Black Magic Disk Test Thunderbolt Adapter comparisons

bonedaddio · Jan 3, 2013

Hi, while waiting for my BTO iMac 27" to arrive, I've been doing some research and testing on TB adapters.
One of the reasons I did this was to see if my decision to go with a 1TB HDD and then use a TB SSD as a boot disk was a good one (relative to getting a Fusion drive or GOD FORBID the Apple $$D option. I'm satisfied that it was a good call... especially if I stripe a couple of drives in the J4.

I used Black Magic Disk Test; will post screen captures if I must, but here are some interesting results:
Test Bed:
Late 2011 MacBook Pro; Core i7; 16gb ram; internal HDD bay = Crucial M4 256 SSD; optical bay = 750 Gb HDD (stock disk, moved to optibay adapter); Apple TB cable
Notes: disk tests rounded up from 1 decimal place.

Pegasus J4 enclosure
1. Pegasus J4 TB enclosure, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 269 Read: 428

2. Pegasus J4 TB enclosure, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 236 Read: 506

Internal Sata connections
3. Internal HDD bay, Crucial M4 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 261 Read: 500

4. Internal HDD bay, Crucial M4 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 260 Read: 500

5. Internal HDD optibay, original 750 Gb HDD:

Write: 72 Read: 99

Seagate GoFlex TB Adapter
6. GoFlex TB adapter, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 239 Read: 377

7. GoFlex TB adapter, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 239 Read: 372

8. GoFlex TB adapter, Seagate Sata3 2TB HDD:

Write: 187 Read: 183

My comments: it would appear (and this is borne out by other's results) that the Pegasus J4 has a better TB implementation than the Seagate adapter especially for read tests; it is also more expensive. One of the best things about the J4 is that it will hold 4 drives and you can stripe a pair in raid 0 for READICULOUS speeds... As far as which is better, the Sammy or the Crucial, I really couldn't say at this point. I found it interesting that I got a better Read test on the Sammy when it was NOT the boot drive; while the Crucial M4 was virtually unaffected by this... although that could be accounted for by the M4 being an internal drive. And no, I'm not taking out the M4 and putting a Sammy in for testing purposes... I just want my iMac to get here before I start testing different Ram configurations in the pets... which would be messy and create problems with the wife and probably the authorities...
Hope this may be helpful to someone.
Les

qamaro · Jan 3, 2013

bonedaddio,

Thanks for the test! I've been looking around at what type of results people would get with the J4. As you stated one of the benefits is that it allows for 4 2.5" drives and allows for RAID configurations. Quick question which Samsung 840 256GB did you use? Was this the PRO model or just the standard 840? The READ performances look great, although I would have thought the WRITE would have been higher which is why I'm asking.

Thanks!

maharajah · Jan 3, 2013

Did you have to use the Promise drivers, or can the J4 be used driverless? I'm also contemplating putting a couple of 840 Pros as Raid 0 in the J4.

bonedaddio · Jan 4, 2013

qamaro said:
bonedaddio,

Thanks for the test! I've been looking around at what type of results people would get with the J4. As you stated one of the benefits is that it allows for 4 2.5" drives and allows for RAID configurations. Quick question which Samsung 840 256GB did you use? Was this the PRO model or just the standard 840? The READ performances look great, although I would have thought the WRITE would have been higher which is why I'm asking.

Thanks!

It isn't the Pro model, just the standard 840.
I did download and install the latest drivers from the Promise website.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: So far, I'm having some difficulty sorting out the J4 in Windoze 7; it's a driver issue. The J4 is not sold as compatible with Windows, they only state Mac OSX. There is often a way around this kind of thing, but maybe not.

OTOH, the Seagate shows up and loads a working driver in both OSX & Win7 automatically. So the J4 MIGHT NOT be suitable for Bootcamp... we'll see. It's early yet in the process.

xgman · Jan 4, 2013

maharajah said:
Did you have to use the Promise drivers, or can the J4 be used driverless? I'm also contemplating putting a couple of 840 Pros as Raid 0 in the J4.

