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LaCie Two Big eSATA & USB

User Manual

page 

Copyrights

Copyright  ©  2006  LaCie.  All 

rights reserved. No part of this publi-

cation may be reproduced, stored in a 

retrieval system, or transmitted in any 

form or by any means, electronic, me-

chanical,  photocopying,  recording  or 

otherwise,  without  the  prior  written 

consent of LaCie.

Trademarks

Apple, Mac, and Macintosh are reg-

istered trademarks of Apple Computer, 

Inc. Microsoft, Windows 98, Windows 

98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows Mil-

lennium  Edition  and  Windows  XP 

are registered trademarks of Microsoft 

Corporation.  Other  trademarks  men-

tioned in this manual are the property 

of their respective owners.

Changes

The  material  in  this  document  is 

for  information  only  and  subject  to 

change without notice. While reason-

able  efforts  have  been  made  in  the 

preparation of this document to assure 

its accuracy, LaCie assumes no liability 

resulting  from  errors  or  omissions  in 

this document, or from the use of the 

information  contained  herein.  LaCie 

reserves the right to make changes or 

revisions in the product design or the 

product  manual  without  reservation 

and  without  obligation  to  notify  any 

person of such revisions and changes.

Canada Compliance Statement

This  Class  B  digital  apparatus 

meets  all  requirements  of  the  Cana-

dian Interference-Causing Equipment 

Regulations.

Japan Compliance Statement

This is a Class B product based on 

the standard of the Voluntary Control 

Council for Interference from Informa-

tion Technology  Equipment  (VCCI). 

If this is used near a radio or television 

receiver in a domestic environment, it 

may  cause  radio  interference.  Install 

and  use  the  equipment  according  to 

the instruction manual.

FCC Statement

This device complies with Part 15 

of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject 

to the following conditions: 

The devices may not cause harmful 

interference

The devices must accept any inter-

ference  received,  including  inter-

ference  that  may  cause  undesired 

operation.

NOTE: This  equipment  has  been 

tested  and  found  to  comply  with  the 

limits for a Class B digital device, pur-

suant  to  Part  15  of  the  FCC  Rules. 

These  limits  are  designed  to  provide 

reasonable  protection  against  harmful 

interference  in  a  residential  installa-

tion.  This  equipment  generates,  uses 

and  can  radiate  radio  frequency  en-

1.

2.

ergy and, if not installed and used in 

accordance with the instructions, may 

cause  harmful  interference  to  radio 

communications. However, there is no 

guarantee that interference will not oc-

cur  in  a  particular  installation.  If  this 

equipment  does  cause  harmful  inter-

ference to radio or television reception, 

which  can  be  determined  by  turning 

the equipment off and on, the user is 

encouraged to try and correct the in-

terference by one or more of the fol-

lowing measures:

Reorient  or  relocate  the  receiving 

antenna.
Increase the separation between the 

equipment and receiver.
Connect the equipment into an out-

let on a circuit different from that to 

which the receiver is connected.
Consult the dealer or an experienced 

radio/TV technician for help.

Modifications  to  this  product  not 

authorized  by  LaCie  could  void  the 

FCC  &  Industry  Canada  regulations 

and  negate  your  authority  to  operate 

the product. 

Tested To Comply 

With FCC standards
For Home of Office Use

LaCie Two Big eSATA 

& USB  

CAUTION:

 Modifications 

not authorized by the manu-

facturer may void the user’s 

authority to operate this device.

Forward

Summary of Contents for Two Big eSATA & USB

Page 1: ...3 1 1 Setup for Serial ATA II and eSATA 14 3 1 2 Setup for Hi Speed USB 15 3 2 Storage Policies 16 3 3 Changing the Storage Policy Configuration 17 3 4 Partitioning the LaCie Two Big eSATA USB 18 3 4 1 Windows Users 18 3 4 2 Mac Users 21 4 Maintaining Your LaCie Two Big eSATA USB 23 4 1 Removing Replacing A Drive 23 4 2 Install New Firmware Upgrade 23 5 LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Front Panel LED Indi...

Page 2: ... 7 2 Safe RAID 1 33 7 3 Big Concatenation 34 7 4 JBOD 34 8 Troubleshooting 35 8 1 LEDs and Fan 35 8 2 LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Host Connection 36 9 Contacting Customer Support 37 9 1 LaCie Technical Support 38 10 Warranty 39 Table of Contents ...

