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The LaCie 2big quadruple interface professional 2-disk RAID delivers fast speed, large capacity and data security. With eSATA 3Gbits, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 & Hi-Speed USB 2.0, it provides complete universal compatibility with any PC or Mac. The easy-to-use 2big Quadra comes with two extractable, lockable and hot-swappable disks for a user-controlled solution. With four RAID levels, it meets your storage needs, whether it¿s security, capacity, speed or a combination. With burst transfer rates as high as 165MB/s** (eSATA), it¿s ideal for audio/video projects (DV and SD video playback or 2D/3D imaging). The sturdy heat sink metal design provides 60% more surface area for natural heat dissipation. The 2big Quadra comes with Genie Backup Manager Pro software with disaster recovery for Windows users and Intego Backup Manager Pro software with disaster recovery for Mac users. It also features Triple Power Management and the LaCie Shortcut Button, which can launch any application you choose in one push. Box Contents: LaCie 2big Quadra, eSATA-to-eSATA (3Gbits) cable, FireWire 800 (9-to-9 pin) cable, FireWire 400 (6-to-6 pin) cable, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable, Power supply kit, Quick Install Guide, LaCie Utilities and User Manual on CD-ROM. System Requirements: eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 or USB ports, Windows 2000/XP or Vista, Mac OS X 10.3 or higher, Minimum free disk space: 600 MB recommended
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 Works great! |
| Review Date: May 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: synthesize_me, |
| This hard drive is awesome! The previous comment states that the fan is loud and stays on even when idle, but for me that is not the case. Of course it's not exactly super quite, but for having 2 hard drives in one enclosure it is exactly what I would expect. Switching RAID modes is easy! The LaCie shortcut button app also works flawless. Thinking about buying another one. |
a high-class external storage
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| Review Date: December 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Nikolay V. Semenov, Denver, CO USA |
Pro's:
* Easy to switch between RAID modes.
* Presence of special "mixed" mode with combination of RAID1 and RAID0 partitions for people who need just small protected space and a lot of general unprotected storage.
* Aluminum heatsink body design + fan seem to help to keep the device cooled. The body doesn't feel warm, and the stream of air from the fan doesn't either, although I operate it in quite warm conditions.
* Bundled with pro versions of backup software for MacOS (Intego) and Windows (Genie). Haven't tried the Intego, but Genie is good.
* Comes with data transfer cables for all the available types of ports.
* Presence of power saving mode of operation.
* Just looks great and sturdy.
* I like the 3-year default warranty, because my previous external HDD (from WD) broke down just after the 1-year warranty expired. I hope the 3-year one means it was built to live at least about that time.
Con's:
* The weblinks that are embedded in the backup software for Windows don't work, so you'll have to search them online yourself. (the website is [...])
* eSATA cable that comes with the drive is rather short (about 1m).
* Printed manual is very short and covers only the two basic operations - installation and changing of the RAID mode. It wasn't a problem for me, but for other people it might be confusing if they get the package, open it, change the RAID mode to "safe" (RAID1), connect to the computer - and the drive won't show up, because you need to initialize it and format. If you encounter this situation - online or CD manual covers the steps you need to take.
Other thoughts:
* Fan is not completely silent, although I wouldn't call it loud at all.
* The tradeoff for having aluminum sturdy+heatsinking design is the weight of the device. Two hard drives also add to it, making it quite significant. But it is to be expected.
* The manufacturer's cardboard box was slightly damaged (a crack hole in the surface), although the shipping cardboard box wasn't at all. I haven't noticed any damage on the device, but it is just something to leave a note about.
Resume: I did quite a bit of research of similar devices available for purchase, and I think this one is the best option - warranty, interfaces, convenience, design, etc. Although it costs slightly more than some others, but it appears to be worth it. |
Exactly what I wanted
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| Review Date: July 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Larry Stone, Roselle, IL, USA |
I bought this (2x500GB version) to use as a RAID-1 (mirrored) startup disk for a PowerPC Macintosh. Since I use the system as a server (including mail server), reliability is a must. This works exactly as I wanted with the mirroring completely transparent to the computer - it just appears as a single disk of the size of one of the drives and can be formatted and partitioned by Disk Utility the same as any other disk device. No RAID setup is required within OS X which means I can just take it to another system should the current system fail.
As for noise, it's quieter than some other external drives I have. Yes, when it's busy (such as when backups are running - the system is also my backup server), the fan speeds up and it gets a little noisier but most of the time, it has added almost no additional noise. |
Terrific Design and Performance
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| Review Date: September 14, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Boutilier, Thornton, CO United States |
I purchased this LaCie Quadra 2 to replace a WD Mybook RAID unit. I did not like the WD unit because its did not seem to be very well built, did not feature drive status lights to tell you about a failed drive, its design made it extremely difficult to replace a failed drive, and its RAID settings required a driver to change on the target machine (which had issues on some MACs).
The LaCie case is all metal, very sturdy, and well finned for heat dissipation.
The Drives have status indicators and are easily and quickly swappable (hot swappable in some RAID modes)
The fan is normally quiet but can be fairly loud on occasion
The unit features ON, OFF, and Auto modes (auto waking/sleeping the drives as use permits)
The RAID mode is configurable within the unit itself and is transparent to whatever you hook it up to (other than its size looks different and will need reformatting when you change RAID mode).
