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LaCie Biggest Quadra
User Manual
page 45
Technical Information
7.2. Available Storage Capacity
A gigabyte (GB) means 1,000,000,000 bytes. In or-
der to utilize a hard disk drive, it has to be formatted
first. Formatting a disk consists of the following: the
operating system erases all of the bookkeeping infor-
mation on the disk, tests the disk to make sure that all
of the sectors are reliable, marks bad sectors (i.e., those
that are scratched) and creates internal address tables
that it later uses to locate information. Once formatted,
the actual available storage capacity varies, depending
on operating environment, and is generally about 5 to
10% less than the non-formatted capacity.
7.3. Optimizing Data Transfers
Data transfers are the flow of data that accomplish-
es a task, usually related to moving data from storage
to computer RAM, or between storage devices. With
external drives, such as the LaCie Biggest Quadra, the
data is transferred from the drive to the computer via
the FireWire or USB interface. e data is fed from the
drive through the FireWire port on the drive, and passes
to the computer through the FireWire host-bus adapter
interface.
Computer manufacturer’s implementation of the
FireWire host-bus adapter interfaces vary widely.
For computers running Windows 2000 and later, the
FireWire interface, which is referred to as either IEEE
1394 or iLink on PCs, is less common as a native host-
bus adapter. Nearly all recent Apple computers have na-
tive FireWire interface ports.
e FireWire interfaces specify certain require-
ments, filed under the OHCI (Open Host Controller
Interface) standards. All LaCie drives comply to OHCI
standards and have been rigorously tested on computers
that have host bus adapters that also comply to OHCI
standards. Unfortunately, not all manufacturers respect
these guidelines, and anomalies may arise with comput-
ers that have host bus adapters that do not conform to
OHCI standards.
For the best performance, connect your LaCie Big-
gest Quadra directly to a native FireWire port on your
computer, and avoid daisy-chaining. During data trans-
fers, it’s best to wait before launching other applications
that will be using the same port.
If you do not have a native FireWire port, LaCie
offers FireWire host bust adapter cards, also known as
PCI or PC/PCMCIA cards, that have been tested and
comply with LaCie drives. Please contact your reseller
or LaCie Customer Support for more information.
TeChNICAl NOTe: Another important factor
in file transfer speeds is how the drive has been for-
matted. For more TN information in choosing the
correct file system format, please see section 7.1.
File System Formats.
TeChNICAl NOTe: Capacity depends on
RAID mode selected:
RAID 0: 100%
RAID 0+1: 50%
RAID 5: 75%
RAID 5+spare: 50%
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