I have a single 512gb 840 pro model as boot on a WD MyBook TB Duo and it writes in the 3xx's and reads in the 4xx's on that test with varying results. I am convinced however that it would spec better inside the imac.

qamaro · Jan 4, 2013

bonedaddio: Thanks for the info clarification! Based on your test results, you are getting inline performance from the J4 for that version SSD (Samsung rated #'s show 540 Write / 250 Read). Hopefully they'l fix the Windows compatibility issue in future driver releases.

xgman: Your 840 PRO would spec better inside the system from some of the benchmarks I have seen within these threads. As bonedaddio stated in the start of the thread the enclosure implementations are making a difference in the performances you can see.

WilliamG · Jan 4, 2013

The Go Flex is DATED now, and is not even a current model!

As I've posted in several threads, I have a regular, old Samsung 830 (yes, 830) 256GB running in the current Seagate Backup Plus 2.5" Thunderbolt adapter and getting the following in BlackMagic, connected to my late-2012 iMac.

365MB/s read and 320MB/s writes.

The Go Flex needs to Go Away!

hfg · Jan 4, 2013

I just received a new:
Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Portable Drives
Model: STAE128
Regulatory Model: SRD0001
Part Number: 9ZH9PU-RAA
Label: Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-Thunderbolt-Adapter-STAE128/dp/B009HQCARY/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_1

My older unit is:
Seagate GoFlex 1 TB Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive for Mac with Thunderbolt Adapter
Model: STBA1000104
Regulatory Model: SRD0001
Part Number: 9ZH9PN-RAA
Label: Seagate GoFlex Adapter Thunderbolt
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Ultra-Portable-External-Thunderbolt-STBA1000104/dp/B007IJ7T4G

They look identical, and it is misleading that both units have the same "Model: SRD0001" printed just under the title name.

I will try to run some tests with the same SSD on both units to try to quantify the differences. Hopefully, the above information may be helpful to others to identify which they have, or which they are buying.

-howard

EDIT:
Well this is discouraging .... they are both the same speed with a Crucial M4 256GB:
I get the same results with AJA Disk Test program.
Left: GoFlex .... ... .... Right: BackupPlus (4GB test file size option)
.

Dduval · Jan 4, 2013

Yes, please...eagerly awaiting your results. I for one am looking to get the seagate stae128....

identity · Jan 4, 2013

Are these tests all done without the need to connect the drives to an outlet?

hfg · Jan 4, 2013

identity said:
Are these tests all done without the need to connect the drives to an outlet?

Yes, the Seagate Thunderbolt adapters are bus powered and were plugged into the same port of a new 27" maxed out iMac.

riverpoet · Jan 4, 2013

Has anyone tried OCZ Vertex 4 or Agility 4 with any of TB enclosures?

Esp. Vertex 4 seems to have good write speeds compared to other SSD, I'm wondering if I could get 3xx/3xx via TB... I guess write speeds matter in video conversions, file copying and similar write intensive data.

Inside Mid/Late 2011 Macbook Pro I'm getting 455 read / 400 write in Blackmagic 5GB test. For comparison, my 11" Air only does 445/240 and even my 2007 iMac (SataII) does 240/230 with OCZ Agility 4.

hfg · Jan 4, 2013

Just for comparison: Thunderbolt vs. USB-3.0

Here is the same Crucial M4 256GB as above but in a USB-3 ONYX MINIPRO enclosure:

.

hfg · Jan 4, 2013

Windows Booting from Thunderbolt Adapter/Enclosures

I need a bootable Windows environment on my iMac, and don't want to use any of my internal 768GB SSD. So, I am very interested in keeping my Windows external to the iMac (for now ... maybe open it later and install inside) with the highest speed possible.

I have been able to create/install a Windows 8 boot disk using a Samsung SSD mounted on the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter, and it seems to run very well.

However, I did try to relocate the Samsung SSD with Windows on it over to the LaCie "Little Big Disk" Thunderbolt enclosure, and the ONYX MINIPORT USB 3.0 enclosure. Both enclosures started the boot, but stopped with an error that it couldn't find an important part. I did not try any repair attempts because I didn't want to have to start over, however I did notice that the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter flashed what appeared to be a BIOS message on the screen at the start of the boot process ... this was not present when booting from the LaCie or ONYX enclosures which may explain why Windows didn't run on those enclosures.

I have not tried fresh installing to either of those enclosures yet which may attach the "missing part" and run.

