Lacie ethernet big disk HD via Airport. No go.

Question

Level 3

598 points

Lacie ethernet big disk HD via Airport. No go.

Here's what I don't understand.

Apple is the leading computer company of the world. It is.

Networking from day one. Local talk on up. Here we are in 2007, really 2008. The most advanced OS. Leopard.

Apple embraces wireless before anyone. Apple drives the demand for wireless. From computers to iPhone.

It's all in place. AppleTV. iTunes. Music.

Apple preaches backups. Good. I've been backing up since 1995.

So now we have Apple deliver Leopard. I buy it and install it on my numerous Intel Mac's. yes I always buy the latest Apple gear. Love it.

And I buy a Lacie ethernet big disk 1 terabyte hard drive. Ethernet of course. Speed. I got to have more speed! Movies for AppleTV with movies. iTunes remotely for music. ONE TERABYTE! Plugged into my Apple gigabit Airport.

And I can't access this hard drive in Leopard.

Why is that? Nothing. It says connecting. It never does.

What a waste. If I wanted and OS that doesn't work? We know that option.

Does anyone have an ethernet disk connected to Airport that is working? is it Lacie? They say it's Apple via their tech support. Apple tech support gave up on the HD issue. Like they did on why my second Airport N base station connected via WDS to the main gigabit Airport. And why only it's connection throughput of of 4.5 Mbps. While the main Airport, 30 feet away gives me 28,000.00 Mbps. They just told me it was a hardware issue. Even though we switched out Airport N's. I have a few of them. Gear head. Oh well. I leave my printers unplugged until I need them. So I get the full throughput.

So does anyone have an ethernet hard drive working in Leopard? Does it work? USB disks work at times. But they;re not reliable either.

I need network hard drive access. But not in Leopard.

MacBook Pro Core Duo 2.16ghz, Mac OS X (10.5), 4GB Ram  250GB HD  3 iPhones  Numerous iPods

Posted on Nov 11, 2007 1:09 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 11, 2007 2:20 PM in response to musicmaker

Yes, I just bought a 750GB Lacie Ethernet Disk Mini. Installed the IP Configurator software that cam with the drive then set up "share" on drive which then showed up straight away in Leopard "shared" column.

I wanted the ethernet drive for the same reason you do and have set up a WDS net with two brand new ABSn units to stream video from noisy and ugly drives upstairs to quiet area downstairs and I am having a nightmare:

Awful throughput rates 0.5 MBps from Ethernet drive????
WDS network falls over after half an hour of setting it up and Airport utility can't find any base stations even though they are both switched on.

I have no idea what the problem is....

VERY frustrating

Reply

Answer 2

musicmaker Author

Level 3

598 points

Nov 11, 2007 2:26 PM in response to niallzagreb

Very frustrating. I can't leave the Airport on in my office with the printers because if I go in there to work, my internet speed drops to almost nothing. SI I only turn it on to print. So that means walking to the location. I might as well throw away the second Airport and jut carry the MacBook Pro in and plug a printer in via USB.

This is the most frustrated I've been with Apple. Hard disks are not accessible. Even though they show up in the SIdebar. Airports DECREASE speeds when more than one is used. Let alone bought from Apple.

There is a lot of DIS-function with Leopard. Apple should not be proud compared to Vista

Reply

Answer 3

Nov 13, 2007 1:53 AM in response to musicmaker

"Does anyone have an ethernet disk connected to Airport that is working? is it Lacie? They say it's Apple via their tech support. Apple tech support gave up on the HD issue."

Your problem could be related to the following:

---
However, LaCie sees to have included a severe bug on the Big Disk in the software running on the NAS; currenly in version 1.1.1, update 1.0.10. Lacie does not seem to be aware of that bug. What happens is that *NIX copy (cp) fails upon copying large amounts of small files. The transfer speed gradually decreases to a few kb/s (no matter whether SMB or AFP are used), finally the transfer stops and cp hangs. Correspondence with LaCie only led to sending us (= our lab; we wanted to use the BigDisk as a backup in a research lab) "new" devices, but they all have the same problem. Since the single disk version (EDmini V2, also present in our lab) does not have this problem and since the error occurs reproducibly with both file servers I assume there is a bug in the piece of software that turns the two disks into a single volume.
---

I'm having the same problem and discovered another when trying to format the BigDisk; there is definitely something wrong with the NAS software on the disk and my advise is: do -not- use the LaCie ethernet BigDisk until this is solved ... the risc of losing data is too big!

I'm also not using it until LaCie comes up with a solution.

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 13, 2007 2:23 AM in response to Pieter De Jong

p.s. I'm using Leopard.

Tried to copy 33 Gb ... took more than 10 hours on a GigaBit ethernet(!) connection. But again: I suspect the LaCie ethernet BigDisk is the problem.

I have another LaCie 1TB firewire/usb interface ... no problems at all.

Reply

Answer 5

Nov 13, 2007 8:26 AM in response to Pieter De Jong

I also bought a Lacie Ethernet Big disk extreme, which to my dismay,
doesn't work with Time Machine,

is extremely slow via APF with any other Backup solution,

and can't work plugged in USB !!! : I followed the manual, but the Network pop-up shows <<modem>> and nothing of the sort described by Lacie.

