With the increasing use of digital media in the home, and with families often having more than one PC, the idea of having all your photos, music and videos centralised is appealing. Running a whole PC to act as a server can be overkill and certainly uses more power than is necessary. With this in mind, LaCie has introduced the Ethernet Disk Mini, to handle multimedia, backup and drive imaging.
The paperback-sized, cast metal case houses a 500GB hard drive and the necessary drive electronics so it can be set up as a standalone network device, not tied to any particular PC. Simply cable it to a spare router port and plug in its power supply (untidily supplied as a separate black box) and the hardware installation is complete.
The software installation isn't quite as straightforward, as you're forced to register the device with the LaCie website and assign both username and password to it. You then have to go through and pick up an IP address from the DHCP server in your router. This worked without incident using our review sample and, with the software installed, you're ready to go.
The first thing you might want to do is mirror the important folders, such as My Documents, from each PC on your network. Software is provided for this and when you look at the drive itself you'll see folders personal to each machine, as well as those marked FamilyVideos, FamilyMusic, FamilyPhotos and FamilyDocuments. This is where you put material you want to share with anybody on the network. If you run the device with Windows Media Player, you can rip to the drive and play back media to any machine on the network.
The device supports Gigabit Ethernet, but even on a Fast Ethernet link running at 100Mbps, you can run several video or audio streams simultaneously. In addition, you can set up real-time backup to copy all new files from relevant folders on each PC, say, every five minutes. There's little reason to ever again lose files you've spent time creating.
The reason the installation software demands you register on LaCie's site is that it gives you direct access to your Ethernet Disk Mini from any PC, anywhere, as long as you can remember your username and password. Because the drive is a functioning network device in its own right, you can get to it and copy or save files across an Internet link.
LaCie - Ethernet Disk Mini features - Verdict
This high-capacity, solidly-made, quick device does all that most people at home would want of a network server, even though it's only billed as a disk drive. It backs up and mirrors data with a built-in scheduler and serves photos, music and video. It also provides remote access to files through a secure Web connection. Great value.
LaCie - Ethernet Disk Mini price
Buy LaCie Ethernet Disk Mini securely online at a bargain price
£140 inc. VAT
LaCie: 020 7017 0040
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