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

After working for a few months, this miserable device suddenly disappeared from my network. It refused to reinstall. Likewise it would not install on a USB connection. LaCie's primitive software gave no indication of what the problem was, much less a solution.

As a busy professional I had limited time to deal with this unwarranted and inexcusable failure. Despite my request for urgent assistance, LaCie took their sweet time, responded in 2 days with a pro forma and totally useless response that provided ZERO solutions. They simply suggested a USB installation--but their USB driver would not even install--on 2 different computers.

By that time I had too many work deadlines to deal with LaCie's Mickey Mouse excuse for customer support. I simply have had no backup storage for months until I have time to deal with the mess LACIE and their junk equipment caused me.

LACIE IS NOT ONLY TOTALLY USELESS, BUT THEY ARE A TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY AND A GREAT WASTE OF TIME. A TOTAL WASTE OF THE PRICE I PAID FOR THIS JUNK. AND THEIR MICKEY MOUSE "TROUBLESHOOTING" IS A TOTAL WASTE OF VALUABLE PROFESSIONAL TIME.

Don't trust them with a dime of your money!!!

I bought a Lacie Ethernet Disk Mini about a year ago and it worked well for about 6 months. I powered it down once and powered it back up-- that's all she wrote. I could never connect to it again, and every time I disconnected and reconnected the power, the big blue power light would just stay on, I could never power it down from the button. So I abandoned the Ethernet cable and went to a USB cable, still it was dead. So in hopes that I could recover my data from the internal hard drive, I bought another exact model, verified that it worked, opened it up and swapped in the hard drive from the "dead" unit. Still did not work-- the hard drive would make funny noises, it was fried.
So, I reassembled my "good" unit and used it for a couple weeks, then after some debate decided that I didn't want to trust my data to a LaCie NAS device, I've heard from many people that they are pretty unreliable. So I decommissioned this working unit it and put it on the shelf. A couple months later I decided I wanted to try one more thing to try to recover my data from my first fried unit. So I installed the good unit in order first verify that it was still good. It was not. It powered up upon connecting the power cord, but would no longer communicate through Ethernet or USB cable. Could never power down either.
I'm glad I did not rely on LaCie for any kind of storage-- this model is completely unreliable as far as I'm concerned.
You may be wondering why I didn't call tech support for these issues. I am not one to waste time on the phone with a techie that is just going to tell me to do all of the stuff I already tried-- plus these units came from Ebay so I can't send them back. There's only one button on this thing, and if you can't connect via USB or Ethernet there's really nothing you can do but take it apart or slam it to the ground. I wish I could give zero stars for this product!

This product come to me one week ago. It has been working good for 2 hours. At the beginning, while copying file on it, it gave I/O error.
After one day it crashed completely.
Best regards

1) GOOD: This product works just fine with Windows XP. My XP-based computers can see the device on the network with no problems. Getting files to and from the device is easy - just hook it up to the network (such as a wireless router), follow the instructions for setup, and you're done. Also, the unit is very quiet and takes up very little room.

2) BAD: All configurations for the device are done on a crappy website with slow functionality. The interface is bland, it's not user-friendly, and almost looks like it's meant for a computer guru in some places. They put this site together to get the job done with no regard for the ease of use - but, hey, it does get the job done.

3) UGLY: This product does NOT work with Vista. I have Vista Ultimate 64-bit...perhaps a different version of Vista will work. Tech support seems to think that Vista Ultimate 64-bit should work, however, as they have offered two different solutions, but I've had no luck after spending many hours on this. It should be noted that there are many other brands of NAS devices that don't work with Vista...it's not just this one. Try a Google search of "Vista NAS" or something to that effect. There are several forums that offer the same one or two solutions that may work for some people. I've also tried accessing the unit purely through the USB cable, but the drivers don't work. With the high prevalence of Vista users, NAS manufacturers and supporting services need to wake up and focus on making compatibility happen now. I'm returning this product.

This is a hassle free gadget for home network - easy setup, easy operation, and barely any maintenance. The only thing I don't give it a five star is that there is no idle mode for the disk mini - potentially this will significantly reduce the product life and consume more power.