LaCie Biggest FW800 (2 terabyte

• The good: Four connection
  options: USB 2.0, FW400, FW800, and serial/RS-232; front-mounted LCD
  advises you of the status of the drive; supports several RAID arrays;
  supports a variety of file systems; drives are hot-swappable.
• The bad: To
  hot-swap drives, you'll need to purchase LaCie's preinstalled drive
  trays; no backup utility; has fewer features and is more expensive than
  comparably sized NAS drives with RAID arrays.
• The bottom line: If
  you need the fast throughput of a locally connected RAID array, the
  LaCie Biggest FW800 is a good choice, but if you don't mind the slower
  transfer speeds of Ethernet, a NAS RAID array can be less expensive and
  offer more features.

  
  The LaCie Biggest FW800 is a four-bay external SATA RAID drive that
  supports several levels of RAID, hot-swapping, and a variety of
  connection options. It comes in two capacities: 1 terabyte ($1,050) and
  2 terabytes ($1,530). Connection options include USB 2.0, FireWire 800,
  and FireWire 400 (using a FW400-to-FW800 cable). The included
  documentation walks you through the simple setup procedure, which does
  not require you to install drivers. A two-line text LCD sits on the
  front of the drive and relays information such as the drive's status
  and RAID level. Two LEDs on each drive bay blink or glow different
  colors, depending on the drive's status. The Biggest FW800 supports
  HFS+, FAT32, UNIX, and NTFS file systems, which makes it appropriate
  for various combinations of operating systems. The only major feature
  the FW800 lacks is a backup utility, which is odd, considering LaCie
  does have a proprietary utility in the form of the LaCie 1-Click Backup
  for Windows PCs and SilverKeeper for Macs.
  

  Most multidisk hard drives of this size and price are
  network-attached storage drives, making the non-networked Biggest FW800
  an expensive option by comparison. For example, the Buffalo Terastation Home Server
  offers 1 terabyte storage, a media server and print server, and
  external USB ports, plus a gigabit Ethernet connection--for $900. Our
  inclination is to spend the money on a NAS drive that offers more
  features, but LaCie is targeting the professional audio/video producer
  market that needs local backup and fast throughput for quickly moving
  large AV files. (Fast Ethernet has a maximum throughput of 100Mbps,
  while USB 2.0's theoretical max throughput is 480Mbps and FireWire
  400's max is 400Mbps.)

  
  Almost all the RAID-capable drives we've tested and reviewed are NAS
  drives, so we can't make direct comparisons with the LaCie FW800. We
  tested the drive in its default RAID 5 mode (quick explanation here
  Using the USB 2.0 connection, the drive wrote our 10GB test folder in
  25 minutes, 11 seconds, or 6.78Mbps. It read back the same folder in 9
  minutes, 48 seconds, or 17.42Mbps. The FireWire 400 results were very
  similar: 25 minutes, 27 seconds to write (6.71Mbps) and 9 minutes, 8
  seconds (18.71Mbps) to read. These numbers are slower than those for
  non-RAID hard drives, but that's to be expected. RAID 5 implementations
  are also slower than RAID 0 or RAID 1 arrays.
  

  Although the FW800 is advertised as hot-swappable, LaCie
  recommends not replacing the hard disk drive yourself in case of
  failure (that is, separating the hard drive from the drawer that slides
  into the drive bay); doing so will void the warranty. LaCie does sell
  replacement preinstalled hard disks, i.e., the hard drive plus the
  drive drawer, that you can hot swap on your own. The 250GB version
  costs $200, and the 500GB version costs $350. The other alternative is
  to contact LaCie customer support. This setup isn't nearly as
  convenient as that of the Drobo,
  which allows you to install naked hard disks directly into the
  enclosure. Drobo also offers data protection using some of the same
  techniques RAID uses, but includes some proprietary schemes as well. We
  found Drobo simple to use, but it has limited connection options. So
  far, only a USB 2.0 connection is available, though Data Robotics is
  working on an Ethernet version. Also, Drobo is on the expensive side:
  $500 without drives.
  

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Distributed by Hasan Shrek, independence blogger. Also run online business ,internet marketing solution , online store script .
Beside he is writing some others blogs for notebook computer , computer training , computer software and personal computer

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