Promise Pegasus R6 - 18TB (Errors!)

[bergert]

Originally Posted by Cecco

May I ask, what temperature according to the Promise utility you see for controller and backplane for a given room temperature for both your 2TB and 4TB model?

The Room has 26C and right now all of the 2TB disks have 38C (power cycle max is 39C; and lifetime max is 45C); controller is 51C, backplane is 48C; 1400rpm. The 4TB disk #1 has 43C (power cycle max is 45C and lifetime max is 49C); controller is 58C, backplane is 49C; 2200rpm.

I think the backplane max of 50 means it will spin the fan as fast as needed to keep backplane temp below 50C; so you should actually never reach backplane temp above 50C.

hope this helps

[dia3olik]

bergert!!
all is going well with the 4tb drives?
any hicckups???

[ix400]

I have a quick question regarding the Promise Pegasus drives: Is it possible to use the Apple thunderbolt to ethernet adapter on the second TB port of the Pegasus? Can I Daisy Chain the network to my Macbook like this? If so, will this slow down the transfer rates from the pegasus to my MacBook?

Cheers, Chris

[sfxguy]

Yes.
I went through a call with Promise engineers and they tested it for me on a conference call with a Dual Link Aggregation setup and it works just fine.
(I ended up going to a Drobo 5D instead, but yes it works great)

[ix400]

Originally Posted by sfxguy

Yes.
I went through a call with Promise engineers and they tested it for me on a conference call with a Dual Link Aggregation setup and it works just fine.
(I ended up going to a Drobo 5D instead, but yes it works great)

Thanks, Greetings to California,
Chris

[Cecco]

Can confirm what sfxguy said. I have it running with Dual Link Aggregation on a Mac mini since July and it works without problems so far.

Didn't do any benchmarks though, but there should be plenty of headroom for the Thunderbold connection to use both the RAID and the Ethernet-Adapter to its limits.

Pete

[bergert]

Originally Posted by dia3olik

all is going well with the 4tb drives?
any hicckups???

The first R6(6x2TB=8/2011) and also the second R6(6x4TB=8/2012) are both completely stable.

I have them daisy chained; connected to a MacMini (LCD via HDMI). Even a iPhone 4S/GSM in 10in (20cm) distance causes no issues. I power it on and off; we use it every single day for about 6hrs.

[jimthing]

Bump.

Got a late-2012 bought Promise Pegasus R6 6x1TByte unit.
Is it definitely possible to put 6x4TB Hitachi 4TByte drives in it, or not?
— these Hitachi/HGST drives are the best priced 4TB's affordable at the moment (4TB's are finally getting affordable).

(However, I have read some things about MTBF [mean time between failure] issues if one uses enclosures with 20+ TBytes in them, but not sure if the info is relevant for SOHO [small office, home office] users?? So still rather confused as a layman, and with Promise's lacking info on 4Tbyte controller/software/firmware support?)

One idea is to use an additional backup (like my idea: the LaCie 20TByte 5big Thunderbolt unit, in R0?) — using Time Machine (or perhaps clone backup?) — would this would be OK?

(BTW, I want to stick with Thunderbolt for next 2-3 years future DAS storage [connected to a Mac Mini as media server], as this makes sense for great speeds now and going forward into the future, me thinks.)

Any setup thoughts/ideas really gratefully received for a a semi-expert home user storage user, folks.

("semi-expert" meaning: I've read a fair amount of stuff, without being anywhere near an expert in the storage field.)

[Giuly]

If they use 4K sectors, then yes.

[jimthing]

Originally Posted by Giuly

If they use 4K sectors, then yes.

4K sectors? Thanks for answering, but can you expand a little for me, what exactly does this mean with regard to the R6?
Don't all 4TByte HDD's (and 3TB HDD's, for that matter) come using 4K sectors automatically anyway? Does one have to change something on the R6's set-up in the Promise Utility software accordingly, or is this all automatic on this enclosure?


EDIT: I've probably answered my own question, for reasons explained further above, after re-reading this thread. ...I know, rather silly of me, lol!
Though is this the same issue as MTBF (mean time between failures), I mentioned earlier? Can get e little confusing reading 'heavy' storage tech sites about this stuff.

[jimthing]

OK, having researched this further I have decided to go for...

- 2x R6's.
- 1 (main storage), 1 (backup copy of main storage) — as all raids can fail!
- replacing the drives in them for fast 7200rpm 4TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000.
- both in RAID 5 level: 6x4TB = 20TB available on each.

One question I am still wondering about though:

If I use Time Machine to backup the main storage R6 to the backup R6, if the main storage R6 fails completely and one fixed it (eg. if 3 drives failed and I replaced them), can one rebuild the main storage R6 using Time Machine from the backup R6?

NB: the Mac Mini connected to the R6's is effectively just an SSD boot drive (with just apps on it, hence all data stored on the main storage R6) and has it's own 1TB HDD inside in the second drive bay with backups using Time Machine, so nothing on the Mini's SSD backs-up to the backup R6's Time Machine backups.

Anyone know if Time Machine would be able to do this? Or instead is there a better way to do backups from one external drive to another external drive?


Any advice gratefully received from the smart tech peeps I know hang around here on MacRumors!