Page 3: ...erence Install and use the equipment according to the instruction manual FCC Statement This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules Operation is subject to the following conditions The devices may not cause harmful interference The devices must accept any inter ference received including inter ference that may cause undesired operation NOTE This equipment has been tested and found to comply ...

Page 4: ...damp or wet conditions Never place objects con taining liquids on the LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Hard Drive as they may spill into its openings Doing so increases the risk of elec trical shock short circuiting fire or personal injury Make sure that the computer and LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Hard Drive are electrically ground ed If the devices are not grounded there is an increased risk of electri cal s...

Page 5: ... products Do not place the LaCie Two Big eSATA USB near sources of magnetic interference such as com puter displays televisions or speak ers Magnetic interference can affect the operation and stability of your La Cie Two Big eSATA USB Do not place heavy objects on top of the LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Never use excessive force on your LaCie Two Big eSATA USB If you detect a problem consult the Troubl...

Page 6: ...rd hard disk storage With the ability to provide single error detection and redun dant information to recover the original if a disk fails a RAID system is an ideal means to safe guard valuable data while also stream lining performance The LaCie Two Big eSATA USB is the ultimate approach to a flexible RAID solution with its ability to manage various RAID levels 0 1 Concatenation and JBOD 1 Introdu...

Page 7: ...s Server 2003 with the latest Service Pack installed Available USB 2 0 port USB 2 0 G4 G5 500MHz or faster CD ROM drive Mac OS 10 4 or later Available USB 2 0 port eSATA Intel Pentium III 500MHz equivalent or faster CD ROM drive Microsoft Windows 2000 XP or Windows Server 2003 with the latest Service Pack installed Available eSATA port eSATA G4 G5 500MHz or faster CD ROM drive Mac OS 10 4 or later...

Page 8: ...e 2 meters Hi Speed USB 2 0 cable LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Utilities CD ROM includes User Manual and Quick Install Guide LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Quick Install Guide printed version External power supply Two plastic drive stands with rubber feet for upright use 1 3 5 2 4 6 Your LaCie Two Big eSata USB package contains the system tower and an accessories box containing items 2 7 listed below 4 SATA S...

Page 9: ...tab Plastic stands with rubber feet Removable front panel 2 3 1 Front View 1 5 1 2 3 4 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 Handles to remove the drives Drive slot 1 Drive slot 2 2 3 2 Front View Without Panels 1 2 3 Technical note For more information about these LEDs see Chapter 5 LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Front Panel LED Indicators Fig 2 3 1 A Fig 2 3 2 A Your LaCie Two Big ...

Page 10: ...erheating the LaCie Two Big eSATA USB should be installed in a well ventilated area and in such a way as to main tain sufficient airflow across the controller chips Also ensure that the Ventilation Fan is not ob structed Please use the included plastic stands and rubber feet which elevate the Two Big and allow for better heat dissipation Environmental Requirements Temperature 0 35 C 32 95 F Operat...

Page 11: ... internal connections Soon after eSATA or external SATA was developed allowing for the use of shielded cables outside the PC eSATA technology was developed to be rugged and durable eSATA connectors do not have the L shaped design of other SATA connectors In addition the guide features are vertically offset and reduced in size to pre vent the use of unshielded internal cables in external ap plicati...

Page 12: ...ves CD DVD drives and digital cameras Your LaCie Two Big eSATA USB is shipped with a Hi Speed USB 2 0 cable to ensure maximum data transfer performance when connected to a Hi Speed USB 2 0 port Hi Speed USB Cables And Connectors The cables and connectors used to attach Hi Speed USB drives to your computer are as follows Two Big USB Port USB Connectors Technical Note To achieve USB 2 0 speeds your ...

Page 13: ... Step 2 3 2 Storage Policies Terms to know before you configure the Storage Appliance The terms rep resent LaCie Two Big eSATA USB configuration options Page 14 Step 3 3 3 Changing the Storage Policy Configuration Your LaCie Two Big eSATA USB comes preconfigured in the FAST storage policy configuration This process will modify the policy con figuration Page 15 Step 4 3 4 Partitioning the LaCie Two...

Page 14: ...d of the external SATA cable to the external SATA connect or on your host computer Connect the other end of the cable to the Two Big fig 3 1 1 B 1 2 3 1 2 Fig 3 1 1 A Fig 3 1 1 B Setting up your LaCie Two Big 3 1 1 Setup for Serial ATA II and eSATA Technical note The LaCie Two Big eSATA USB default configuration is in FAST RAID 0 mode To change the storage policy configuration mode see sections 3 ...

