Tuesday, January 25, 2011
LACIE NETWORK SPACE - NETWORK ATTACHED STORAGE? - NETWORK ATTACHED BRICK, MORE LIKE
AND DEFINITELY NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE
I remember back in 1999-2000 knowledgeable techie colleagues were fairly unimpressed with Lacie products, so why oh why didn't I heed their criticisms a few years ago when I was looking for some network attached storage and found the Lacie Network Space?
I wanted an inexpensive but reliable, large-capacity hard drive that any PC connected to my home network could access for data backups etc. I thought 1 Terabyte (1,000 Gigabytes) would last a good while and hold plenty of stuff.
So the Lacie Network Space seemed ideal for a SOHO worker like me who needs to back up my everyday stuff but also my wife's, visiting stepdaughters' etc etc.
The Lacie looked sleek and shiny when I unpacked it and it seemed simple enough to set up and use, albeit slightly unpredictable as to when my PC could 'see' it. As I only intended to use it for backups it wasn't running continuously, so it's never had to work hard.
After I'd had it a while the drive couldn't be seen by my PC at all via the Windows Explorer and the Ethernet Agent software that came with it couldn't see it either. So as it was still under warranty I opened a support ticket with Lacie and played email tennis with them for a few weeks as they tried to avoid doing anything about it.
I have to say that Lacie's tech support is tantamount to useless and their customer communications are even worse. I ended up having to escalate the problem to their CEO before anything happened.
However, eventually I got them to agree to take the thing back for repair, although they warned me I would lose any data on the drive. So much for the reliable backup drive I had been seeking. I think the geeks at Lacie told me the network interface had failed, but they also said that the external power supply could cause problems - not delivering the right or clean-enough voltage, apparently. I suspect from this that Lacie sources the cheapest possible components for its products, regardless of the fact that they want to play in a market segment where the words 'reliable' and 'mission critical' are quite important to their customers.
Anyway. By and by the drive came back and it seemed to be working ok. A year down the line I have switched it on and used it no more than three or four times (not very good backup strategy, I admit) and usually managed to get it working after restarting it a few times.
One particularly annoying foible of the drive, by the way, is that if you don't ensure its onboard clock is correct after switching on, it returns to a default date and time at some point in 2000. If you save any files to the drive while it's in this state, it time and date-stamps them from its own clock, not from the files' built-in creation date, so they all end up being some time in 2000 and there's no way of knowing which is the most recent.
This is absolutely useless for a backup and pretty unhelpful for any other file. Ok, fair enough if its onboard clock is going to reset to factory default if it's been turned off for months, but you would think it could have been designed to ask you to confirm the date and time at power-up instead. Supposedly it can be configured to go and look for a time server on the internet and get the date and time from that, but that feature doesn't work, or at least not reliably.
One other thing: wireless PCs on the network can't see it at all, only when they're connected by cable. Marvellous.
Today I thought I'd better do a backup so turned the wretched thing on. Powers up, pretty blue light comes on and that's it. Lacie Ethernet Agent can't see it, Windows Explorer can't see it, so I can't connect to it to see what it's doing (actually, I know what it's doing: f*ck-all). Have tried restarting it three or four times but no joy.
This is a machine that's probably been on for eight hours in its miserable, useless life, so in terms of MTBF it's hardly been pushed to the limit. Maybe it's meant to be left running 24/7? Well there's nothing in the manual to say so and in any case it's not very green to leave something running continuously when you only want to use it once every few months.
No, it's just a piece of junk and so, based on my experience and the recommendations of my former colleagues, if you are ever contemplating buying a Lacie product I strongly recommend you don't.
And if you'd like a shiny, black paperweight - 'designed' (not sure how much design there is in a featureless brick) by Neil Poulton, no less - whoever the hell he is - then let me know and for a very small consideration I will bung my Lacie Network Space in the post to you.
Just don't plug it in and expect it to do anything useful.
AND DEFINITELY NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE
I remember back in 1999-2000 knowledgeable techie colleagues were fairly unimpressed with Lacie products, so why oh why didn't I heed their criticisms a few years ago when I was looking for some network attached storage and found the Lacie Network Space?
I wanted an inexpensive but reliable, large-capacity hard drive that any PC connected to my home network could access for data backups etc. I thought 1 Terabyte (1,000 Gigabytes) would last a good while and hold plenty of stuff.
So the Lacie Network Space seemed ideal for a SOHO worker like me who needs to back up my everyday stuff but also my wife's, visiting stepdaughters' etc etc.
The Lacie looked sleek and shiny when I unpacked it and it seemed simple enough to set up and use, albeit slightly unpredictable as to when my PC could 'see' it. As I only intended to use it for backups it wasn't running continuously, so it's never had to work hard.
After I'd had it a while the drive couldn't be seen by my PC at all via the Windows Explorer and the Ethernet Agent software that came with it couldn't see it either. So as it was still under warranty I opened a support ticket with Lacie and played email tennis with them for a few weeks as they tried to avoid doing anything about it.
I have to say that Lacie's tech support is tantamount to useless and their customer communications are even worse. I ended up having to escalate the problem to their CEO before anything happened.
However, eventually I got them to agree to take the thing back for repair, although they warned me I would lose any data on the drive. So much for the reliable backup drive I had been seeking. I think the geeks at Lacie told me the network interface had failed, but they also said that the external power supply could cause problems - not delivering the right or clean-enough voltage, apparently. I suspect from this that Lacie sources the cheapest possible components for its products, regardless of the fact that they want to play in a market segment where the words 'reliable' and 'mission critical' are quite important to their customers.
Anyway. By and by the drive came back and it seemed to be working ok. A year down the line I have switched it on and used it no more than three or four times (not very good backup strategy, I admit) and usually managed to get it working after restarting it a few times.
One particularly annoying foible of the drive, by the way, is that if you don't ensure its onboard clock is correct after switching on, it returns to a default date and time at some point in 2000. If you save any files to the drive while it's in this state, it time and date-stamps them from its own clock, not from the files' built-in creation date, so they all end up being some time in 2000 and there's no way of knowing which is the most recent.
This is absolutely useless for a backup and pretty unhelpful for any other file. Ok, fair enough if its onboard clock is going to reset to factory default if it's been turned off for months, but you would think it could have been designed to ask you to confirm the date and time at power-up instead. Supposedly it can be configured to go and look for a time server on the internet and get the date and time from that, but that feature doesn't work, or at least not reliably.
One other thing: wireless PCs on the network can't see it at all, only when they're connected by cable. Marvellous.
Today I thought I'd better do a backup so turned the wretched thing on. Powers up, pretty blue light comes on and that's it. Lacie Ethernet Agent can't see it, Windows Explorer can't see it, so I can't connect to it to see what it's doing (actually, I know what it's doing: f*ck-all). Have tried restarting it three or four times but no joy.
This is a machine that's probably been on for eight hours in its miserable, useless life, so in terms of MTBF it's hardly been pushed to the limit. Maybe it's meant to be left running 24/7? Well there's nothing in the manual to say so and in any case it's not very green to leave something running continuously when you only want to use it once every few months.
No, it's just a piece of junk and so, based on my experience and the recommendations of my former colleagues, if you are ever contemplating buying a Lacie product I strongly recommend you don't.
And if you'd like a shiny, black paperweight - 'designed' (not sure how much design there is in a featureless brick) by Neil Poulton, no less - whoever the hell he is - then let me know and for a very small consideration I will bung my Lacie Network Space in the post to you.
Just don't plug it in and expect it to do anything useful.
Labels: Lacie, NAS, network attached storage, Network Space