-howard

bonedaddio · Jan 4, 2013

hfg said:
I just received a new:
Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter for Backup Plus Portable Drives
Model: STAE128
Regulatory Model: SRD0001
Part Number: 9ZH9PU-RAA
Label: Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable-Thunderbolt-Adapter-STAE128/dp/B009HQCARY/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_1

My older unit is:
Seagate GoFlex 1 TB Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive for Mac with Thunderbolt Adapter
Model: STBA1000104
Regulatory Model: SRD0001
Part Number: 9ZH9PN-RAA
Label: Seagate GoFlex Adapter Thunderbolt
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Ultra-Portable-External-Thunderbolt-STBA1000104/dp/B007IJ7T4G

They look identical, and it is misleading that both units have the same "Model: SRD0001" printed just under the title name.

I will try to run some tests with the same SSD on both units to try to quantify the differences. Hopefully, the above information may be helpful to others to identify which they have, or which they are buying.

-howard

EDIT:
Well this is discouraging .... they are both the same speed with a Crucial M4 256GB:
I get the same results with AJA Disk Test program.
Left: GoFlex .... ... .... Right: BackupPlus (4GB test file size option)
.

It has been stated by others doing SSD drive testing with bus powered vs. AC adapter powered TB adapters that the powered ones, which is what I tested with, the GoFlex with the wall-wart and two TB ports, will generally be somewhat faster than the un-powered ones, especially with bigger SSD's. Apparently there's quite a range in the wattage available over the buss from different setups, IIRC (a fellow named Wolfgang worked on this, and posted some great testing and work-arounds).

Yes, I found the GoFlex adapter to be perfectly fine for booting Win7 in a TB enclosure. The J4 is definitely some faster, and has 4 drive bays, costs more, and seems (so far) to have a driver issue with Windows 7. I'll probably use the J4 for MAC boot, and the GoFlex for Windows 7 at least temporarily. My 27" BTO gets here next Wednesday; then we'll see what's what.

WilliamG · Jan 4, 2013

I found the above to be not true in my testing of my 256GB Samsung 830. I get the exact same speeds with all of the following:

Seagate Backup Plus 2.5" Thunderbolt adapter (bus-powered)
Seagate Backup Plus 3.5" Thunderbolt adapter (AC-powered)
BUFFALO Ministation 2.5" Thunderbolt enclosure (bus-powered)

In each case I get 365MB/s reads, and 320MB/s writes.

hfg · Jan 4, 2013

WilliamG said:
I found the above to be not true in my testing of my 256GB Samsung 830. I get the exact same speeds with all of the following:

Seagate Backup Plus 2.5" Thunderbolt adapter (bus-powered)
Seagate Backup Plus 3.5" Thunderbolt adapter (AC-powered)
BUFFALO Ministation 2.5" Thunderbolt enclosure (bus-powered)

In each case I get 365MB/s reads, and 320MB/s writes.

Does your Seagate 2.5" TB adapter have the same part number as the one I listed above?

Thanks,
-howard

iManni · Jan 4, 2013

it is possible to use the goflex tb adapter with a 512 gb ssd or is the power supply to low ?
thx

WilliamG · Jan 4, 2013

hfg said:
Does your Seagate 2.5" TB adapter have the same part number as the one I listed above?

Thanks,
-howard

From the underside of the Backup Plus Thunderbolt adapter:

PN: 9ZH9PU-RAA

Model: SRD0001

So it's a different part number than what the Go Flex is.

bonedaddio · Jan 5, 2013

WilliamG said:
From the underside of the Backup Plus Thunderbolt adapter:

PN: 9ZH9PU-RAA

Model: SRD0001

So it's a different part number than what the Go Flex is.

Well, WilliamG, you've about convinced me to send the GoFlex desktop adapter back. The similar, newer model is about $30.00 cheaper anyway. In your testing, did you try them as the boot drive vs. system drive? I got some slight but interesting variations.

WilliamG · Jan 5, 2013

bonedaddio said:
Well, WilliamG, you've about convinced me to send the GoFlex desktop adapter back. The similar, newer model is about $30.00 cheaper anyway. In your testing, did you try them as the boot drive vs. system drive? I got some slight but interesting variations.

