LaCie Ethernet Disk Mini

[XIII]

Hey.

I need some form of external storage, and was up until now, just going to buy a 250GB external drive - simple. However, I stumbled across the LaCie Ethernet Disk mini, and it seemed to offer a pretty good deal.. wireless access for me on my iBook, to 250GB of storage. I just have a couple of questions, to see if this is actually feasible.

1) What will my setup, once connected to the ethernet drive wirelessly, be like? Does it look like another drive, and it will appear on the desktop? Can I drag and drop files to it, like I would a normal external drive? Any screenshots would be great.

2) How easy is it to setup?

3) Would I be able to access it both on my windows PC which is hard wired into my router, and on the wireless iBook?

4) How fast is file transfer over wireless g? For instance, how long would it take me to copy a 200mb file?

5) Can you stream video? If I have video files stored on the ethernet HD, and I want to play them back on my iBook, can I simply play them, with no lag, as if they were on my Mac?

Thanks, and sorry for all the questions... Just a nervous buyer.

-Jack

 

[iEdd]

1) What will my setup, once connected to the ethernet drive wirelessly, be like? Does it look like another drive, and it will appear on the desktop? Can I drag and drop files to it, like I would a normal external drive? Any screenshots would be great.
I believe it will look like a normal networked component. It can/will be on your desktop, supporting drag and drop(99% sure)

2) How easy is it to setup?
LaCie + Mac=Generally VERY easy

3) Would I be able to access it both on my windows PC which is hard wired into my router, and on the wireless iBook?
If configured correctly, yes

4) How fast is file transfer over wireless g? For instance, how long would it take me to copy a 200mb file?
Maximum Speed is 54Mbps, but you rarely get full speed... 25 seconds would be the quickest if my calculations are correct, so pretty fast at peak
5) Can you stream video? If I have video files stored on the ethernet HD, and I want to play them back on my iBook, can I simply play them, with no lag, as if they were on my Mac?
As long as you were close enough in range to get the bitrate smaller than the rate of transfer from HDD to mac, I don't see why not

Sorry I can't give you complete answers as I don't have this setup, but good luck

 

[XIII]

Ok, seems promising.

54mbps is the wireless g speed... isnt that megabits per second, no megabytes? Which makes it a bit slower. Hhm.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Mechcozmo]

Ok, seems promising.

54mbps is the wireless g speed... isnt that megabits per second, no megabytes? Which makes it a bit slower. Hhm.

Thanks for your help.

Mbps, or Megabits per second. Most things are in bits per second to sound better. FireWire 400 is really 50MBps or 400Mbps.

 

[XIII]

And google tells me...

54 (megabits per second) = 6.75 megabytes per second

Meh, that means every 100 seconds, 675 megabytes transfer, and thats at maximum speed. I guess realistically, its gonna take me a minute to transfer a 300mb file.. Meh.

I may have to look at the USB ones again, this could be VERY annoyingly slow.

 

[d.f]

1)
5) Can you stream video? If I have video files stored on the ethernet HD, and I want to play them back on my iBook, can I simply play them, with no lag, as if they were on my Mac?
As long as you were close enough in range to get the bitrate smaller than the rate of transfer from HDD to mac, I don't see why not

Sorry I can't give you complete answers as I don't have this setup, but good luck

I am also interested in this Netword Attached Storage solution. I've done some research and the overall review of this product seems to be that it's not quite as good as a dedicated attached external HD.

All i want is something to store all my music in lossless and stream to my stereo using Airport. Will the real world speeds of this Ethernet HD allow me to do that.... in theory..? any advice appreciated.

 

[XIII]

Music it should be fine. Video, I'm thinking not...

 

[Mechcozmo]

And google tells me...

54 (megabits per second) = 6.75 megabytes per second

Meh, that means every 100 seconds, 675 megabytes transfer, and thats at maximum speed. I guess realistically, its gonna take me a minute to transfer a 300mb file.. Meh.

I may have to look at the USB ones again, this could be VERY annoyingly slow.

Look at Ethernet if possible. A 10/100-BaseT drive will always get you 100 Mbps of transfer rate, which as the units command in the Terminal says is 11.92 MBps. Full DV-video is a close call, (that needs 15MBps IIRC) but an MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or H.264 stream would work fine.

All i want is something to store all my music in lossless and stream to my stereo using Airport. Will the real world speeds of this Ethernet HD allow me to do that.... in theory..? any advice appreciated.

Let us assume you have a 70MB AIFF file. If you go wireless, you can transfer up to 6.437 MB every second. If that AIFF file is 4 minutes long, 70MB/240 seconds in song= .291 MB/sec required. Even at half of a wireless-G's potential, you would be fine.

 

[XIII]

Look at Ethernet if possible. A 10/100-BaseT drive will always get you 100 Mbps of transfer rate, which as the units command in the Terminal says is 11.92 MBps. Full DV-video is a close call, (that needs 15MBps IIRC) but an MPEG-2, MPEG-4, or H.264 stream would work fine.

I guess my only issue would be that I may not always have optimum, full reception. Thanks for doing the maths, helps a lot.

 

[w_parietti22]

1) What will my setup, once connected to the ethernet drive wirelessly, be like? Does it look like another drive, and it will appear on the desktop? Can I drag and drop files to it, like I would a normal external drive? Any screenshots would be great.

see attachment

2) How easy is it to setup?

Once connected to your router, should be about to access it from the iBook.

3) Would I be able to access it both on my windows PC which is hard wired into my router, and on the wireless iBook?

Yep.

4) How fast is file transfer over wireless g? For instance, how long would it take me to copy a 200mb file?

Answered.

5) Can you stream video? If I have video files stored on the ethernet HD, and I want to play them back on my iBook, can I simply play them, with no lag, as if they were on my Mac?

I would put them on the HD, then if you want to view them, drag and drop to the iBook.

 

[XIII]

Thankyou w_parietti22. Seems like accessing it, and setting it up should be fine.