Setup Daisy Chained RAID With LaCie's Little Big Disk Thunderbolt

Hi Everybody,

I recently bought two LaCie Little Big Disks SSD Thunderbolt and wanted to set them up as a RAID setup to get the 800MB/s read write. Unfortunately the documentation on LaCie's website was horrible - nor did Google offer much. So here I am - offering my two cents on the setup.

For your information, several days after I originally posted this article feedback came in from readers requesting more screen shots and "better" screenshots. So, I have finished updating the document with awesome screens of the Disk Utility process and more. Enjoy.

Please rate this article when you're done reading it.

This could be useful for you even if you don't have a a LaCie little big disk. It would work with other Daisy Chain models and creating a RAID setup for them.

Step 1: Buy Expensive Drives & 2 Thunderbolt Cables

Buy expensive LaCie drives and do not expect anything from their technical support. Be aware of the fan sound. It can be loud if you're doing audio work in the room and you need it quiet. If you're in an office or like having ambient noise, they are okay.

The drives are $899 ea and the cables are $49 ea. Buy two of each.

Step 2: Plug Stuff In

Daisy Chain the hard drives. Don't know how to? It's really simple. Image provided but for those who like text descriptions:

1. Connect a thunderbolt cable to your MacBook Pro, iMac, MacMini, or MacBook Air (sorry no Mac Pro support).

Cable 1: MBP (Thunderbolt port) -> 1st LaCie LBD Thunderbolt Port 1
Cable 2: 1st LaCie LDB Thunderbolt Port 2 -> 2nd LaCie LBD Thunderbolt Port 1

Step 3: Disk Utility & Delete Exist RAID Setups

Once everything is plugged in, open Disk Utility.

You'll see a whole bunch of drives show up (6 new items - 4 drives 2 raid setups). Delete the RAID setups.

Step 4: Format All 4 120GB SSDs

In Disk Utility, format each of the 4 drives that are in the LBD. DO NOT FORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE - DUH!

Step 5: Create New RAID Set

Now create the RAID set by clicking on one of the disks (NOT THE MOUNTED DISK "Untitled")

Click on the "RAID" tab and then name the RAID something AWESOME like "Mac OS 10.9 Zebra"

Now drag each of the "Untitled" drives into the whitespace below the RAID setup.

Use striped so it shows up with like 479GB. That's RAID 0. The first one (119GB) is RAID 1 - useless in this system.

Now create the raid and you're golden. Do what you want with it =)