Blackmagic Multidock - first impressions

YAY !

The Good:
Seems to be SATA II after all (I see 6Gbps in "System Information" as the negotiated speed on my Samsung 830 and 840 non pro and 840 EVO drives)
Silent
So far able to get 650MB/s writing to two drives at once
No issues booting from it
Build quality seems solid.
Four independent SATA controllers (one per drive bay)

The Bad:
almost $600
Does not come with power cable !
Does not come with TB cable
Only one TB port
SATA II controllers (per email from Blackmagic)

But for the ProAudio work I do (ProTools 11HD, Avid HD Native Thunderbolt on a late 2013 i7 imac...) this has solved all of my performance issues (was having CPU overload errors with many plug ins recording and working at 96kHz 64 buffer). I removed all my recording and sample drives from USB3 and put them in the BM MD.

In the limited testing I have done I am getting Write /Read speeds of
307/345 for an older Samsung 830 256G (trim enable through TB worked fine)
318/382 for a Samsung 840 non pro 500G
340/385 for a Samsung 840 EVO 1TB
~650MB/s writing to them both at the same time (8GB test file)
I am unsure if the BM MD can do full SATA III speeds (nothing looking that good so far) - BUT - in the Apple system Information I see 6 Gbps negotiated speed. Will test with 512G 840 Pro drive tomorrow.

<EDIT> With the EVO 1TB 840 drive I get 340/385 W/R. These are way at the upper end of theoretical SATAII speed but way less than the published 500MB/s+ speeds this drive can do.

this is just like having my four bays in the old MacPro back (though 2.5" drives only which is just fine with me)....

And I booted a clone from it with no issues as well

System information for Samsung 830 in BM MD
--------------------------------------------
Thunderbolt AHCI Controller:

Vendor: Thunderbolt
Product: AHCI Controller
Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit
Physical Interconnect: SATA
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

SAMSUNG SSD 830 Series:

Capacity: 256.06 GB (256,060,514,304 bytes)
Model: SAMSUNG SSD 830 Series
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk2
Medium Type: Solid State
TRIM Support: Yes
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

ender78 said:

Thanks for the info, Im curious as to whether or not the 512GB 840 will show anywhere close to the 500MB/sec rated speed in that enclosure

Click to expand...

Drive won't be here till tomorrow
FWIW I had slightly higher Read Speeds on the 840 non pro with USB3 (~420MB/s)...

Will post back once I know!

Strangely RAID is tough for me - not at all how I work and I have no matching pairs of SSDs... still I get a new drive tomorrow - let me see what I can make happen. The R4 V2 looks nice as well. Not much price difference! So far the BM MD is a bit better suited to what I do

I finally got a reply from Blackmagic about the controllers in this box and they say it is SATA II (why oh why

My tests on a brand new 1TB EVO 840 support this (340/385 MB/s W/R)

I have a 840 pro coming later but am thinking this the top speed.

Finished testing yesterday...

512G 840 Pro W/R is the same as 840 EVO in this case - (340/385 MB/s)

I did a couple of quick RAID tests before loading up the drives....
Not same size but it worked for testing
(EVO 1TB + 840 Pro 512GB)

RAID 0 - striped was symmetrical 700/700 MB/s W/R
RAID 1 - mirror was 350/700 MB/s W/R (this actually might be useful for me)

So - ALL works great! I imaging a third drive would come close to the TB limit in RAID. But sadly - it is a SATA II device... still working well in my application but selling this one two years down the road for a SATA III / TB box probably won't recoup many $$ -- I do have till 1/17/14 to return it if something better can hurry up and get here!

ender78 said:

Are you saying that in RAID 1 it's smart enough to read data from both drives? That sound pretty cool ! I had no idea that ever happened with RAID 1.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what happened! I didn't expect it but thats what it did. For audio work this is pretty cool since large sessions are mostly read - not write. Nice local data security. Now I have to get a second expensive SSD to do it though! LOL

Hey Alex,

The SSDs press into place but the fit is nice and snug - nothing like a cheap USB case where the slightest nudge looses connection. No way a casual brush will disconnect the drive. Where it is a little looser is in the up down fit. The bay can easily fit thicker drives (most of mine are 9mm). It worried me at first with the one 7200rpm spinner I put in (as if the spindle would rest on something) but it hasn't turned out to be an issue.

I realized after putting the drives in and out a few times that this tight fit has to degrade somewhat over time. Hopefully I will never be pulling them in and out so often that I ever find that point.

I am still very happy with this unit. It completly solves my local storage needs (3 drives - 2TB of SSD storage and 1TB of 7200rpm back up - drive usually unmounted and off). Very consistent performance and silent. I fear that BM will most certainly update these with 2 TB ports and SATA III internal chopping any resale in half - but at the same time - using this unit as a JBOD with just SATA II speeds is working really well. Booting from it feels fast and responsive and 350MB/s R/W is still no slouch. For Audio 96kHz/24bit =~ 300KB/s per track. So 30MB/s = 50 tracks in record and 50 tracks in playback - or 100 tracks in PB and one in record at 10% bandwidth of the drive.

Yeah - I am still pretty happy!