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LaCie 301269U Ethernet Disk Mini Home Edition 500 GB Network Attached Storage Hard Drive
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| List Price: | $152.99 |
| Price: | $119.99 |
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from and sold by J&R Music and Computer World
16 new or used available from $89.00
Average customer review:
Product Description
With the Ethernet Disk mini - Home Edition, your household's digital library becomes accessible from inside and outside your home in just a few minutes. The LaCie media portal, HomeLaCie.com, enables access from anywhere for uploading or downloading files to your Ethernet Disk mini at home. Simply drag & drop your photos, for example, and make them accessible to your relatives and friends via simple email invitations. The pre-defined folders and personal shares enable easy management of your family's digital library. Listen to your music from your networked sound system with the embedded iTunes server. The Ethernet Disk mini - Home Edition provides peace of mind by automatically backing up all of your home computers at your convenience.e.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #10866 in Consumer Electronics
- Size: 500 GB
- Brand: LaCie
- Model: 301269U
- Platform: Windows
- Format: CD
- Dimensions: 6.60" h x 9.00" w x 8.90" l, 6.00 pounds
- Hard Disk: 500GB
Features
- 500 GB network storage device lets you share data on your home network and via the Internet
- Compatible with uPnP AV, Windows Connect, and DLNA-certified devices
- Built-in internal iTunes server lets you stream music to any networked PC
- Backed by a 3-year warranty
- Measures 1.7 x 6.3 x 6.8 inches (WxHxD)
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Product Description
With the LaCie 301269U Ethernet Disk Mini Home Edition 500 GB Network Storage, you can make your digital library accessible to anyone in the world in just a few minutes. This stylish network storage and personal media server not only lets you back up and share your files with your home network users, but it also allows you to access your files remotely through the Internet.
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 The stylish aluminum case looks at home in your home or office. View larger. |
 The drive features an elegant design with USB 2.0 and Ethernet ports. View larger. |
The LaCie Ethernet Disk Mini Home provides an ample 500 GB of storage for your digital media files and lets you share them with anyone in the world. Through LaCie's media portal, HomeLaCie.com, you can provide permissions to friends and family to access photos, music or any other file you've stored on the drive.
The Mini Home offers you a great way to share your vacation and travel experiences. You can simply drag and drop photos, music files and even videos from any location in the world to your Mini Home, and within minutes your friends and family can easily access them. They simply log on to your LaCie Media Portal to access your customized menu that will direct them to the shared files.
Stream Your Videos and Music
While having immediate access to your videos and music is a great thing, your desktop computers and laptops aren't necessarily the best way to play your media. The Mini Home features built-in media server capabilities that let you stream music to your audio system and videos and photos to your TV. It's also compatible with a wide range of uPnP AV, Windows Connect, and DLNA certified devices, as well as game stations like PS3 or Xbox 360, so you're not beholden to your computer to enjoy your media. But for times when you need to be at your computer, the drive also includes an internal iTunes server that allows you to stream your music to any networked PC or Mac.
More than a media player, though, the Mini Home is an ideal way to keep digital photos safe and organized. With the included back-up software for Windows and Mac OS X, you can quickly and easily back up your home computers to your Mini Home, giving you and your family extra peace of mind. With its 500 GB of capacity, the drive can store up to 500,000 photos, 125,000 songs or 500 movies. From any networked computer you can edit your photos or video, and synchronizing your music library between your laptop and the Mini Home is easy. So whether you're at home or traveling, your music library will always be available to you.
 UPnP streaming lets you easily stream digital media on the Ethernet Disk to any UPnP player. View larger. |
The drive measures 1.7 x 6.3 x 6.8 inches (WxHxD) and is backed by LaCie's 3-year warranty.
About LaCie
Established in France in 1989, LaCie is a leading manufacturer of computer peripherals for Windows, Apple and Linux users. With offices and plants in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, Singapore and Hong Kong, LaCie develops and manufactures external storage solutions and color monitors that help professionals and everyday people easily manage their digital lives. LaCie has differentiated its products through original designs and leading-edge technology.
What's in the Box
LaCie Ethernet Disk Mini Home Edition, Ethernet cable, external power supply, drive stand for upright use, CD-ROM with Easy Install, and quick install guide.
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Customer Reviews
Works Well
First, be aware that the "Ethernet Disk Mini Home Edition" and "Etherenet Disk Mini" are different products with different features. This information is related to the Home Edition. It works very well for me, although a little slow when accessed through the web interface.
After opening the necessary ports in my DSL router, I had to reboot the whole setup (edminihome, dsl, router) a few times before things worked. Not sure if that is needed, or if it just took some time for things to propagate through.
When you ask it to share a folder through the internet, it emails the receipient an URL pointing to the shared folder. The URL contains a long random string (I guess it's some kind of a cookie), but no password is required to sign in. So anybody who gets a copy of that URL (eg. if the email is forwarded to someone else) will have access to the shared folder, and I don't see a way to log who are actually accessing the files.
You can plug in multiple USB drives into the edminihome using a usb hub, and they are all visible to the edminihome. However you can select only one of them at any time to serve as MySafe. The remaining USB drives will be dormant. When selected as MySafe, the USB drive can be accessed through the web interface, but cannot be mounted as a network drive (FamilyLibrary, MyLibrary, and MyBackup can each be mounted as a network drive).
Good consumer NAS, but no speed demon to be sure
I worked in IT in the past, so I wouldn't consider myself new to setting up networks or NAS devices. I have set lots of them up, this LaCie Home Edition wasn't too difficult, but I can see how some people would be frustrated too as its not very well thought out. That said, I have got it delivering files to a Windows XP desktop, Windows Vista laptop and a MacBook Pro. As per usual, the Mac is the easiest, their is something called the HipServ which shows up in your shared devices and then you click on Family Library or My Library. I have set it up with a static IP address and have shortcuts to folders on the NAS, so it looks and works as if it were the same as an internal drive.
Bad news though, it is slow, even by consumer NAS standards. Using my 802.11n network, I get 4.5MBps and through a gig LAN connection I get about 8MBps. Silver lining, its a stable connection so you can start copying things and come back to it later - much later. I threw about 350GB on it immediately off an older USB drive that was dying and it took over 24hours. Talking of USB, forget the USB port on the back for adding additional storage, its just for backing up what you have on the NAS which is helpful, but it would be nice to use it for other things too.
I have also connected to it whilst away from home and it works well enough once you've set everything up - again though, helps to know a little about network setup. Bad news is that its very slow, like topping out at 20kbps so downloading a movie or something is going to take a long time. OK to use for grabbing a Word file or something that you forgot to transfer to your laptop before leaving on a business trip!
You get what you pay for, for the money its not a bad NAS. It does what it says and its fast enough to stream movies/music - standard def at least. It is relatively inexpensive and fast enough for backups from multiple computers - as long as you stagger the backups. To give an idea of speed, its roughly 25-35% as fast as a typical USB2 drive.
I'm Impressed
yes, it was a pain to setup - but I'm very impressed with what its letting me do right now... Access my entire iTunes library wirelessly over my Airport Express (over multiple machines at once!) For just over $100?! Wow.
