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amazon LaCie 2big RAID reviews

Designed for videographers and creative professionals who regularly process tons of data, the LaCie 2big RAID combines two high-capacity, instantly replaceable hard drives with multiple settings to offers maximum flexibility and data protection.

Targeted squarely at professionals like videographers, photographers, and musicians who generate mountains of data daily, the LaCie 2big RAID external hard drive earns kudos for design excellence in both looks and features. The sleek gray and black case houses two spinning hard drives — 4TB each in the 8TB ($469) version we tested. You can configure 2big to have your computer treat it as two separate 4TB drives, as a single 8TB drive with faster performance, or as a 4TB drive automatically cloned or backed up to a second drive. With a particularly great touch (you may never need it but will appreciate it if you do), you can hot-swap the hard drive, easily sliding the old drive out and the new drive-in with no effort tool without turning off the LaCie device.

Desktop RAID or not

RAID 2big is part of LaCie’s 2big family of professional dual-bay RAID hard drives, along with the 2big Dock Thunderbolt 3. Of the two, it’s less expensive for the capacities to match, as it’s tightly focused on memory. RAID two bays rather than double as a desktop dock with other extras.

In addition to the 8TB version we tested, RAID 2big is also available in 4TB ($369) and 16TB ($679) capacities. All three models have the same case size, which looks like an artfully stylized fat brick measuring 3.5 x 4.6 x 8.5 inches (HWD). The case is mostly dark gray, with two small black panels covering the two front compartments. The covers are hinged on the left side and rotate partially open to free up the hard drives in each bay.

Also, on the front is a large blue status light. The power connector, power switch, and USB 3.1 Type-A port are on the back. Weight varies with internal drives; My 8TB test unit weighs 6.2 pounds. Inside each box is a pair of Seagate IronWolf Pro 7,200 rpm enterprise-grade hard drives.

You can connect the hard drive to your computer and get going, but the downloadable LaCie app lets you set it for any of the three modes. The factory setting is RAID 0, or stripe mode, which makes dual hard drives look like a single hard drive for your computer and boosts performance over using either hard drive. For example, when writing to disk in stripe mode, RAID 2big can write data on both hard drives instead of writing to one and frequently wait until the hard drive is ready for more data.

Put the hard drive in RAID 1 or mirror mode, and your computer will see it as a single hard drive with half the storage capacity. You will also see slower performance, as your computer will only write to one hard drive. But your data will be safer because the second drive will automatically mirror the first drive. That has particular appeal to creative professionals such as videographers or musicians, who often capture moments that can never be accurately reproduced. The third option is JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) mode. Select this, and your PC will see 2big as two separate, independent drives.

The toolkit, RAID Manager, and More Details

The factory RAID 2big uses the exFAT format so that it will work with both PCs and Macs. However, unless you plan to move it between different types of computers, you should consider formatting it in your operating system’s native format – most likely NTFS for Windows or HFS+ for Mac – for better performance. Of course, first, don’t reformat without copying any files on the hard drive to another storage device, so you can copy them back when you’re done.

The hard drive comes with a power block with interchangeable plug modules for various electrical outlets and two USB cables, one with a USB Type-A connector on the computer end and another with a USB Type C plug. There are also downloadable LaCie RAID Manager and LaCie Toolkit utilities. A one-month trial of Adobe’s Creative Cloud All Apps plan, five years of Data Rescue data recovery, a five-year warranty — one of the benefits is to use enterprise-class hard drives.

The RAID Manager application makes it easy to switch between RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD modes. If you’re going to change settings, keep in mind that this process involves reformatting, so here again, you’ll need to copy any files on the disk elsewhere, so you don’t lose them. Just like the equivalent feature in the LaCie Rugged RAID Shuttle, this app works hard to keep you from accidentally losing your files, first warning you that they will be deleted and then forcing you to press the power button before it does anything. If you don’t press the button within 30 seconds, it will un-format it again, so you can’t accidentally start it up later when you want to power it off.

The Toolkit software provides most of the same utilities for RAID 2big as LaCie provides for Shuttle RAID Rugged. The Mirror option allows you to create folders on your LaCie hard drive, and the hard drive on your computer is automatically synced when you move files to or delete them from either. The Backup and Restore tool, available only for Windows, allows you to define full or partial backups to run continuously, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or just once.

One option from the RAID Imaging Toolkit that is missing here is Seagate Secure, as it requires the hard drive to self-encrypt, a feature that RAID 2big lacks. Also, in the security category, while the Kensington lock slot allows you to tie up a RAID 2big with a cable, simply holding onto the case. Anyone can easily slide out the hard drive and take away all your data. For obvious reasons, this is against using RAID 2big in any location where you’re concerned about potential theft.

A huge plus is the quiet cooling fan, which adjusts speed based on the temperature inside the device. It may not have hit top speed in my tests, but with the hard drive resting by my left elbow on the extension on the table, it was low enough that I didn’t hear it in a quiet room.

Test: Solid performance without surprises

Finding the right hard drives for performance comparisons is a bit of a challenge, as “desktop two-drive RAID arrays” is a remarkably narrow category. I extended my search to include the LaCie Rugged RAID Shuttle, a hard drive designed for field use. Akitio Thunder3 RAID Station, which we tested with a pair of 256GB SanDisk U100 solid-state drives installed. The Mac-formatted version of the Promise Pegasus3 R4, a four-drive array tested at default RAID 5 settings — a RAID instance that distributes data across all four drives in a way that keeps all your data at bay accessible even if one drive fails. All other hard drives are set to RAID 0, which is the default in each case and gives the fastest performance.

Our benchmark tests simulate typical operations on both PC and Mac. We used our standard Intel X299-based memory test for the PC tests, which is equipped with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port hosted on the motherboard. For our Mac tests, we used a 2016 MacBook Pro and tested the hard drive through one of the combo Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports using the included USB-C cable.

The results of the comparison are completely predictable. The Thunder3 RAID station with SSDs is faster than the rest of the field; The Pegasus3 R4 with its 7,200-rpm four-drive array under RAID 5 came in second; LaCie 2big RAID, also with 7,200 rpm drives, came in third; and the LaCie Rugged RAID Shuttle, with its 5,400 rpm hard drives, consistently passed every test. Finally, RAID 2big delivers appropriately fast performance, no surprise.

PCMark 7 Secondary Memory Test

The PCMark 7 Sub-Memory sub-test uses simulated workloads, including Windows Defender scans, video editing tasks, and application launches t