LaCie 2Big: A Hub for a Streamlined Post-Production Workflow
Earlier this fall, LaCie sent me a LaCie 20TB Dock 2-BAY RAID System to use and implement within my video-editing workflow. I was pleasantly surprised by the amazing connective power it added to my editing suite. Not only did it give me way more storage capacity, but it also improved the speed of my entire video editing workflow. I'll tell you why below, but first I want to give you a brief introduction to my current hard-drive setup.
The LaCie 2Big is the first part of my video storage ecosystem. Below are the steps I take when I start a new video project from an SD-card.
- LaCie 2Big Hard-drive (20TB) - Here I Import the footage directly with the hard-drive SD-slot and start the project.
- LaCie Rugged RAID (4TB) - Next, I backup the project and videos to my portable drive.
- EVO Prodigy desktop share-drive (16TB) - Then I backup my project a second time to my EVO and also occasionally use this great system for team project sharing with other local editors. Learn more about the EVO prodigy here in my video.
(Just as a reference, ~1 hour of 4k 30fps compressed footage creates 30GB of data. So it would take ~666.7 hours of 4k footage before a 20TB hard-drive is full).
Since I'm a freelancer that works primarily individually, on 2-3 small video projects per week, this system works very well for me, but if you are a team with 3+ editors, you may need several LaCie 4TB Rugged Raids as backups and a bigger share-drive system.
Important Tip: While, of course, you want a lot of space for your footage, you also need hard-drive redundancy to ensure the safety of your footage in case of hard-drive failure. This is why I have two backup. Let's face it, it happens to all hard-drives, no matter what the brand.
So what what exactly makes the LaCie 2BIG unique for me?
It's not just a hard-drive it's a card-reader / USB Hub.
I primarily edit video with a Mac-Pro ( 8-core trashcan model), the inputs are located on the back and it's is quite annoying to have to unplug and replug back in an SD-card, it takes time out of your workflow.
With the LaCie 2Big, however, it's modern design includes a USB 3.0 Hub, which includes a USB 3.0 input, a Compact Flash and SD-card slot. This hub makes my LaCie 2Big a perfect starting point for my post-production workflow. When I come back to my desk after a shoot, I can simply insert my SD-card or compact flash directly into hard-drive without the frustrations of setting up a dongle and a card-reader to my system.
Lacie 2BIG 20TB Drive comes with two 10TB Seagate IronWolf Pro 7200 rpm SATA III 3.5" entireprise-class hard drives.
It can power 4k displays and your USB-C laptop.
The LaCie 2Big has proven to be fast and efficient for a range of video editing tasks I perform -- from green-screen work, motion tracking, motion graphics, color correction and more!
To connect your LaCie to your computer, you have a few options. On the back it has two 40gb/s Thunderbolt 3 ports and one 5 gb/s USB Type-C port. It works great with my new Macbook Pro, and it can also charge your USB Type-C Laptop up to 15watts of power.
Also, using the Thunderbolt 3, you can connect up to 5 additional thunderbolt 3 hard-drives to your LaCie 2Big system or can be used to connect up to two 4k displays - really making it a strong hub for your video editing workflow.
Protection? It has options.
You have the option to make your data redundant across the two 10TB drives it ships with (there are also other capacity levels). When I first got the LaCie 2BIG it came pre-formatted as HSF+ for Mac with RAID 0. RAID 0 means there is no mirroring of data on the drive, giving it maximum performance of the drives. RAID 0 is a great format if you have other drives to backup to. But if you do not, I'd recommend formatting the LaCie 2BIG with RAID 1 which will render one hard-drive an exact mirror copy of the other, reducing your capacity in-half, to 10TB.
Also, your LaCie 2big drive comes with a 5 year warranty, which, I think is huge. I usually like to get new drives every 4 years. So this is a great.
Overall, I'd give the LaCie 2Big, two BIG thumbs up. It hasn't faulted once and even survived a few circuit breaks when I got too excited cooking in my kitchen. And as someone who likes to travel, I can bring and use my LaCie 2Big in any country because it comes with an adaptor for any outlet.
I'd love to hear what types of systems you use in your editing workflow. Or maybe you have a LaCie 2BIG yourself? Leave a comment below. Thanks!