Unboxing the LaCie 5big Storage Server

LaCie have a file-sharing server designed for the small to medium size business – its called the 5big Storage Server and here is our unboxing.

Here is how LaCie describe the 5big Storage Server:

Professional File-Sharing Appliance for Small and Medium Businesses

Up to 10TB file sharing and iSCSI appliance for SMB and branch offices

Powered by Dual Core hyper-threaded 1.6GHz Intel^® Atom^™ processor

Compatible with Windows, Mac^®, and Linux

RAID protection, data deduplication, file remote replication, built-in back up engine

Full support for Mac including AFP, Time Machine^®, and Spotlight^®

The 5big Storage Server is a professional desktop file-sharing server for small to medium- sized office environments. It is designed to manage demanding file-sharing activities for 25 to 100 PC, Mac, or Linux workstations, even though it can manage more. The 5big Storage Server also offers seamless, transparent integration into any SMB IT infrastructure thanks to Active Directory support.

For a full range of accessibility, the 5big Storage Server supports major network protocols such as SMB, AFP, NFS, and iSCSI. Additionally, HTTP and FTP accessibility means that your data can be accessed from anywhere, and iSCSI support allows you to mount the 5big Storage Server’s shares as a local disk, bringing performance and flexibility for your business applications. You can also use the 5big Storage Server as a backup target for your PCs, Linux workstations, and even Macs since it is Time Machine compatible.

Powered by Microsoft Storage Server 2008 Standard Edition, it supports DFS-N, which aggregates shared folders from multiple servers, creating a single entry point to your data and simplifying network complexity. In addition, by automatically replicating data from one file server to several others, DFS-R makes 5big Storage Server the ideal solution for branch offices. It also supports Microsoft’s Bitlocker^® encryption to protect your data against theft. Additionally, you can take advantage of its dual Gigabit Ethernet ports to do link aggregation.

Thanks to its five RAID-protected disks, the 5big Storage Server offers up to a huge 10TB of internal capacity, and stored data are accessible even if one disk fails. Additionally, simply connect external hard drives through USB and eSATA connections to scale up capacity or use the integrated backup engine to protect the server’s data. The 5big Storage Server also features data deduplication to limit the ever-rocketing quantity of unstructured data generated by a high number of users. Despite its high performance, it includes an ultra-quiet Noctua fan, allowing you to place the product wherever you choose – including on a desktop.

Specifications

The model we have for review is the 5TB version, there is also a 10TB version.

What’s In The Box?

Along with the 5big Storage Server itself, which comes in a very fetching black cloth bag, you also get the usual assortment of cables, a power supply, software and manual.

The front of the server has a blue button / eye that is very striking where as the back of the server has the 5 drive bays and the various ports.

A closer look at the ports reveals 2 LAN ports, multiple USB ports and an eSata port.

Watch out for the UWHS hands-on review shortly, but in the mean time you can learn more about the 5big Storage Server on the LaCie Website.