LaCie Intros 2 TB Audio-Video Storage System

The storage system features a pair of FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port and built-in RAID 0 configuration, which the company says allows for data transfers up to 85 MB per second.

Like its 1TB and 1.6 TB brethren, the 2TB Bigger Disk Extreme is hot-pluggable in Mac OS X, with no drivers or software installation required. It also is usable with Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems.

RAID Set-Ups in Home?

All Bigger Disk Extreme models include multiple drives, an aluminum alloy outer shell and a smart fan cooling system. They can lie flat or stand upright with the included drive stand.

LaCie will ship the 2 TB Bigger Disk Extreme this spring, at a price of US$2,299. It will include FireWire 400 and 800 cables, an iLink/DV cable and LaCie's SilverKeeper utility software and Silverlining data backup application. An optional rack-mounting kit enables users to place it in a standard 19-inch rack.

IDC analyst John Buttress said the Bigger Disk Extreme line-up is indicative of a desktop storage trend that's increasingly blurring the line between traditional enterprise offerings and products designed for users who don't have sophisticated technical knowledge, such as digital video editors or graphic artists.

While a RAID 0 configuration increases data throughput, it doesn't provide the disk mirroring and drive hot-swapping offered by RAID 1. Buttress told MacNewsWorld that "if [LaCie] could offer RAID 1, then data is duplicated and doesn't need to be backed up if it's used as the primary storage."

Marketing Strategy

Still, the Bigger Disk Extreme's built-in RAID 0 set-up doesn't require less technical users to know the ins and outs of RAID configurations -- and while that is good, it's not enough, especially if companies like LaCie want to sell such drives to the home market, Buttress explained.

"They need a new name for RAID for the home market," he said. "They need to market it in a way that's plain-spoken and invisible to the home user. And they also need software that tells them [users] what to do. They don't want to open the computer case."

Those needs arise because of opportunities that Buttress sees for such storage systems in the home market. "As storage needs in the home grow, you can see the requirement for networked storage with RAID configuration," he said. "It's one thing to lose downloaded music; it's another to lose graduation photos."

Prices will have to drop, of course, before widespread adoption of advanced storage devices in the home market will be realized. Buttress estimated that users, no matter how sophisticated, typically want to spend no more than 20 percent of the purchase price of a computer on storage peripherals.

Business Market

Until prices come down, a device like the Bigger Disk Extreme remains in the domain of the business environment and such power users as digital video editors and graphic artists.

While Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) retains a healthy share of the market in the creative fields, it still struggles to regain lost ground in the business arena. Buttress pointed to the Mac mini as the company's best way to re-enter that sector.

"Companies are turning to mini PCs in general because they're inexpensive and a lot of office workers don't need a high-end machine," he said. "The biggest problems Apple has are the fact that companies need Mac support personnel and the ability to add the computers to the network."

Only time will tell how many office employees wind up using Macintosh computers connected to devices like the Bigger Disk Extreme.