LaCie has begun shipping its 2TB Biggest FW800 storage box, a unit that packs in four lock-in-place hot-swappable 500GB SATA drives and a dinky LCD status panel.

Despite the FW800 in its name, the Biggest FW800 can also connect by USB 2.0 and FireWire 400. The system can be set to combine the four drives as a single, large storage space or in RAID 0+1, 5 and 5+spare configurations. The RAID type is set using a switch on the back of the unit and maintained by the machine's on-board controller.

LaCie also said the drive will automatically respond to drive, fan and power failures, and will even shut itself down if the temperature rises above 55°C. Freshly fitted drives are automatically populated according to the RAID setting.

Available now, the 2TB Biggest FW800 costs £1,339 inc VAT. LaCie is also offering a 1TB version, for £839. ®

Related reviews

LaCie Safe 250GB biometric hard drive
LaCie Skwarim 30GB pocket hard drive
LaCie Two Big 1TB eSATA drive
LaCie Rugged 80GB portable hard drive

Related stories

• La Cie heads to Switzerland to get into the cloud (20 March 2009)
• Verbatim buys into portable HDs (6 July 2007)
• NEC's NAS redefines 'revolutionary' (28 November 2006)
• Seagate lifts Maxtor max capacities (12 October 2006)
• Western Digital ships 1TB RAID-able external HDD (3 October 2006)
• LaCie Silverscreen TV-ready HDD reborn as iZak (27 September 2006)
• LaCie expands SAFE drives (7 September 2006)
• Seagate readies SOHO-friendly 1TB NAS box (11 July 2006)