several times, and when it didn't its best write performance for me was 376MB per minute - that's right, it's unstable USB interface is much slower than its own Ethernet interface (zero stars for this), and for comparison about one-fourth of the performance of an Adaptec USB disk that I connected to the same USB2 port for testing. Thus my averaged rating of 1.75 stars, rounded to 2 stars.


Other Issues and Observations

When the power adapter is plugged in but the drive is disconnected from its cord the power adapter alone consumes just under 0.2A (110V AC) that is in the neighborhood of 15 watts. When the unit is running it uses about 0.9A, about 70 watts. There is no configuration setting for any kind of sleep mode, and I saw no indication that it had any reduced power mode. So, if left on, this device would cost me about $85 per year in electricity. For comparison, my Maxtor Shared Storage II uses about 0.6A when running, and can be set to spin down the drive when idle, cutting that to 0.3A; so the Maxtor should cost about $50 per year less for me to operate.

When I enabled DHCP on the LaCie device and rebooted it, it could not find my DHCP server (nothing else on my network has that problem), and it configured itself such that it disappeared from my network entirely - and it could no longer be seen even by the LaCie configuration utility. Getting out of THAT took some doing... a "hold the button down for 15 seconds then ... and then..." reset procedure that is not in the documentation or FAQ.

Most of the somewhat limited management of this device is done via a built-in web server. Mostly it seemed painfully slow to me - enough to wonder if it was working. For those who need to know this: it does allow enabling of "guest" account with no password (required by some media players).

Several times the device simply locked up completely - I could do nothing but UNPLUG it (the power button is soft). I think it is possible this was related to having the USB cable connected, I don't recall any lock-ups that happened when it wasn't.

Even when connected to the very same port on a gigabit switch, the LaCie seemed to choose 100 or 1000 Mb connection speed at random each time it booted - and there is no configuration setting for it.

The power button is also a big blue light that blinks twice every five seconds - making placement in the HT component rack intolerable (if the unit is visible).


About That USB2 interface

To use the USB2 interface to computer, you install a driver then connect the device to a USB2 port on your PC. The device does not mount as a Mass Storage Device (the normal device class for a USB2 disk drive); instead the LaCie driver emulates a network adapter and the disk can be found in your network neighborhood. BUT this emulation uses the same host name and workgroup as the one the Ethernet interface on the LaCie unit itself is already broadcasting - so if your PC can see the edmini on the ethernet, you CANNOT access the USB2 interface at all: the edmini does show up in Device Manager and Disconnect Devices tray icon, but the node in the network tree is already occupied by the ethernet interface to the same device. You may think this sounds so strange that I must have gotten it wrong; but no, it REALLY is like that.

To top it off, the LaCie-supplied driver for XP SP1 did not actually work, it saw and mapped the drive (as long as I disconnected either the PC or the LaCie from my ethernet), but every attempt I made to access the drive failed and the driver went into a loop spiking the CPU usage to 100% every few seconds, requiring a reboot of the PC.

There is another USB2 port, for a peripheral such as a printer or external disk drive. I did not test this at all.


OS Version Support

Before I bought the edmini I noted that LaCie's web page for the product explicitly listed WinXP SP1 as "supported". I needed that support, because I wanted to use it with a PC that is at SP1 and cannot be updated due to other dependencies. But as soon as I reported that in my testing the USB driver failure was isolated to XP SP1, LaCie support told me (and here I quote by copy-and-paste): "the devices are designed around connecting to XP SP2 or 2000, SP4. There won't be any support for issues that only present themselves in SP1".


My Conclusion

This product has some problems. With the so-so write throughput over Ethernet, the surprisingly much slower USB2 interface, and LaCie's refusal to honor their word about supported OS version, I found this device unusable for my purposes - I sent it back. But the problems may not apply to all users. Its media server worked well and the unit was cool, quiet, and performed tolerably well; and so I think reasonable person might make a different decision under different conditions. Just do not expect to use the "USB2 interface" to PC.


Footnotes

Case is significant, 10MB is "ten megabytes" but 10Mb is "ten megabits".

