Drive maker LaCie has added a “diskless” model to its five-drive RAID server, the Neil Poulton-designed 5big Network 2 enclosure. Now starting at $350, users can scale or configure their storage as desired, using RAID 0, 1, 5, 5+spare and 6 (hot-swappable). With burst speeds up to 70MB per second thanks to dual LAN ports, the unit is aimed at creative shops and small businesses for storage, serving and both Apple and Windows backup system compatibility.
Users can configure the unit with 1TB, 2TB or 3TB full-size hard drives in each of the five slots, and in RAID 5 or 6 configurations can replace drives on-the-fly if a failure should occur without turning the appliance off or interrupting normal operations. Files can be accessed remotely via FTP/SFTP and accessed and shared via iOS devices using the free MyNAS app. The 5big is compatible with Time Machine as well as Windows 7 Backup, and can also function as a print or BitTorrent server.
The diskless model lowers the price of the enclosure considerably over the cost of the pre-configured models, which started at $900 for five one-terabyte drives. A 10TB configuration is available for pre-order at $1,100, with a 15TB model also on pre-order for $1,700. The unit is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 or higher or Windows XP SP3 and features pairs of USB, Ethernet and eSATA ports.
