LaCie Ethernet Disk mini

A Review by Bill Trent

A little over a year ago I reviewed the Buffalo LinkStation NAS (network attached storage) file server. Since then a number of relatively inexpensive competitors have been released. Most are not particularly Mac friendly--offering only Windows SMB/CIF file sharing and not the Apple Filesharing Protocol (AFP) that we are familiar with. Recently LaCie released a new line of ethernet connected hard drives that offer both SMB and AFP.

The Ethernet Disk mini (EDmini) looks like one of the "standard" d2 desktop hard drives. But a look at the back side reveals a RJ45 (ethernet) socket in addition to a USB connector. There is also a grill for a fairly quiet cooling fan.

USB
The EDmini can be used as a USB 2.0 hard drive when it is not connected as a network drive. A special driver that prevents direct access must be installed to use the USB port. A user name and password is required before the files are accessible, preventing unauthorized users from using the drive by connecting directly to it and bypassing the normal network login.

The only problem that I ran into with USB usage is that there is no way to uninstall LaCie's special driver. Only by digging into their installer script could I determine what they put on my host computer (a kernel extension). Fortunately I was able to manually remove the file without any problem--but this isn't very user friendly.

There is another problem/limitation with using the EDmini as a USB drive. The disk is formatted as FAT32--a Windows file format. The Mac has no problem with using this format, but it limits the file size to 2Gbytes. This is fine unless you want to use the drive to store video. The formatting can be changed but it renders the USB connection useless.

Network Use Like the LinkStation, the EDmini uses a version of Linux as its operating system. Unlike the LinkStation, the EDmini runs almost up-to-date versions of samba (Windows SMB file sharing) and Netatalk (AFP file sharing). This means that long file names are supported. Any file name that I could create in OS X was accepted and used. The EDmini also uses Bonjour (aka Rendezvous) to advertise itself on your network, making it very easy to use with OS X. Finally the EDmini provides FTP access to the shared files.

Configuration
Since it is a network file server, there are few steps that need to be done to configure it. Out-of-the-box it uses DHCP to automatically set up its network interface (assuming you have some form of DHCP server on your network.) These settings can be changed manually by use of a web interface (works great with Safari) or an included management application. Bonjour makes it easy to locate with Safari.

The next step is to set up user accounts. There are only two access options--full read/write or read only. Each account requires a password and there is no provision for "guest" access. According to the specification, the EDmini supports an unlimited number of users, but I think the practical limit is probably less than ten.

Finally, large file support requires changing the disk format to ext3 (a native Linux format). This is easily done through the Disk configuration tab in the web interface. Once this is done the disk can no longer be used in USB mode (at least not on a Mac or PC.)

Everybody Shares
Unfortunately there is only one "share" with no way to create additional ones and no option to control or limit user access. This means that every user can see every file and if they have write privileges, can write to any file. This may be fine for home or personal use, but could be problem in a group environment.

This is not a limitation of the file server software itself. Netatalk and Samba can support hundreds of users, each with their own file space. The limitation is in LaCie's implementation of the user interface so there is hope that a future software update could enable multiple shares with unique owners.

Performance
The network transfer rate is about 200Mbyte/min. So it is no speed demon but adequate for most uses such as backing up files and streaming music files through iTunes. I haven't done much stress testing by having multiple users copy files at the same time, but I wouldn't expect any major problems other than reduced speed for each user.

Some Final Thoughts
If you need a Mac-friendly file server for your home or small office network, the LaCie EDmini is a good choice. The metal enclosure gives it the feel of quality that isn't often found in its price range. The use of a solid Linux OS with standard open source file sharing software should make it robust and trouble free.

LaCie Ethernet Disk mini 300Gbyte (available in 250, 300, 400, and 500Gbyte) List Price: $269 Street Price: $245