The performance of this unit is FAR faster than the WD unit
I took this unit out of the box, switched its RAID mode, connected it to a MAC to reformat it, then plugged it into my Airport Extreme to share it on my LAN and WAN. The process took me about 15 minutes and the unit has performed flawlessly in AUTO mode on my Airport EXtreme for the past month.
My only worry was when I investigated LaCie's "advance replacement" option for this drive. They wanted almost half the cost of the drive for it. I may purchase a second unit for a spare just in case (that gives me two spare drives as well).
Anyway, so far I am extremely pleased. |
Great RAID drive
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| Review Date: August 4, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Me, Seattle, WA USA |
I just got this last week. Setup was really easy; I put it into RAID 1 mode for mirroring. This system sure beats my setup on other drives (for those, I use SuperDuper to mirror two sets of two external drives each night). This makes it much more convenient to do it right out of the box, especially with the hot-swappable drives in case one fails.
Unlike other reviewers, I haven't noticed it to be very loud at all. Perhaps they have a defective drive. If so, it should be easy to replace it from the retailer you bought it from.
Also, I have this drive installed on the LaCie Desk Rack for d2 Hard Drives along with two other drives. This helps to save a lot of desk space.
If a drive fails in the future and I need to replace it/have it rebuild it, I will update my review to let you know how well (or poor) it worked, but I have high hopes! |
LaCie never fails.
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| Review Date: September 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Anders, Marina Del Rey, CA USA |
I currently have a 1TB and a 2TB for photos and music and they have never failed me.
My Mac is on all the time along with these RAIDs and I trust LaCie over other known companies, who have cheap prices, but also cheap products.
The main reason why I have used these for over a year, it because I have a 250g HD (the now classic Porsche HD) that is years old and still as reliable as the day I bought it.
Before you get a DROBO, check out one of these. If you are serious about back up's, you have to consider LaCie and remember to add SuperDuper (the awesome back up software) if you are on a Mac.
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What fan noise?
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| Review Date: October 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: E. Hunter, Atlanta, GA USA |
| I just purchased this drive with some trepidation, given the comments about fan noise in other reviews. All I can say is that LaCie must have done something to change the design. My drive is remarkably quiet - very little fan noise, mostly a low hum. The included instructions for set-up and changing RAID settings are a bit obscure, but since the outside of the box describes the attributes of each RAID setting, it was pretty straightforward to figure out which setting was which. I changed the drive to RAID 1 (defined as Safe), reformatted using Disk Utility and had it starting a Time Machine backup in about 15 min. Overall I am very satisfied to-date. |
LaCie 2TB 2Big
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| Review Date: November 22, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Robert Stearns, Frankenmuth, MI USA |
| Very nice product. I am not a computer wiz and was able to handle the set-up without a problem. Instructions are very clear. It comes pre-formatted for MAC, so I did have to reformat it for PC, and it did take several hours, but again, not a problem. The unit is very quiet and decent looking. My only complaint if I had to look at it all the time would be the 2Big Blue Light - it is very bright and always on. There are many options for transfering data, and I have the slowest (USB). Even so, I was suprised how quickly 36+ Gig of RAW file format photos transferred (minutes). I also changed the RAID setting (again quite easily) to backup the data so that the two seperate 1TB drives received parallel data (i.e., duplicate 1TB backups). I now have lots of space and double backup. No doubt this is probably overkill for the average Joe, but very nice and well worth the expense. |
Great solution for secure data storage
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| Review Date: February 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Doc Holliday, Atlanta, GA |
| I love the Lacie 2big Quadra 3TB hard drive. I purchased this drive to store my iPhoto library which is currently over 300gb and growing (I'm scanning all the old family photos). I recently had a hard drive crash with my library and fortunately had it backed up--otherwise it would have been a disaster. This hard drive is a great solution. I set it to "SAFE" mode so my 3TB drive is actually running as a 1.5TB, with the two internal disks mirroring one another. If one crashes, the other is still safe. I will continue to back up on some other hard drives as well for good measure, but this gives me a lot of peace of mind. It was very easy to install and get up and running. I also purchased an eSata adaptor for my MacBook Pro and I was amazed at how fast I was able to transfer the 300 gb library! Love it, love it, love it! Other reviews have complained that this drive is noisy. I dont agree. Yes, you can hear it running, but it's quiet and does not interfere with TV viewing in the same room beside my chair. It runs cool. Others complained about not liking the big, blue light on the front. I dont know--I think it's kinda cool looking. The build is good, seems solid. Has nice rubber pads on the bottom that act as shock absorbers if it is knocked a bit. All in all, a very good drive and I highly recommend. |
All the space I'll need and not that loud!
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| Review Date: April 19, 2010 |
| Reviewer: LawyerMom, USA |
All hard drives are a roll of the dice. I wanted to buy a mirror box because I'm paranoid, and I had heard that there was an increased risk of double failure with pre-rolled boxes like this (and my earlier RAID box). I didn't want to save a few $$$ by rolling my own RAID box because I have neither the time nor the technical expertise. I also didn't want to go with a Drobo because A) it's a lot of money to spend and to have to buy additional drives, and B) there's still a risk of single point failure in the Drobo itself. In the end, I went with LaCie because of what I perceived as a reputation for better boxes with more reliable drives, spent the premium, crossed my fingers, kept the packaging, and hoped for the best.
Four months later, I've exhaled and tossed the packaging. The drive is sturdy, rock solid, plays well with my computers, and is actually not as loud as some reviews I've read seem to suggest! |
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