Page 15: ...erface cable to an available USB port on your computer fig 3 1 2 B 1 2 3 Technical note The LaCie Two Big eSATA USB default configuration is in FAST RAID 0 mode To change the storage policy configuration mode see sections 3 2 Storage Poli cies 3 3 Changing the Storage Policy Configura tion and 7 Understanding RAID and Storage Policies Technical note If both a USB and an eSATA cable are connected t...

Page 16: ...e to disk failure At least two drives mirror each other at all times equivalent to RAID 1 Each write goes to both disks Safe provides the highest level of data protection but halves the amount of storage space since all data must be stored twice To implement the Safe storage policy the Two Big creates two volumes Each volume consists of two hard disk drives that mirror each other BIG A storage pol...

Page 17: ...e steps SAfe BIG fAST JBOD mODe Change Fig 3 3 A CAUTION Disk Drives must be inserted cor rectly in the Two Big before configuration can be changed 3 Remove the screwdriver from the rotary switch and use it to depress the MODE Change button Fig 3 3 B SAfe BIG fAST JBOD mODe Change Fig 3 3 B JBOD SAfe BIG fAST mODe Change Fig 3 3 C Important Info You must partition the disk drives after changing th...

Page 18: ...ed up data to the new configuration Important Info The disks shipped with the LaCie Two Big eSATA USB are formatted HFS To use the drives with Windows operating systems or for cross platform use between Mac and PC the drives must be reformatted For more information see section 6 2 File System Formats 3 4 1 Windows Users This example illustrates the FAST storage policy which optimizes the LaCie Two...

Page 19: ...elect New Partition If the New Partition op tion is not available select the disk and initialize it first Fig 3 4 1 C Fig 3 4 1 C 4 Click Next to start the Partition Wizard Fig 3 4 1 D Fig 3 4 1 D Fig 3 4 1 E 5 Select the Primary or Extended option and click Next Fig 3 4 1 E Setting up your LaCie Two Big ...

Page 20: ...size By default the partition oc cupies the entire volume Click Next Fig 3 4 1 F Fig 3 4 1 F 7 Assign a drive letter or mount path and click Next Fig 3 4 1 G Fig 3 4 1 G Fig 3 4 1 H 8 Name and format the partition and click Next Fig 3 4 1 H Setting up your LaCie Two Big ...

Page 21: ...t represents the LaCie Two Big eSATA USB processor the Not Initialized disk with no capacity allocated to it Fig 3 4 2 B 2 Select a configured disk and click the Partition tab Fig 3 4 2 B red boxes 3 Select 1 Partition from the Volume Scheme drop down list Fig 3 4 2 B green box 4 Enter a name for the volume in the Name field Fig 3 4 2 B yellow box 5 Select Mac OS Extended journaled from the For ma...

Page 22: ...page 22 Fig 3 4 2 C 8 Click Partition to acknowledge the warning Fig 3 4 2 C Disk Utility mounts the created partition and represents it with an icon on the desktop The icon is labeled with the partition name Setting up your LaCie Two Big ...

Page 23: ...on when removing CAUTION Drive warranty will be void if you replace the defective drive with a drive not pro vided by LaCie Remove the front panel by grasping the top corners lifting slightly and then pulling forward on the panel removal tab Draw out the gray extraction handle by inserting your finger into the ring and pulling gently Fig 4 1 A Grasp the hard drive Carefully extract the hard drive ...

Page 24: ...cted from host Normal read write activity Drive 2 Drive is rebuilding blue Drive is not being accessed Bad drive or discon nected from host Normal read write activity System Power on green Power off or corrupt firm ware N A N A Fig 5 A Technical note The easiest way to tell the difference between a blinking LED and a flashing LED is that flashing stops when the read write ac tivity is finished and...

Page 25: ...e that all of the sectors are reliable marks bad sectors i e those that are scratched and creates internal address tables that it later uses to locate information Once formatted the actual available storage capacity varies depending on operating environment and is generally about 5 to 10 less than the nonformatted capacity Technical note Storage capacity of an ar ray depends on the RAID level The ...

Page 26: ...nt Info If you will be shar ing the hard drive between Mac and Windows operating environments you will want to follow these guidelines Mac OS X prefers that all partitions be the same format therefore only the first FAT 32 partition is guaranteed to mount Mac OS 10 1 x Works reliably with FAT 32 partitions less than 32GB Mac OS 10 2 x Works reliably with FAT 32 partitions less than 128GB Does not ...

