Hard Drive & Storage - News & Reviews

LaCie Biggest F800 (1TB)

Storage needs are high in case of both small companies and home users. That seems to be the idea behind the LaCie Biggest F800 line, which is ideal for small companies looking to back up crucial files or for audio and video professionals who need a large amount of space to manipulate large files.

The LaCie Biggest F800 RAID (redundant array of independent disks) drive consists of four hot-swappable 250GB ATA/IDE drives stacked vertically, all contained in a sturdy aluminum casing. Each drive has its own door on the front of the drive, which makes it easy to swap out an individual drive.

Merits:

• Total array capacity is 1TB
• Transfer rates for video and audio editing are faster
• the unit doesn’t require drivers, but before you can begin using it, you’ll need to initialize, partition, and format the drive
• includes a USB 2.0 cable, a FireWire 400 (1394a) to FireWire 800 (1394b) cable and an RS-232 cable
• It works with both Windows and Macintosh systems without drivers
• It has a burst data-read speeds of up to 80MB per second
• The drive supports RAID levels 0, 0+1, 5, and 5+hot spare

Demerits:

• Cooling fan is distractingly loud
• The manual comes on a CD, along with that it would be better if it had a printed user manual.
• Relatively expensive

Comments:

LaCie Biggest F800 delivers impressive transfer rates that could make it popular with those who need to regularly shuttle large files.