Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
I ordered the LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk for the 2011 Mac Mini. This will be my Media Storage Drive for the Mini. Looks like in RAID the dual 1TB drives will be about as fast as the Apple SSD. Once received I'll post a report.
 
For a media server, the LaCie will be just fine. However, it is only SSD-like in its sequential read/write performance (which is what's important for a media server). An SSD will still blow it away in random read/write performance, which would be important if you were going to use it as an OS/Application drive. I mention this fact because many people forget about it when looking at drive speeds for different purposes.
 
For a media server, the LaCie will be just fine. However, it is only SSD-like in its sequential read/write performance (which is what's important for a media server). An SSD will still blow it away in random read/write performance, which would be important if you were going to use it as an OS/Application drive. I mention this fact because many people forget about it when looking at drive speeds for different purposes.
My point was that FireWire would have served just as well for a media drive, a Raid0 array over Thundebolt seams like overkill for the purpose.
 
My point was that FireWire would have served just as well for a media drive, a Raid0 array over Thundebolt seams like overkill for the purpose.

Yup, I was always excited for Thunderbolt because of expansion and not transfer speeds.

One can always default to Gigabit ethernet if they really need to.
 
My point was that FireWire would have served just as well for a media drive, a Raid0 array over Thundebolt seams like overkill for the purpose.

Precisely my thinking. Like slapping racing slicks on a Ford Taurus. Still won't make it a Ferrari. LaCie claims 190 MBs transfer rates on the drive. So that's about 80 MBs real world (even 100 MBs best case), give or take, depending on what you're doing with it. FW can handle that. Only benefit to TB is daisy-chaining it. And at that price, who would want to?

Just a quick cash grab for new tech, as is the style of the times.
 
you are all missing what the lacie 399 model is good for. voiding the warranty and dropping in two 256 gb ssds. I can build a 512gb ssd raid0 with these samsungs on ebay


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-2-5...ltDomain_0&hash=item27bdedef74#ht_1865wt_1163


this gives me a beast for an os x drive.

total cost is about 1050 lacie's 500gb ssd version is 1499 i would save over 500 bucks have a super fast 512gb ssd for os x. use this with a server mac mini that has 16gb ram and a pair of 750gb hdds inside it and you have a beast. if adding 2 256gb ssd cost too much by a pair of these



http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Se...|1&Ne=5000&N=6403&Ntt=Mercury+Electra+6G+60GB

660 cost for speeds over 800MB/s! and your random access 4k times will fly maybe 100MB/s at least 50MB/s
 
The 2TB is perfect for a compact external media drive (easily hidden in an AV setup). Gigabit ethernet does not cut it for more throughput vs FW800. There is too much overhead on ethernet.

SSDs are in the back of my mind when purchasing the Thunderbolt Little Big Disk. When its long in the tooth or maybe sooner ;) I could swap in SSDs. I'm not sure if LaCie has custom partition software on the drives. Unfortunately for the 4big and 5big you have to use LaCie drives (from what I understand).
 
you are all missing what the lacie 399 model is good for. voiding the warranty and dropping in two 256 gb ssds. I can build a 512gb ssd raid0 with these samsungs on ebay

total cost is about 1050 lacie's 500gb ssd version is 1499 i would save over 500 bucks have a super fast 512gb ssd for os x. use this with a server mac mini that has 16gb ram and a pair of 750gb hdds inside it and you have a beast. if adding 2 256gb ssd cost too much by a pair of these

A $1000 for 512GB of storage!?! Might as well just burn your wallet now!! :0

What do you have that you can't keep locally on a 1 TB 7200 drive? And at $1000, you can actually pick up a 500 GB SSD. Tell us again what we're missing!?! Faster access to porn? I don't see what kind of stuff anyone would store that's needs to be accessed that fast for that amount of coin.
 
A $1000 for 512GB of storage!?! Might as well just burn your wallet now!! :0

What do you have that you can't keep locally on a 1 TB 7200 drive? And at $1000, you can actually pick up a 500 GB SSD. Tell us again what we're missing!?! Faster access to porn? I don't see what kind of stuff anyone would store that's needs to be accessed that fast for that amount of coin.

High definition video for editing in the field. The bit-rate of raw HD video is crazy high, being able to have that sort of speed available in a small, light disk is awesome.
 
you are all missing what the lacie 399 model is good for. voiding the warranty and dropping in two 256 gb ssds. I can build a 512gb ssd raid0 with these samsungs on ebay


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-2-5...ltDomain_0&hash=item27bdedef74#ht_1865wt_1163


this gives me a beast for an os x drive.

total cost is about 1050 lacie's 500gb ssd version is 1499 i would save over 500 bucks have a super fast 512gb ssd for os x. use this with a server mac mini that has 16gb ram and a pair of 750gb hdds inside it and you have a beast. if adding 2 256gb ssd cost too much by a pair of these



http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Se...|1&Ne=5000&N=6403&Ntt=Mercury+Electra+6G+60GB

660 cost for speeds over 800MB/s! and your random access 4k times will fly maybe 100MB/s at least 50MB/s

You think you're saving money because Lacie overpriced their SSD model? You're about to shell out $400 for the HDDs and enclosure, remove the HDDs, put in your SSDs ... And you really think you're saving money?

Lol okay.