If someone has been able to make it work in USB, please let me know. To my consternation, I think this purchase is a lost of money...otherwise.

Reply

Answer 6

musicmaker Author

Level 3

598 points

Nov 13, 2007 8:44 AM in response to Mr. Scuttles

I haven't any access to the drive. USB doesn't work. I spoke with Lacie and USB doesn't work in Leopard. So no access that way.

I see the drive in the sidebar in Leopard as Ethernet_BD AFP. I click on it and. It says connecting. but never does.

If I use Go to Server, I see the drive, click connect, I see it trying to connect. But never does.

Use Lacie IP Configuator. I get the IP assigned to the disk too.

It doesn't work connected to the USB port of the Airport Extreme N either of course.

Zero access to this drive for me.

This is one of those bugs Apple delivered in Leopard that is TOTALLY NO ACCEPTABLE. That and Air Disk's unreliability. Air Disk basically doesn't work if I connect a USB drive. Just constant disappearing. And one drive, my Iomega 250GB USB drive, crashes the Airport. I loose internet. If I disconect this drive and reboot, I'm back up. if I connect it again. With 5 minutes I'm off internet. Over and over again.

Leopard is the most bug prone release of all Apple releases I've ever had. I'm using Apple Macs since 1994.

Reply

Answer 7

Nov 13, 2007 10:01 AM in response to musicmaker

"I spoke with Lacie and USB doesn't work in Leopard" ... I figure with the LaCie BigDisk they mean? I have multiple (other) usb devices in Leopard available.

As far as I know ip addresses arent't related to USB.

Did you try attaching it through ethernet with you computer, that'll work. They only thing that doesn't work properly then is the NAS software as far as I can see.

Reply

Answer 8

musicmaker Author

Level 3

598 points

Nov 13, 2007 10:08 AM in response to Pieter De Jong

Yes just the big disk not working. It will probably not be supported with Leopard for USB connection is what I was told. And for the ethernet to work, wait for an update. But they can't tell me when it will be available! And when I said if I can connect to the disk via ethernet or USB, how do they expect me to apply an update to the disk? He didn't know.

Skip Lacie everyone. Buy from anyone else for hard drives. Lacie doesn't care about Mac, That's what I get from their email responses and actually talking to tech support on the phone.

They could give a sh*t.

Reply

Answer 9

Nov 13, 2007 10:16 AM in response to musicmaker

Sorry to hear all that 😟

I do have good experiences with LaCie (until now) but see dark clouds with this specific model, the LaCie ethernet BigDisk 1TB (and others as well), at the moment I'm contacting LaCie to see what they come up with, if this doesn't satisfy me I'll ask for a refund or they'll have to come up with a good alternative.

An ethernet share drive with two disks in it not completely supported/bug free with the onboard disk's server software is waiting for BigTrouble ... -even- if you manage to hook it up with USB! So be aware!!!

Reply

Answer 10

musicmaker Author

Level 3

598 points

Nov 13, 2007 10:20 AM in response to Pieter De Jong

Yeah. I had a 500 gb Lacie. I gave it to my brother for backups. Via USB. It did work viw USB and Airport. I bought the 1tb big disk because I filled up the 500.

So now I have 1tb of nothing. I have other HD's I use now to backup via time Machine.

Oh yeah. Apple? F*cking fix Air Disk and Time Machine.

Man I feel I'm dealing with a PC with this crap.

Reply

Answer 11

Nov 13, 2007 10:29 AM in response to musicmaker

As far as I get it the 500 GB's and even the single disk 1 TB's didn't have any problems, so you should tell your brother to give back the 500 Gb and he'll get a great 1000 Gb in return. 😉

I personally have no experience with Airport/Disk but have no big faith in it ... neither do I in PC's 🙂

Reply

Answer 12

musicmaker Author

Level 3

598 points

Nov 13, 2007 10:35 AM in response to Pieter De Jong

No he's using it.

I'll buy something else. I have a few 250GB drives. And the 2 or 3 8-GB drives out of the kids MacBooks I bought enclosures for from http://www.transintl.com/macupgrades/index.cfm.

I think Apple hasn't thought through we MacBook and MacBook Pro mobile people at all. They believe everyone sits at a desk with USB cables all around them. Sad to say all of us who bought into the Apple wireless Airports for years, Air Disk and MacBook and MacBook Pros, then upgraded to Leopard? We;re out of luck. I guess it's an Apple thing. We get to pay full price to be beta testers.

Reply

Answer 13

Nov 16, 2007 6:13 AM in response to musicmaker

Update: I will get a refund from LaCie and consider buying something else, not sure if it will be LaCie again though ...

Reply

Answer 14

Nov 16, 2007 7:35 AM in response to musicmaker

I have an iomega 1 tb external attached via usb to the AEBS, formatted HFS+ (Journaled). My G4 Powerbook with Leopard sees and transfers files to/from it via wifi with no issues. My iMac g4 running Tiger, same deal. My Dell PC running Windows XP and connected via ethernet to the AEBS? Same deal. I think this is a LaCie problem, not an Apple one.

Reply

Answer 15

musicmaker Author

Level 3

598 points

Nov 16, 2007 7:47 AM in response to Firesign3000

Probably right. I can't see this drive no matter what. Well I see it in my sidebar. But can't connect to it ever.

Neither if I use Go To Server and use the IP address.

Reply