I'm running the Backup Plus as my boot drive. Installing the 830 256GB would result in slightly better speeds, but I haven't opened up my iMac and don't intend to at this point, since over Thunderbolt is blazing fast, and benchmarks - let's face it - are kinda pointless in this regard. If I spent my life doing huge read/writes on large files, then maybe there would be a point, but... you know... I don't.

triantag · Jan 5, 2013

Pegasus J4 bootable?????

bonedaddio said:
Hi, while waiting for my BTO iMac 27" to arrive, I've been doing some research and testing on TB adapters.
One of the reasons I did this was to see if my decision to go with a 1TB HDD and then use a TB SSD as a boot disk was a good one (relative to getting a Fusion drive or GOD FORBID the Apple $$D option. I'm satisfied that it was a good call... especially if I stripe a couple of drives in the J4.

I used Black Magic Disk Test; will post screen captures if I must, but here are some interesting results:
Test Bed:
Late 2011 MacBook Pro; Core i7; 16gb ram; internal HDD bay = Crucial M4 256 SSD; optical bay = 750 Gb HDD (stock disk, moved to optibay adapter); Apple TB cable
Notes: disk tests rounded up from 1 decimal place.

Pegasus J4 enclosure
1. Pegasus J4 TB enclosure, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 269 Read: 428
2. Pegasus J4 TB enclosure, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 236 Read: 506
Internal Sata connections
3. Internal HDD bay, Crucial M4 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 261 Read: 500
4. Internal HDD bay, Crucial M4 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 260 Read: 500
5. Internal HDD optibay, original 750 Gb HDD:

Write: 72 Read: 99
Seagate GoFlex TB Adapter
6. GoFlex TB adapter, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 239 Read: 377
7. GoFlex TB adapter, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 239 Read: 372
8. GoFlex TB adapter, Seagate Sata3 2TB HDD:

Write: 187 Read: 183

My comments: it would appear (and this is borne out by other's results) that the Pegasus J4 has a better TB implementation than the Seagate adapter especially for read tests; it is also more expensive. One of the best things about the J4 is that it will hold 4 drives and you can stripe a pair in raid 0 for READICULOUS speeds... As far as which is better, the Sammy or the Crucial, I really couldn't say at this point. I found it interesting that I got a better Read test on the Sammy when it was NOT the boot drive; while the Crucial M4 was virtually unaffected by this... although that could be accounted for by the M4 being an internal drive. And no, I'm not taking out the M4 and putting a Sammy in for testing purposes... I just want my iMac to get here before I start testing different Ram configurations in the pets... which would be messy and create problems with the wife and probably the authorities...
Hope this may be helpful to someone.
Les

Hi Bonedaddio
I would like to ask you how did you manage to boot from J4 to your macbook, cause I've been trying to do that on a 27'model imac (i72600 16gb ram 2011 model)and I just can't. Until I saw that thread of yours, I thought that the damn thing is not bootable. You see, you have to install the promise driver for your OS to see that. I am using 4 seagate 7200.4 momentus drives 500GB each and it BMD test gives me 365mb/sec write and 375 read speeds on raid 0 config. Raid 1 isn't worth mentioning. I also own the bus powered thunderbolt adapter. You can't get higher than 375 read speed on a sandisk extreme and 245 write speed respectively. Similar results for the intel 520 with slightly better write speed 255mb/sec. The highest you could get from that adaptor is 380 read , 374 write with OCZ vertex 4 and the newer vector model. That's it! I have also purchased a desktop dc powered seagate model but I don't think I will get higher speeds.
Question remains How did you manage to boot from J4. Can't seem to be able to install the macosx on the raid 0 configuration. Please help.

bonedaddio · Jan 5, 2013

triantag said:
Hi Bonedaddio
I would like to ask you how did you manage to boot from J4 to your macbook, cause I've been trying to do that on a 27'model imac (i72600 16gb ram 2011 model)and I just can't. Until I saw that thread of yours, I thought that the damn thing is not bootable. You see, you have to install the promise driver for your OS to see that. I am using 4 seagate 7200.4 momentus drives 500GB each and it BMD test gives me 365mb/sec write and 375 read speeds on raid 0 config. Raid 1 isn't worth mentioning. I also own the bus powered thunderbolt adapter. You can't get higher than 375 read speed on a sandisk extreme and 245 write speed respectively. Similar results for the intel 520 with slightly better write speed 255mb/sec. The highest you could get from that adaptor is 380 read , 374 write with OCZ vertex 4 and the newer vector model. That's it! I have also purchased a desktop dc powered seagate model but I don't think I will get higher speeds.
Question remains How did you manage to boot from J4. Can't seem to be able to install the macosx on the raid 0 configuration. Please help.