----------

A $1000 for 512GB of storage!?! Might as well just burn your wallet now!! :0

What do you have that you can't keep locally on a 1 TB 7200 drive? And at $1000, you can actually pick up a 500 GB SSD. Tell us again what we're missing!?! Faster access to porn? I don't see what kind of stuff anyone would store that's needs to be accessed that fast for that amount of coin.

It's not even about necessity for me, I think it's just a ridiculous thing to pay for. I mean, that's a lot of money lol.

This Little Big Disk by Lacie doesn't do anything that USB 3.0 HDDs don't already do. And before you people say "oh but daisy-chaning!" ... Well I've got more sense than money. I'll wait for USB 3.0
 
You think you're saving money because Lacie overpriced their SSD model? You're about to shell out $400 for the HDDs and enclosure, remove the HDDs, put in your SSDs ... And you really think you're saving money?

Lol okay.

----------



It's not even about necessity for me, I think it's just a ridiculous thing to pay for. I mean, that's a lot of money lol.

This Little Big Disk by Lacie doesn't do anything that USB 3.0 HDDs don't already do. And before you people say "oh but daisy-chaning!" ... Well I've got more sense than money. I'll wait for USB 3.0

No This is not about saving money this is about making money. I will break the unit down put in two ssds and test it as a boot drive. I will offer it for sale on ebay for about 1200 with a 3 yr square trade warranty. I will sell it and make about 100 bucks. A pro will buy it from me because it is 300 cheaper then lacies 1500 dollar unit and has a 3yr warranty. I will also offer a lower cost 650 or 750 dollar unit with less capacity but faster speed.


you need to understand. the ability to attach this to a macbook pro in the field and then attach it to an iMac has huge value. with fast ssds like owc's and very soon to come samsungs Sata III this is a monster bootdrive option for some people.

Go out and get an iMac buy it with a 2tb hdd cost is 150 more. Add the 256 hdd and the add on is 500 more. the imac 256gb ssd is slow and trapped inside the iMac

if I use 2 of these

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SAMSUNG-MMC...e_Internal&hash=item1c1ef04ecc#ht_1153wt_1398

I can have 3yr warranty on the unit, with 256gb size.

It costs me 700 double the speed of the apple internal 256gb ssd that cost 500.

It is portable repeat portable I can bring it from iMac to iMac. Also if you have a 2011 iMac this solves the problem of the internal drive death. You have instant bootdrive.
 
you need to understand. the ability to attach this to a macbook pro in the field and then attach it to an iMac has huge value. with fast ssds like owc's and very soon to come samsungs Sata III this is a monster bootdrive option for some people.

Good luck with that. It needs an Ac adapter (12V AC). So apparently, this is not a field option.

----------

This Little Big Disk by Lacie doesn't do anything that USB 3.0 HDDs don't already do. And before you people say "oh but daisy-chaning!" ... Well I've got more sense than money. I'll wait for USB 3.0

It's a Raid drive. They are expensive.

Furthermore, if you own an Apple product USB 3 is not an option yet.

----------

The 2TB is perfect for a compact external media drive (easily hidden in an AV setup). Gigabit ethernet does not cut it for more throughput vs FW800. There is too much overhead on ethernet.

SSDs are in the back of my mind when purchasing the Thunderbolt Little Big Disk. When its long in the tooth or maybe sooner ;) I could swap in SSDs. I'm not sure if LaCie has custom partition software on the drives. Unfortunately for the 4big and 5big you have to use LaCie drives (from what I understand).

I bought the smaller 1TB as the drives are faster. Otherwise I surely would have forked over the extra c-note for the 2TB. (of course, I can always upgrade latter, but that will run me another $200, assuming the 9.5 1TB drives will come down to about $100 after a while)
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I went with the 2TB for space and hopefully less noise.
 
It's a Raid drive. They are expensive.

Furthermore, if you own an Apple product USB 3 is not an option yet.

FireWire is always an option.

I cannot believe people are considering paying $500 for 180MB/s transfer rates when FireWire drives net you 50MB/s for $100 bucks.
 
FireWire is always an option.

I cannot believe people are considering paying $500 for 180MB/s transfer rates when FireWire drives net you 50MB/s for $100 bucks.

Yes it's true. It makes great economical sense to get buy with something cheap. People pay crazy amounts of little gains. (myself for one) :D
 
Last edited:
Yes it's true. It makes great economical sense to get buy with something cheap. People pay crazy amounts of little gains. (myself for one) :D

Paying $300 for 128GB with the new MacBooks is an example of extreme excess that is rampant here. (I didi it twice myself)

Actually, buying an SSD makes more sense. You use your computer daily and you see a significant improvement.

With this Lacie drive, unless you're constantly moving an inordinate amount of data, it's a bloody waste of money.
 
Actually, buying an SSD makes more sense. You use your computer daily and you see a significant improvement.

With this Lacie drive, unless you're constantly moving an inordinate amount of data, it's a bloody waste of money.

Of course. It's only the heavy users (Video, Audio mostly I imagine) that need this.

It's really scary some of the rigs i see in the pro forums that I frequent. I mean REALLY scary. Makes you nervous :D. A lot of these rigs a $10 Gs and up. I don't know. It always shocks me frankly :D

Of course this is a Mini forum, so your not going to have this. I just wandered in here actually.

I'll leave now :D
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.