The 5Big NAS Pro being demoedLAS VEGAS--LaCie showed off today at CES 2013 its latest high-end network attached storage (NAS) server, the 5big NAS Pro, which is a major upgrade to the company's previous 5big Network 2.
Powered by a dual-core 2.13GHz Intel 64-bit Atom processor and 4GB RAM, the 5big NAS Pro is a five-bay server that offers a massive amount of storage space (up to 20GB), and promises data rates up to 200MBps via its two Gigabit Ethernet ports.
The most prominent feature of the 5big NAS Pro, however, is its totally new novice-friendly SimplyRAID mode and cloud features
A new type of RAID The 5big NAS Pro supports all industry-standard RAID modes for a five-bay storage device, including RAID 5 (Plus Spare), RAID 1, and RAID 0, allowing advanced users to pick what fit their needs to configure the server. For novice users, however, picking a RAID mode can be daunting, and this is the reason LaCie now offers the new SimplyRAID mode.
The new 5big NAS Pro offers a massive amount of storage space, cloud features, and the all-new SimplyRAID to offer ease of use.According to LaCie, behind the scenes, SimplyRAID chooses the fastest and most secure RAID mode according to the number of disks. For example, if you choose to use just two disks, it will work in a mode that's similar to RAID 1, when you have three disks, SimplyRAID will be similar to RAID 5, and so on. This way, home users can benefit from RAID security and performance, without having to really understand about RAID.
On top of that, LaCie says SimplyRAID also lets users use hard disks of different sizes and replace the disks without having to rebuild the RAID from scratch. This makes SimplyRAID very similar to the HybridRAID found in Synology NAS servers, making the new 5big NAS Pro potentially a formidable contender of the DS1511+.
Convenient design and cloud readyThe new 5big NAS Pro comes with back-facing drive bay that can be manage very easily. Each bay's drive tray can be pulled out or locked with a help of a coin. Each of these bay can house a standard SATA 3.5-inch (desktop) hard drive of up to 4TB.
Apart from the two network ports, which can be aggregated to increase the data rates, the new servers also comes with two USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports to host more storage when need be.
The 5big NAS Pro includes an USB thumbdrive that can be used to install the server's OS -- the server runs LaCie's latest version NAS OS 3 -- or recover the system from failure. LaCie says all of these can be done via an intuitive Web-based interface. Also existing LaCie NAS servers can upgrade the NAS OS 3 free of charge.
The 5big NAS Pro's interface is very easy to use, and SymplyRAID allows you to use hard drives of different capacities.One of the new features in NAS OS 3 is the fact that it now integrated with Wuala, an online storage service that LaCie acquired three years ago. This means the new NAS server is connected to the cloud at all times, allowing users to access its data via the Internet. LaCie says the 5big NAS Pro's cloud features are available for both regular computers and mobile devices.
In a local network, the new NAS server works just like any other server, offering support for both Mac and PC. However, when you install Wuala software on a computer, you can access the entire content of the server no matter where you are, via the Internet. The server comes with 100GB of online storage that can be used to sync its selected content to Wuala's online server. Apart from backup purposes, this content is also available when the server is down or disconnected. Users can purchase more storage space if 100GB is not enough.
According to LaCie, data stored on Wuala is encrypted before it's sent to the cloud, so not even a LaCie employee could access it and is solely accessible by the user or administrator.
The new 5big NAS Pro is set to be available in two weeks. It will comes with a three-year warranty and will be available in diskless, 10TB, and 20TB versions that cost around $530, $1,300, and $2,300, respectively.
source:cnet
