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

I purchased this drive to have a shared storage device for our computers, and to share media (music and movies) within our house.

It does what it's supposed to do to a point. If you are running windows, and have their software installed, it seems to be easy enough to use. If you have a Mac, the interface seems to struggle. I have a Linux machine, and the web interface doesn't really work so good, even though it runs on a Linux platform itself. The web interface is basically annoying and somewhat sluggish, walking you through folders and files. What makes me dislike it, is that to get files on to the drive, you have to use a Java applet, which failed under Linux and didn't work right under Mac either. So at that point, you had to drop in files one at a time, which is unnacceptable considering I had some 10,000 music files to load in. Gaining access through a network connection, and using a 'backdoor' approach, you can easily drag in piles of folders and files - but this would be confusing to novice users. I was able to get my files in there no problem that way through both computers, but again, this would not be easy for someone who did not know how to do it. Once files are stored in the drive, the interface again only allows you to 'download' files back out one at a time, unless you use the same approach. So sharing is greatly hindered through the web interface that they expect you to use.

The other part thing that I find confusing, is that in order to log in through the web page, you have to go to Lacie's website, then log in which portals you back to the drive that is sitting under you desk. This would be fine for logging in from the office, etc..., but it's kind of dumb if you're at home and the drive is a few feet away. Ultimately what bugged me the most was how much it was doing on it's own. I watched it when no one was logged in, and none of our home computers were on. It was constantly sending/receiving info on the internet, and writing some kind of info to the drive - not sure if it was logging info or time or what, it does not automatically update or anything like that. If I have a locally shared drive on my home network and I'm not using it, I would expect it to be idle. Last night it was frequently using the internet connection, and you could hear the drive writing, which to me doesn't make any sense.

Overall, it's a nice compact drive, great price, large storage capacity, and really seems to be simple enough to operate from a Windows platform. If you're on Mac or Linux, and know how to connect to 'remote' servers on your network, you can add/remove files easily. Otherwise, the web logging (or whatever it was doing), the flashy user interface, and the random login through [...] made this drive kind of sloppy and slow. I'm not overall against it as a storage device, I would just like something a lot simpler from a technical standpoint.

I bought a slew of these to use for backing up large design files. I've experienced a 100% failure rate inside of 2 years, with most of the drives I purchased failing within 6 months. Someone should go to jail for how bad these LaCie drives are. You might as well take a magnet to your data if you buy anything with their name on it, that's how well protected it will be.

Heed the warnings you see from many disappointed consumers. I saw them before I bought this, but thought, "Ah, I'm a pretty savvy home computer user and the price can't be beat. People are probably just belly aching."

Well, it's really not worth the hassle to save a few bucks. I've sent it back to LaCie for repair TWICE, and I continue to have problems with the drive unexpectedly disappearing from the network and not reappearing after many reboots. They've also sent me THREE replacement power supplies, and have refused to refund my money. The drive will work for a week, a month, two weeks, but never fails to drop off the network and not return after some time.

In their defense, they've been timely and responsive to my support tickets. But I've requested a refund twice and they're still electing to have it repaired.
Don't trust your data to this unreliable product. Pony up $200 for something reliable.
...Brian in Milwaukee

This was hard to setup initially, I have a good knowledge of networks and working on them, but setting up this drive wasn't a simple matter of knowing networks, it takes some luck, the installation is anything but streamlined, but once you get it figured out and get everything working, it's a great piece of equipment, I bought it for $116 and saw it a few days later at a store for $190, a steal for a TB network drive, just make sure you're pretty patient and don't get yourself thinking this is plug and play, expect 30-60 minutes to have the thing up and running

the speed is okay, not amazing, especially with multiple large files, but once you have your data on the drive it accesses quite well, the web interface is cool, but tricky at times...not a whole lot about this drive is self explanitory like you'd think.

Unfortunately, I have also had issues with this drive, which have yet to be resolved. Installation failure, and the drive is unusable. No doubt in the spirit of corporate cost cutting, there is no phone tech support available, so I placed an email ticket. This will, of course, take time ( I want it NOW!). This is quite frustrating. I tried installing this on four (4!) different comps and two operating systems, nothing. This stuff should be tested and work, period. The low price is tempting, but I just don't think the angst is worth it. If you are in a hurry to get things up and running, you may find yourself stuck with issues which could be particularly vexing.