After I wrote the bulk of this review, and actually a number of hours AFTER I told LaCie that I had given up, repacked the edmini unit and was sending it back to the retailer, they told me that they had just tested one on XP SP1 and it worked for them. I can't prove that they didn't make that test with that result, but I do find the timing very suspicious.

(5 out of 5)

Slick little box at a good price.

If you're a techno-buff, read the other guy's review. If, on the other hand, you're looking to share your files simply across multiple home computers, buy this drive.

Setup was very simple for me. I followed the quick setup guide (which basically says, "Before plugging in the drive, run the software and follow the prompts") and within a few minutes I was up and running. I connected it directly to my laptop first to clear off the clutter, then connected it to my wireless-G router. Each time, the Mini Disk showed up as a network drive.

Now I have one set of "My Documents" across 2 PCs and a Laptop. All my music and videos are on the Mini Disk and they play directly on any of my computers without needing to be copied onto the local hard drive. I did notice a few seconds longer to launch the videos, but they play as though they were on the local drive.

I tried the backup software for kicks and it seems to work as described, but I'm not using my Mini Disk for backups, so I don't have much experience with it.

Maybe the drive isn't fast enough to edit these files across the network (according to some other reviews), but for less than $200 you can have a good amount of storage for your multimedia and personal files.

(4 out of 5)

Good choice for Home or Small Office

When you take the Ether Disk Mini out of the box, the first thing you will notice is that there is a fair amount of heft to this device. That is largely due to the metal case, which acts as a heat sink for the hard drive. In addition to that, the EDMini has a small fan. There should be no concerns about overheating even if it is left running 24x7.

On the back of the device, there is a 10 / 100 / 1000 (wired) Ethernet port. At 100 Meg, or better yet, Gigabit (1000), you should be able to stream DVD-quality video without a problem. There are 2 USB ports on the back of the device too. One can be used to connect the Mini directly to a PC. The other can be used to add more disk space to the device - add a second external USB drive.

There is a wizard on the CD to make it easy to `find' the EDMini on your network and perform the initial configuration. Although, you may not even need to do any configuring of the device. It comes with a Windows share predefined. You may just need to plug the Mini in and then, from your PC(s), map a drive to \\EDMini\Share. If you are inclined to do some more advanced configuration, the management is all done from a browser interface. It is pretty straight forward to use. Worst case, the web interface is very well documented in the manual - which is a PDF on the installation disk. No one provides a printed manual anymore.

Mac users are not left out in the cold. You can create Mac shares as easily as Windows. A good way to share files between different Operating Systems. Since the EDMini, is an embedded Linux machine, you can access it via FTP, HTTP, or SMB from a Linux computer. If you have a Digital Media Player on your network, you can enable the Media Server functionality of the Mini to provide content to your DMP.

Basically:
If you are a home user, or even a small office, and need to share disk space among several computers, the Ether Disk Mini is a great choice. However, if you are expecting "file server" performance from a $200 device, you should, probably, spend the extra money on a server.

(2 out of 5)

BE WARNED: Very slow read/write times over wireless home network

KUDOS

convenience of USB connectivity; large capacity at a low price; storage accessible by all network nodes

COMPLAINTS

Slow read/write times over a standard basic wireless home network make the 500GB Lacie Enet Disk Mini Gigabit USB 2.0 virtually unusable in a practical, on-the-fly context. RELATED WARNING: The more you load onto the unit, the slower it gets!

CONCLUSIONS

If you want to simply store bulk network-accessible items to which quick access is NOT needed, then this unit may be for you. But if you're wanting to do something like storing movies for common access across your network, this is NOT your solution. Read times don't come close to keeping pace with movie audio/video demands.

I do not recommend this product for anyone who is not absolutely certain of what they're getting into and what other options are available.

(4 out of 5)

Excellent Network Drive with UPNP

Set up was not as easy as I would have liked, however, Lacie customer support was surprising accessable by phone. I forgot what good customer support is like, and I didn't have to wait more than 2 minutes for someone to pick up the phone.

The drive works great and can easily stream HD content to a media adapter. Not sure why the other reviewer is complaining about the transfer speads. This is the Version 2 with gigbit ethernet. Typical read/write speads over a network which are not going to be as fast as USB or Firewire. Overall an excellent drive for the money.