Although I haven't done it myself, I believe it would go something like this:

install the J4 driver (newest one on promise website)
Install the drives in the J4, turn it on, then use Disk Utility to setup the Raid 0 array, then format it to Mac OS extended HFS (journaled)
After making sure you can "see" the striped disk as a single volume, then install OSX ML to it using either your Recovery Partition then Install clean copy of ML from Apple cloud then restore from your Time Machine backup over that (you do have a Time Machine backup, yes??!) or use a Carbon Copy Cloner disk image.

Once the raid 0 array is set up, OSX should see it as one logical disk, and treat it accordingly, install, etc. Can you see your drives striped as one volume in Disk Utility? Others with experience with Raid O arrays may wish to weigh in here... I'm pretty sure this should work, and provide monstrously fast disk I/O.
Some say that you need the external bus power to reach maximum speeds, especially with larger SSDs. YMMV. Good luck, let us know how this turns out.
BTW, I heard back from Promise Support (pretty quickly, I might add) about the J4 windows boot issues:

Request:- 4th January 2013 at 6:54
Hi I have a Pegasus J4 (without drives). I'm running it under OSX Mountain Lion, with Samsung 840 SSDs; it shows up and works excellently. When I use Bootcamp, the J4 doesn't show up in Windows. In Device manager, it shows a problem with a driver?? What driver would I use to make this show up in bootcamp? I'm using Windows 7 64bit. I have a Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex that shows up just fine under Bootcamp/Windows.
Help??

Response By:- Pradeep Chidambaranath 4th January 2013 at 21:6
Hi Leslie,

Thank you for choosing our solutions for your storage needs.

We are sorry to inform you that Pegasus J4 is not compatible with Windows operating system. The product is just launched so we may expect some windows driver updates for Pegasus J4. However, we do not have a ETA on this.

Thanks and Regards
Pradeep C
Promise Technical Support.

I wouldn't be surprised that will release a windows driver, as this is a very fast and the most affordable multi-drive TB setup out there; Windows compatibility would add a considerable additional market.

hfg · Jan 5, 2013

bonedaddio said:
Although I haven't done it myself, I believe it would go something like this:

install the J4 driver (newest one on promise website)

Install the drives in the J4, turn it on, then use Disk Utility to setup the Raid 0 array, then format it to Mac OS extended HFS (journaled)

After making sure you can "see" the striped disk as a single volume, then install OSX ML to it using either your Recovery Partition then Install clean copy of ML from Apple cloud then restore from your Time Machine backup over that (you do have a Time Machine backup, yes??!) or use a Carbon Copy Cloner disk image.

Once the raid 0 array is set up, OSX should see it as one logical disk, and treat it accordingly, install, etc. Can you see your drives striped as one volume in Disk Utility? Others with experience with Raid O arrays may wish to weigh in here... I'm pretty sure this should work, and provide monstrously fast disk I/O.
Some say that you need the external bus power to reach maximum speeds, especially with larger SSDs. YMMV. Good luck, let us know how this turns out.
BTW, I heard back from Promise Support (pretty quickly, I might add) about the J4 windows boot issues, and they said although there is nothing at this time and the J4 is Mac OSX only, they will "probably release a firmware/driver update in the future" to make it work with Windows. I wouldn't be surprised, as this is a very fast and the most affordable multi-drive TB setup out there; Windows compatibility would add a considerable additional market.

I am confused about this OS X boot issue as well as I consider purchasing a J4. If a "OS X driver" is required to access the J4 hardware, how does that "driver" get installed at boot time in order to read the J4 for booting?

If you boot from an internal drive which installs the driver ... then you can access the J4 for data storage without problems.

-howard

bonedaddio · Jan 5, 2013

It's a good question... I already had an OSX ML installation working. I downloaded and installed the latest driver, then turned on the J4 (with a Sammy 840 installed), initialized and installed in Disk Utility, then used Recovery Partition/Apple Cloud installer/Time Machine backup restore, and I could then boot (using Option at the "chime") into my internal SSD OSX ML, my J4 external OSX ML, or my external Win7 bootcamp on the Seagate GoFlex TB desktop adapter. It all just worked, and quite well. I'm looking forward to getting my new iMac setup with this (that's what it's all for, really, not the MacBook Pro, but it's what I had available with a TB port!).

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