LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt and windows 7

[krravi]

Originally Posted by kgallag1

I don't think it'll work. You'd have no way to get the driver to run so you wouldn't be able to load the software RAID. I'm not certain you'd be able to install Windows 7 onto a Windows software raid either. Then again, I've only tried it on SATA raid.

Remember, any RAID related functionality of the Little Big Disk is provided entirely in software outside the unit.

Exactly, so why not eliminate the RAID business completely? Use the two disks in the external drives as just that? I am curious because Lacie says you can use their drives as JBOD without RAID. All the googling isn't coming up with anyone having done that, yet.

[g4cube]

It's quite easy to use Disk Utility to "undo" the RAID configuration, and use the Little Big Disk or the 2big as two independent drives. You can format and partition each of the drives any way you wish to.

[krravi]

Originally Posted by g4cube

It's quite easy to use Disk Utility to "undo" the RAID configuration, and use the Little Big Disk or the 2big as two independent drives. You can format and partition each of the drives any way you wish to.

Cool. So once you do that you won't run into any RAID issues while doing bootcamp in Windows?

[g4cube]

Originally Posted by krravi

Cool. So once you do that you won't run into any RAID issues while doing bootcamp in Windows?

The only real issue is that Windows knows nothing about Thunderbolt. Apple's bootcamp support is controlling access to the drive.

[krravi]

Originally Posted by g4cube

The only real issue is that Windows knows nothing about Thunderbolt. Apple's bootcamp support is controlling access to the drive.

I see. Well I am trying to eliminate all issues with installing Windows on the thunderbolt. With RAID out of the way, lets see how this works.

[mawyatt]

Originally Posted by krravi

I see. Well I am trying to eliminate all issues with installing Windows on the thunderbolt. With RAID out of the way, lets see how this works.

I have been looking at the Lacie Thunderbolt drives from MacMall as well. I am not interested in Windows...new to Mac and doing my best to get as far away as possible!!

Don't want to steal this thread, but would like your opinion the Thunderbolt Drive from Lacie. I am thinking of using it with Time Machine as RAID or using it as my main external drive and using another USB 3 drive for Time Machine. Not sure which is the best way to go.

Thanks

[krravi]

I wish I could do the same, but I have to still use Windows and I am eliminating all the clutter from my desk (laptop,kvm switch,desktop) and just have one powerful iMac to do it all.

I haven't received the Lacie yet. Once I do, I will post my experience. Some video's I watched in Youtube complain about excess fan noise. I hope that's not the case with mine.

Let's see how it works out.

[milk242]

Shouldn't there be drivers for thunderbolt from intel? Motherboards by gigabyte have thunderbolt ports now. You should be able to use it on either OS without raid by formatting it exFat.

[krravi]

Originally Posted by milk242

Shouldn't there be drivers for thunderbolt from intel? Motherboards by gigabyte have thunderbolt ports now. You should be able to use it on either OS without raid by formatting it exFat.

I think Apple slipstreams the thunderbolt drivers when you install Windows through Bootcamp. So thunderbolt drivers are not an issue. Its how to get windows 7 booting off a external drive without doing partition trickery as mentioned in other threads.

[milk242]

Originally Posted by krravi

I think Apple slipstreams the thunderbolt drivers when you install Windows through Bootcamp. So thunderbolt drivers are not an issue. Its how to get windows 7 booting off a external drive without doing partition trickery as mentioned in other threads.

Ohh okay, maybe someone should try creating an image of their boot camp partition and image the LaCie drive.

[krravi]

Originally Posted by milk242

Ohh okay, maybe someone should try creating an image of their boot camp partition and image the LaCie drive.

That seems to be the option to do it....

Just wondering what software there are to do a clone of a windows partition...

[milk242]

Originally Posted by krravi

That seems to be the option to do it....

Just wondering what software there are to do a clone of a windows partition...

Winclone

[krravi]

Originally Posted by arby1kenobi

hi all

the lacie little big disk will work in bootcamped windows 7

you need

www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/pro/

this allow mounting of apple raid volumes

works a treat

just got it working and doing a little dance :P

It just dawned on me that you were accessing RAID drives created in Mac in Windows using that software.

I was under the impression you installed Windows on your external RAID Drive...

[krravi]

Originally Posted by mawyatt

I have been looking at the Lacie Thunderbolt drives from MacMall as well. I am not interested in Windows...new to Mac and doing my best to get as far away as possible!!

Don't want to steal this thread, but would like your opinion the Thunderbolt Drive from Lacie. I am thinking of using it with Time Machine as RAID or using it as my main external drive and using another USB 3 drive for Time Machine. Not sure which is the best way to go.

