LaCie 2Big 12TB Thunderbolt 2 DAS External Storage Review

We dive into the latest DAS solution from LaCie, the 2Big Thunderbolt 2. This monster comes complete with no less than 12TB of brilliant storage.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: LaCie
3 minutes & 42 seconds read time

Introduction & Pricing, Availability and Specifications

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LaCie is known for its professional storage solutions catered towards the prosumer market. Over the last few months, LaCie has been at work releasing its latest Thunderbolt 2 solutions. Today, we take a look at the revamped 2Big Thunderbolt solution.

This new solution is available in several capacities, including 6TB, 8TB, and 12TB. Each of these models is preconfigured in RAID 0, or "fast" as LaCie calls it. A stand out feature of the latest 2Big storage solution is the inclusion of USB 3.0 along with dual Thunderbolt 2 ports. This gives LaCie a larger customer base to market the 2Big to, including both Windows and Mac users alike.

Pricing, Availability and Specifications

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MSRP for the 12TB LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2 is set at $999.99 with a three-year warranty. Availability is high at this point, with many online retailers having the unit in stock.

PRICING: You can find the LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2 for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2 (12TB) retails for $999.00 at Amazon.

LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2

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Packaging for the 2Big carries on the traditional professional appeal we have seen from LaCie in the past. Here we have an image of the product front and center with a few marketing details surrounding.

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The back of the packaging includes a layout diagram of the enclosure.

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Internally, the accessories box houses the serial numbers for both Genie Backup Manager and Intego Backup Manager.

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Scope of delivery for the 2Big Thunderbolt 2 includes the enclosure with drives installed, a Thunderbolt cable, a USB 3.0 cable, the warranty card, and a power cable.

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Physically, the latest 2Big solution adds another bay to the width of the unit. Of course, we still have the Neil Poulton design.

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The back of the unit houses a Noctua fan for cooling the unit. On the side of the 2Big, we have the cover that houses the connections.

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Inside the cover on the side of the unit, LaCie has integrated the RAID mode selection.

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Internally, with our unit being the 12TB model, we have dual 6TB Seagate Desktop drives.

Test System Setup

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In testing the performance of Thunderbolt storage solutions, we utilize the Apple MacBook Pro Retina Late 2013 model, which as of this article is running OS X 10.9.1. Full system specifications are available above. To create RAID volumes in OS X, we use Apple Disk Utility with 64K stripe size.

Black Magic Design Disk Speed Test

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Disk Speed Test is an easy-to-use tool to quickly measure and certify your disk performance for working with high quality video. Simply click the start button, and Disk Speed Test will write test your disk using large blocks of data, and then display the result. Disk Speed Test will continue to test writes and reads from your disk, so you can evaluate both performance and readability over time.

AJA System Test

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Check the performance of any drive on your system to ensure it is tuned for the performance you need.

Benchmarks - Black Magic Design Disk Speed Test and AJA System Test

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Here we take a look at the 2Big Thunderbolt 2 in RAID 0. As you can see, we reached 421 MB/s read and 325 MB/s write.

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Moving over to RAID 1, the LaCie was capable of 203 MB/s read and 204 MB/s write.

Benchmarks - AJA System Test

All testing with AJA System Test is done with a 16GB file size.

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In our first test, we test 720p and RAID 0. Here we see the 2Big touching 500 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write.

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Over on 1080p RAID 0, we found the LaCie coming in again at 500 MB/s read at peak and 400 MB/s write.

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4K and RAID 0 calmed the 2Big down a little, with the unit coming in around 480 MB/s read and 380 MB/s write.

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Swapping the unit over to RAID 1, or "safe" as LaCie calls it, we find the unit coming in around 250 MB/s read and write.

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Increasing the workload to 1080p, we find the same results, though the variation tightens up a bit.

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4K results tighten up even more, but we still find the unit hovering around 230 MB/s read and write.

Final Thoughts

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The new LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2 is truly a great storage solution for those that want the flexibility that Thunderbolt brings to the table via daisy chaining coupled with tremendous storage capacity that's unprecedented in a two-bay solution. The build quality of the 2Big Thunderbolt 2 is rather solid. Everything fits together with minimal tolerance, so the drive bays feel snug, and the RAID selection cover takes a slight amount of effort to remove.

Performance of the 2Big Thunderbolt 2 was quite exceptional for a hard drive based unit. In fact, with the inclusion of the Seagate Desktop HDD, this may be the quickest dual-bay, capacity-driven Thunderbolt solution on the market.

The LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2 in the 12TB capacity carries an MSRP of $999.99 with a three-year warranty.

PRICING: You can find the LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2 for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.

United States: The LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 2 (12TB) retails for $999.00 at Amazon.

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Tyler joined the TweakTown team in 2013 and has since reviewed 100s of new techy items. Growing up in a small farm town, tech wasn't around, unless it was in a tractor. At an early age, Tyler's parents brought home their first PC. Tyler was hooked and learned what it meant to format a HDD, spending many nights reinstalling Windows 95. Tyler's love and enthusiast nature always kept his PC nearby. Eager to get deeper into tech, he started reviewing.

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