Home > Consumer Reviews > LaCie 301269U Ethernet Disk Mini Home Edition 500 GB Network Attached Storage Hard Drive

Overall, the LaCie 301269U Ethernet Mini Home Edition is a great NAS media server, with some quirks and speed issues. Considering I got it for $100, the pros far outweigh the cons. The web services can be slow to access at times, though the newest edition of the software (firmware) does speed it up somewhat. I ditched the included software on the CD, preferring to access the folders on the device as shared drives from my WinXP PC and laptop running Vista. My PS3 immediately identified the server, and has only had a few issues streaming videos (PS3 is wireless, in another room, and I've always had issues with speed on it, so its more likely my router and not the NAS).

If you're someone who likes to fiddle with networks, and would be normally comfortable setting up another box on your network for file sharing, then this is the product for you. If you're a newbie who wants immediate setup and usage, then this product might be a little too complex for you.

On the plus side, the drive is relatively quiet, it IS a network drive, and the price is good. If you want to use the network access, then that's another plus. I'm running Vista and have a problem with the backup software, DesktopMirror. Some of the file system I backup is unreadable. And I'm talking about basic files, like Documents and basic data files. Some subdirectories just don't allow access. Other people seem to have the same problems. Secondly, the media server will serve up all your shared directories as one share. I had broken up my iTunes libraries into music, books, and other, separate libraries, but if I share them, they all appear as one, huge library. By the way, the first time you access it, it might take 10 minutes or more for all the files to appear (building an index?). After that it's pretty fast. So, overall, I'm glad I got this drive. It has become the solution for a common data bank for our family's iTunes and photos.

Unlike others here, I had a painless setup experience. The web interface is slow, but its quick as any if you just map the folders. Good security model built in. It has a gigabit ethernet connection and once I plugged it into a very inexpensive gigabit switch, data transfer is great.

I have two computers in the house on a wireless network. One computer is using XP and the other is using Vista. After reading some of the reviews I was a little worried about the ease of setup. I purchased the drive anyway since I have had some experience with Lacie and know their product is well made. To my surprise setup was simple and I was up and running in about 20 to 30 minutes! I am not sure why other people were having problems. Once I got the drive operational on my Vista machine, the XP machine recognized the drive without any additional installation. The only minor drawback is transferring large amounts of data at one time can be a bit slow. However I was transferring about 100 gigs from my computer over to the Lacie drive, which I don't plan on doing often.

Fairly straighforward installation. I copied my 60 Gigs of "My Document" files to my "personal library" in fairly short order; however, when I tried to copy those files over to a new computer I was setting up, it took an amazing long time (coming up on 48 hours). There is a sluggishness, too, in accessing individual files while on the network. But it does provide a way of sharing files in our small office network without setting up a PC to serve as the file server and having to leave it on all the time. A good trade-off. And I'm still amazed to get this capacity and functionality for the price!