Thanks

Well I got my iMac yesterday and just hooked up my Refub Lacie 4TB thunderbolt drive.

Here is what I found.

The box came in a non brand packaging, which is fine. I opened the items inside and I could see something shaking inside the drive. So I pulled both the drives out of their bay and shook the unit and a small nut and bolt came tumbling out...

I guess when the techs were refurbishing it they must have forgot to tighten one of the screws? Anyways I was relieved that they came out!!! Imagine those things shorting the hard drives circuit board !!! I have safely stored the loose screw and nut. Will inform Lacie of this so they can fix this going forward.

So then I hooked up the Lacie, praying that It doesnt sound like a jet engine on a tarmac....

Luckily, the guy runs very smooth and quite. After playing with the RAID configuration, where once I had it in RAID and the other times NOT in RAID and did some tests with the BlackMagic tool. The Striped set gave me 300 MB/Sec which is fantastic.

So I created a RAID 0 and am now doing Time Machine backup, plus gonna throw every file I ever have into that 4 TB drive.

Lacie has a utility that monitors the drives when its in RAID. So you can be warned when one of the disks fail... which is cool.

I went to the Lacie website to register it and it looked up my serial number and figured out it was a refurb. Which is fine. So I registered it for warranty purposes and next step is to install bootcamp for Windows..

Anyways, I am happy with my purchase... If you decide to buy one, when you get it make sure is nothing shaking inside and its solid.

The drive is built like a tank and heavy and seems to be running quitely...

FYI.

[krravi]

Now to the issue of installing windows on the Lacie thunderbolt.. I understand that you install Windows on the internal disk first and then copy the partition to the thunderbolt drive for which we need winclone.

My Lacie drive came with a software called "Integra Backup Pro" which also clones bootable partitions...

Going to give that a try and see what happens...

I hate the thought of taking a RAID drive and running it as individual disks.

So here is a thought...

Install windows on the internal drive...
Boot into windows and install the thunderbolt and all the drivers...
Now partition the external thunderbolt drives as a RAID 0 in Windows...
Now clone the windows partition into the external RAID Drive where one chunk is partitioned for Windows and the other for Data...

Will that work? Trying these things iteratively takes a long time.. So just bouncing off my thoughts.

Update :

I installed Windows 7 on the internal disk using bootcamp to start off with and figure out external drive options.

But I found that the iMac was running very HOT when in Windows. So hot that I could feel the heat wave when close to it...

Looked up online and saw that lot of people seem to be having the same issue. Something about how Apple controls the cooling fans correctly when booted into OS X and when you are in Windows, Apple isn't supplying the optimal software/drivers to do the same.(just like they shortchanged the magic mouse in windows)..

The iMac didn't go up in smoke or anything, but it just runs hotter than I like. You could smell the fresh electronics smell.... Wonder what that heat can do to the longevity of the components inside.

So I gave up installing Windows on my iMac and played around with 'VirtualBox' and installed Windows 7 on it. Very zippy and fast.. faster than my PC (which is a Core i7, btw)... With extensions installed even the graphics is good. But not good enough for intensive graphics like games or video editing.

This has been my experience with my iMac, not sure how it runs in other Mac's.

So I finally configured the Lacie in RAID 0 and using it to do Time Machine in one partition and dump data in another.

Guess I will run Windows in Virtual Box for work and...others in Mac... A tad disappointing that the much touted feature of Bootcamp could actually destroy your Mac over time.

[tomaseriksson]

Originally Posted by shortcut3d

I swaped the two 500GB Hitachi 72k.5 in the 1TB LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk with two 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs. This allowed me to remove the noisy fan.

I removed the fan and kept the hitachi-drives, the disk's temperatures haven't gone over 50C (120F) even after 2 hours of looping benchmarking. So the fan isn't only noisy but also not doing much difference. From what I can tell there wasn't any other internal components in the unit that would overheat either.

[dansonb]

Hi guys,

I bought a Lacie Little Big Disk (1tb, SSD)

I have the latest Bootcamp installed on my MBP (4.0) yet the Lacie won't show up in Windows 7. I have no need to use the Lacie as a bootcamp partition, just simply as a read/write external HD that will work in both OSX and Windows 7.

I formatted the Lacie as ExFat in disk utility, no luck.

Can anyone shed some light on this? I'm tearing my hair out.

Thanks

[g4cube]

Originally Posted by dansonb

Hi guys,

I bought a Lacie Little Big Disk (1tb, SSD)

I have the latest Bootcamp installed on my MBP (4.0) yet the Lacie won't show up in Windows 7. I have no need to use the Lacie as a bootcamp partition, just simply as a read/write external HD that will work in both OSX and Windows 7.