Page 27: ...compres sion encryption permissions and auditing as well as the ability to mirror drives and RAID 5 capabilities The minimum supported volume size for NTFS is 10MB with a maximum of 2TB with no limit to file size Volumes created in NTFS can only be directly ac cessed not through shares by Windows NT Windows 2000 and XP without resorting to help from third party products Guidelines for Choosing FAT...

Page 28: ...I channel from the PCI X card can communicate with up to two disks in the Two Big What are the features and benefits of Serial ATA and Serial ATA II The Serial ATA specification provides several key features that will help spur widespread implementation Performance Serial ATA is a point to point topol ogy and does not have to share the bus instead dedi cating full bandwidth to the device These ded...

Page 29: ...supports all ATA and ATAPI devices i e CD DVD tape drives etc and delivers superior performance than both Hi Speed USB 2 0 and FireWire IEEE 1394 external Serial ATA connectors are intended for storage devices Serial ATA works best in storage environments that require high data throughput to deliver large files quickly and efficiently maximizing the storage systems utilization and enhancing overal...

Page 30: ...nection Hi Speed USB 2 0 Questions and Answers What Are The USB Interface Benefits Cross platform Use your USB peripherals on both Mac and Windows platforms Hot Swappable No need to shut down or restart your computer when adding or removing a USB de vice Plug it in and it s ready to use Automatic configuration Once your device is con nected your computer recognizes the device and au tomatically co...

Page 31: ... main functions is to re generate signals that lose strength as they are transmit ted via the USB cable By connecting yet another hub to a connector on the existing hub you can then plug in a new set of peripherals etc up to a maximum of 127 Some hubs have no power supply and others are self powered When you choose a hub opt for the self powered variety as they have their own AC adapter The most p...

Page 32: ... 160GB 40GB x 4 hard disk While this is a very simple and easily implemented design RAID 0 should never be used in mission critical environments When even just one disk in the array fails all of the data on the entire array will be lost Your LaCie Two Big eSATA USB supports several different RAID levels 0 1 Concatenation and JBOD This section will help you decide which RAID level is right for your...

Page 33: ... disk because the same data is duplicated on both disks However the 100 percent redundancy of data does not require a rebuild in the case of a drive failure In that case data can be copied to a replacement disk Characteristics and Advantages Can sustain multiple simultaneous drive failures in most cases Simplest RAID storage subsystem design Transfer rate for each block is the same as that of a si...

Page 34: ...on you can add components even if the other components are currently active Characteristics and Advantages In case of disc failure other disks are unaffected Combine the capacities of two drives into one large volume Disk A CONTROLLER Disk B Fig 7 3 A 7 4 JBOD Just a Bunch of Disks JBOD or Just a Bunch of Disks is not a numbered RAID level However it is similar because it is an Array of Inexpensiv...

Page 35: ...u the most up to date comprehensive user manuals available on the market It is our goal to provide you with a friendly easy to use format that will help you quickly install and utilize the many functions of your new device If your manual does not reflect the configurations of the product that you purchased please check our Web site for the most current version available 8 1 LEDs and Fan Problem So...

Page 36: ...rify HBA BIOS recognizes empty Two Big eSATA USB Turn off PCI bus power save mode in the host BIOS Verify the USB connection and try a different USB cable Connect to a different USB port Operating system does not recognize LaCie virtual drives Verify HBA BIOS recognizes empty LaCie Two Big eSATA USB Before reconfiguring the mode of operation use the operating system s Disk Manager to delete partit...

Page 37: ...self all of the pertinent questions in the troubleshooting checklist and you still can t get your LaCie drive to work properly contact us at www lacie com Before contacting us make sure that you are in front of your computer and that you have the following information on hand 1 2 Your LaCie drive s serial number Operating system Mac OS or Windows and ver sion Computer brand and model Names of CD o...

Page 38: ...Contact us at http www lacie com de contact LaCie Italy Contact us at http www lacie com it contact LaCie Japan Contact us at http www lacie com jp contact LaCie Netherlands Contact us at http www lacie com nl contact LaCie Norway Contact us at http www lacie com no contact LaCie Spain Contact us at http www lacie com es contact LaCie Sweden Contact us at http www lacie com se contact LaCie Switze...

Page 39: ...LaCie Two Big eSATA USB or an individual Drive Bay casing is broken One or two of the hard disks have been removed and replaced by any hard disk other than a drive provided by LaCie For drive removal replacement process see section 4 1 Removing Replacing a Drive LaCie and its suppliers accept no liability for any loss of data during the use of this device or for any of the problems caused as a res...

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