[PHoynak]

How do I use OS X's disk utility to reformat my Lacie Ethernet Hard Drive? It is formatted Fat 32 and I want to use HFS but the drive does not show up in Disk Utility. I am able to mount the drive and write to it but I dont want to use Fat 32.

What am I missing?

[kamina]

If the drive is connected via ethernet you will not be able to format it with disk utility. You will be accessing it via Samba or AFP, which are both protocols limited to file sharing (at least in this context). Most ethernet drives are actually small servers running Linux. All operations like formating have to be done via their own management interface.

[PHoynak]

I feel so stupid.....Now I know...I can hook it up via USB 2.0 as HFS then reconnect it via Ethernet......

[danbrew]

So just how well do those LaCie ethernet drives work? I've been considering one of these for quite some time (LaCie - Ethernet Disk - Gigabit Ethernet interface) to provide network storage & backup for various platforms. BUT... every LaCie hard drive product I have *ever* owned has failed within the first year. The price is sure right for the 2TB product above, but, damn, I'm looking for a secure backup - not wanting to find that my drives are dead.

Any commnets about LaCie ethernet products would be sincerely appreciated.

danbrew

[kamina]

I would read through reviews on this site before buying a networked drive:

SmallNetBuilder

Generally I'd say Buffalo's products are the best value for money, but there are alot of other great products too. Personally I'm waiting to see reviews of the new Buffalo Terastation which is supposed to perform very well, and be fairly cheap.

[PHoynak]

I formatted the drive using 2 partitions but only one showed up when connected to it via ethernet. Is there a way to use 2 partitions? I had to reformat it using one partition to get use of the whole drive.