I formatted the Lacie as ExFat in disk utility, no luck.

Can anyone shed some light on this? I'm tearing my hair out.

Thanks

Read upthread; there are many solutions posted.

[Runnernorth]

Originally Posted by dansonb

Hi guys,

I bought a Lacie Little Big Disk (1tb, SSD)

I have the latest Bootcamp installed on my MBP (4.0) yet the Lacie won't show up in Windows 7. I have no need to use the Lacie as a bootcamp partition, just simply as a read/write external HD that will work in both OSX and Windows 7.

I formatted the Lacie as ExFat in disk utility, no luck.

Can anyone shed some light on this? I'm tearing my hair out.

Thanks

Hi, did you solve your issue? I do hope there is a solution, as I'm planning to run the same setup( and being able to access the LLBD from windows)

[Runnernorth]

Originally Posted by krravi

After playing with the RAID configuration, where once I had it in RAID and the other times NOT in RAID and did some tests with the BlackMagic tool. The Striped set gave me 300 MB/Sec which is fantastic.

So I created a RAID 0 and am now doing Time Machine backup, plus gonna throw every file I ever have into that 4 TB drive.

Lacie has a utility that monitors the drives when its in RAID. So you can be warned when one of the disks fail... which is cool.


FYI.

Hi, I know it's an old thread, but still I would like to ask you, are you using Macdrive 9 pro to access the RAID0 in bootcamped windows?
Did the windows 7 RAID0 work, could you read/write to it from OSX?
I have the 2big thunderbolt drive, and would like to use it in bootcamped windows7. As I understand it, according to post #21, it would be possible??- but will I be able to read/write to it from OSX??
I'm going to use it as media library for XBMC in windows, but need to be able to write to the disk from OSX....
Please give me an advise, it would be very much appreciated

[Runnernorth]

I've tried to partion the drives in the 2bigT, in OSX disk utility, but I'm not given the choice to choose MBR, only GUID or Apple, the MBR is not highlighted, can't figure out why not...?
will it be possible to choose exfat, and the let windows 7 do a software raid0, or are those two ¨different things¨?

[krravi]

Originally Posted by Runnernorth

Hi, I know it's an old thread, but still I would like to ask you, are you using Macdrive 9 pro to access the RAID0 in bootcamped windows?
Did the windows 7 RAID0 work, could you read/write to it from OSX?
I have the 2big thunderbolt drive, and would like to use it in bootcamped windows7. As I understand it, according to post #21, it would be possible??- but will I be able to read/write to it from OSX??
I'm going to use it as media library for XBMC in windows, but need to be able to write to the disk from OSX....
Please give me an advise, it would be very much appreciated

I don't use Bootcamp due to heat issues. I am running it on Parallels and my Lacie shows up as a shared drive and access times are just as fast.

----------

Originally Posted by Runnernorth

I've tried to partion the drives in the 2bigT, in OSX disk utility, but I'm not given the choice to choose MBR, only GUID or Apple, the MBR is not highlighted, can't figure out why not...?
will it be possible to choose exfat, and the let windows 7 do a software raid0, or are those two ¨different things¨?

If you are trying to RAID the drive and use it in Windows and Mac, I think you just download a trial of MacDrive and see how that works out.

[Runnernorth]

Hi krravi, ohh sorry, i forgot you mentioned you had some heat issues with your iMac, :-(
Do you use xbmc or other media-center in windows through parallels?
But I can't figure out why I'mnot allowed to choose MBR when formatting the drives....
If I choose to use Macdrive, then I'll have to RAID it in OSX, right?
:-)

[krravi]

Originally Posted by Runnernorth

Hi krravi, ohh sorry, i forgot you mentioned you had some heat issues with your iMac, :-(
Do you use xbmc or other media-center in windows through parallels?
But I can't figure out why I'mnot allowed to choose MBR when formatting the drives....
If I choose to use Macdrive, then I'll have to RAID it in OSX, right?
:-)

The heat issue is just not my Mac but every Mac I have ever run into, iMac,rMBP and my MBA. Apple just isn't supplying the appropriate drivers/software for optimal fan control.

I am running Plex on Mac. I am using Windows just for work and VPN etc...

But I will be running TiVO desktop software in Windows as the Mac Version won't work.

I think in Parallels you have the option of turning your network share(in this case my Lacie Thunderbolt) to read/write access. The interface is virtualized by Paralells so both the OS'es can use that drive.

I am guessing that the MBR is there to support the bootcamp partition and thats about it. When it comes to RAID MAC gets exclusive control with the file systems etc.