The French manufacturer LaCie has launched its first server to run Microsoft’s Windows Home Server. This bad boy is really destined to be in every small business.
As LaCie’s Solutions Business Unit Manager, Erwan Girard, wisely reiterated: “For small businesses, backing up data is vital. Until now, storage solutions that efficiently protect and manage heterogeneous environments have been cumbersome, cost-prohibitive and difficult to configure”. LaCie’s 5big Backup Server is anything but that, because of the innovative pairing with Microsoft’s Windows Home Server platform. The combination of the two products gives users the opportunity to use the server in their small businesses, with out having to hire a whole IT department.
On a bit ‘lighter’ note, if you are a fan of LED lights (and we all know we have an abundance of them, from our routers, switches, home servers, etc) there are little blinking lights all over the house (or concentrated in one room).
However, LaCie can beat them all with its 5big Backup Server. Now of course this article has nothing to do with lights but since it is this server’s most noticeable first impression we couldn’t help but mention it.
Going beyond the beautiful big blue eye, the server sports an aluminum (recyclable) casing, energy efficient power supply, as well as low power hard drives.
The 5-bay appliance is targeted at the small business market (SoHo/SMB), offering backup & restore for up to 10 PCs and 25 Apple Macs and centralized file-sharing on your network.
The device provides up to 10TB of internal storage capacity in five drive bays and is expandable with its two USB and two eSATA ports.
You can also take advantage of its two Ethernet ports to do link aggregation and get twice the performance of single Gigabit Ethernet connection.
Internally the LaCie 5big Backup server utilizes Intel’s D410 single-core processor, clocked at 1.6GHz.
LaCie 5big Backup Server
LaCie also added on the following Software:
- Mac Feature – This professional Time Machine feature allows you to backup up to 25 Macs and the server supports AFP, Spotlight and the AppleTalk Stack for legacy applications.
- Media Streaming – Twonky Media Server provides its UPNC/UPnP/DNLA server
Powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server
The LaCie big5 Backup Server is powered by Microsoft’s Windows Home Server operating system. “LaCie is a leading storage manufacturer that believes simple and intuitive usability is not just for the home, but also for small businesses,” said Mike Schutz, Microsoft Director of Product Management, Solutions Marketing. “The combination of LaCie’s 5big Backup Server and Microsoft’s robust Windows Home Server platform allows users to take mission-critical technology and use it for their small business to store, protect and access important data without the need for large IT budgets or specialized environments.”
The LaCie big5 Backup Server is available for sale starting today (August 3rd) in the USA, Europe and Australian markets including New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Pricing (5 TB) as follows:
| Country | Price |
| Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Italy | €1,239 |
| France | €1,249 |
| Finland | €1,359 |
| UK | £1074.99 |
| Switzerland | CHf 1,729 |
| Denmark | 5,789 DKK |
| Norway | 9,459 NOK |
| Sweden | 13,709 SEK |
| USA | $1,199.99 |
LaCie always places style over substance and the server is too expensive for a niche product
Can you control the brightness of the LaCie blue eye?
Too expensive, period. And one more LED lighting up my room is what I don't need! Especially a giant one. Take away that light and the simple box is cool.
Yep, at around double the price of an EX495…why would one buy this?
Well, LaCie does build quality products. i would love to see it in person. . .
Can you buy a 1 TB or 2TB option? I would not want top pay extra for 5x 1TB HDD
@GOTT
Yes you can adjust the LED brightness, toggle LED on/off. In addition, whats cool is that the LED changes to a red color if there is a problem.