LaCie 2Big Network

Product Survey: NAS

The LaCie 2Big Network is a NAS server with two hard drives. It comes in four different versions, with capacities of 1, 2, 3 or 4 TB. It has more options than the Network Space, but that's still not enough to rival the big names in this field. It's mainly aimed at people who wanted a shared storage solution, and doesn't offer much else. As usual, LaCie has produced an enclosure that's impeccably crafted, with the whole thing finished in aluminium to improve the efficiency of heat dissipation. There's a large round button at the front that automatically backs up USB peripherals. The 2Big Network supports three different network protocols for networks running Windows (SMB/CIFS), Mac (AFP) and Linux (NFS). You can also access your files remotely using an FTP client or via a browser, where you can also encrypt your data and send it over a secure HTTPS connection. This is a NAS system that's beginning to show its age, and that can be seen when you examine its data transfer rates. Over USB, the speeds are quite simply disastrous. On average, the 2Big Network managed 3.0 and 3.1 MB/s respectively for writing and reading from our external hard drive.