[m021478]

I was considering the purchase of the 6TB LaCie Ethernet Disk but I noticed that it says it comes with "Windows XP embedded". While it clearly states on the product details page that this device is fully compatible with Mac, PC, Linux, or Unix users, I still wasn't entirely sure what it means exactly that "Windows XP embedded" is pre-configured on this NAS, and whether or not this would have any negative implications for me, being that I will be connecting this device exclusively to my household Macs...

Can someone please help clarify what this means, and also let me know if there would be any negative ramifications if I chose to use this device with my Macs?

Thanks!

P.S. - I've had mixed experiences with LaCie over the years, as I sure many of you have as well, but I would like to ask that you set aside any comments such as "LaCie suck! Get a real NAS with double the storage for half the price from some other brand" ~ that is, unless you can genuinely suggest an alternate 1U 19" 6TB Rackmounted NAS with OS X compatibility...with double the storage space for half the price

[Simon]

You are bound to get replies where people will tell you in less polite ways that LaCie's stuff is totally overpriced.

I'm not sure I agree with that 100% but in this case I will. This device is far too expensive and offers too little. It comes with a weak CPU. And the fact that it uses Windows embedded says a lot about how serious LaCie was when they designed that thing. It's cute how they refer to it as "trusted". Newegg has a 5TB NAS for a little more than half the price. Also, do you need 1u? That will add to the price.

[OreoCookie]

Regarding Lacie's reputation, although I haven't used products other than their external harddrives for years (long, long time ago, I also used SCSI burners, SCSI tape drives and a RAID tower with whopping 240 GB of space), but I found their quality to be very good.

One thing that Lacie enclosures allow me to do and cheap ones do not is to put the harddrive to sleep. Sounds simple, but since I work with notebooks, there is a difference between absolute silence and relative silence

Regarding this specific product, of course, you can put together your own server for less and load it with OpenSolaris, your favorite flavor of Linux or FreeBSD, set up the file sharing services and be done with it. And yes, it will be cheaper. However, the point of these devices is that you don't need to know about all this, but simply `plug them in' and start using them. Whether the price-difference is worth it to you, that's up to you to decide.

Spec-wise, I think for the few services this device offers, the cpu might be enough. It's not a high-speed NAS, but certainly faster than those cheaper `box-shaped' ones.

[mduell]

Windows XP Embedded (or XPe) is a componentized version of XP that allows the manufacturer to strip out a lot of the features. It's used for automatic teller machines, arcade games, slot machines, cash registers, industrial robotics, thin clients, set-top boxes, navigation devices, and of course network attached storage (NAS) like this unit from LaCie.