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Early Thunderbolt vs FireWire RAID Benchmarks

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MacRumors

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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With the Pegasus R4 and R6 Thunderbolt RAID Enclosures now shipping, the first review units are starting to appear at various publications. Macworld has some early benchmarks comparing a 6-drive RAID 5 Promise enclosure to a 4-drive RAID 5 SmartStore DS 4600. The comparisons aren't entirely equal as the Promise enclosure doesn't support USB or FireWire, so they had to make do with comparing different enclosures.

Pegasus_SmartNavi-500x358.jpg



The early results are impressive. Benchmarks showed that the read and write speeds of the Thunderbolt enclosure were 6.8 and 11.5x faster than FireWire 800:
When connected to the iMac, the R6's AJA System Test read scores came in at 566MBps--6.8 times faster than the DS4600 using FireWire 800. Even more impressive was the R6's 644MBps AJA System Test write score, which is 11.5 times faster than the FireWire 800 scores of the DS4600.
Click to expand...
Even more real-world tests of file and folder copies benefited with speeds ranging from at least 2x faster.

Macworld does plan to compare against eSATA in the future, and other benchmarks should be emerging over the next few days.

Article Link: Early Thunderbolt vs FireWire RAID Benchmarks
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/29/early-thunderbolt-vs-firewire-raid-benchmarks/
Last edited by a moderator:
longofest

longofest

Editor emeritus
Jul 10, 2003
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That was a nice test by Macworld. Promise had been throwing out numbers like 800 MB/s, but that was with the R6 doing RAID 0 which I doubt anyone would actually do. Most likely configs are RAID 10 or RAID 5. Macworld tested at RAID 5. I would like to see what it performs like at RAID 10 though.
 
I

Icarus73

macrumors regular
Nov 8, 2007
159
38
iphone?

I'd like to see the iphone with thunderbolt compatibility. Instant syncing!
 
S

superericla

macrumors 6502
Sep 27, 2010
301
0
Icarus73 said:
I'd like to see the iphone with thunderbolt compatibility. Instant syncing!
Click to expand...

Actually syncing wouldn't be much faster if any because the memory in the iPhone can only go so fast. Also, because of how Thunderbolt is implemented it would be very difficult for Apple to add it to an iPhone.
 
ArtOfWarfare

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,563
6,062
Icarus73 said:
I'd like to see the iphone with thunderbolt compatibility. Instant syncing!
Click to expand...

Wireless syncing in the background sounds much nicer... Never have to connect my iPhone (except for installing my own code for testing,) to my iMac again!
 
Icaras

Icaras

macrumors 603
Mar 18, 2008
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Waiting for the people who think TB is going to die and that newer, faster technology is bad to start posting in this thread now :rolleyes:
 
D

djrobsd

macrumors 6502a
May 2, 2008
824
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superericla said:
Actually syncing wouldn't be much faster if any because the memory in the iPhone can only go so fast. Also, because of how Thunderbolt is implemented it would be very difficult for Apple to add it to an iPhone.
Click to expand...

Wrong. The memory in the iPhone is FLASH memory, the same kind used in SSD drives. Theoretically, the memory capability in the iPhone should be about 200-300mbps, but USB 2.0 is limited to 28mbps sync speeds currently..

It would be totally awesome if they do some out with that universal connector on the new iphone that does USB 3.0, 2.0, and Thunderbolt. Wifi sync is nice, but iphone only works on the 2GHZ wireless band, which is over crowded in most populated metro areas and will not be much faster then USB sync.
 
D

djrobsd

macrumors 6502a
May 2, 2008
824
25
Icaras said:
Waiting for the people who think TB is going to die and that newer, faster technology is bad to start posting in this thread now :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well let's see, the last time Apple started a dog and pony show against emerging standards, they lost... Firewire 800 was 3-4x faster then USB 2.0, but never gained wide spread adoption. In fact, it's only been in the last year that Firewire external drives have become mainstream and affordable, but they are still about 20% more expensive then their USB 2 or 3 counter parts.

USB 3.0 is already on almost all the new external hard drives coming out today, there are no thunderbolt drives.... USB 3.0 is already on the majority of new PC's being made and laptops... Only the Macs have Thunderbolt connectors..

I predict the same fate for thunderbolt as Firewire. It will be a premium product designed for high end users with deep pockets, and the rest of us.. will be left in the cold by Apple as they refuse to add USB 3.0 to their Macbook Pros.... Thanks Apple.

I am hoping and PRAYING someone comes up with a USB 3.0 to Thunderbolt adaptor... I'd pay $100 bucks for it.
 
Icaras

Icaras

macrumors 603
Mar 18, 2008
6,344
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djrobsd said:
Well let's see, the last time Apple started a dog and pony show against emerging standards, they lost... Firewire 800 was 3-4x faster then USB 2.0, but never gained wide spread adoption. In fact, it's only been in the last year that Firewire external drives have become mainstream and affordable, but they are still about 20% more expensive then their USB 2 or 3 counter parts.

USB 3.0 is already on almost all the new external hard drives coming out today, there are no thunderbolt drives.... USB 3.0 is already on the majority of new PC's being made and laptops... Only the Macs have Thunderbolt connectors..

I predict the same fate for thunderbolt as Firewire. It will be a premium product designed for high end users with deep pockets, and the rest of us.. will be left in the cold by Apple as they refuse to add USB 3.0 to their Macbook Pros.... Thanks Apple.

I am hoping and PRAYING someone comes up with a USB 3.0 to Thunderbolt adaptor... I'd pay $100 bucks for it.
Click to expand...

Firewire had royalty fees. Thunderbolt does not. No one wants to pay Apple to use their cable. This is an open market now. Big difference.

Edit: I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm guess you probably also discounted blu-ray from the start too, saying it was a "premium product". Now, here we are, when blu-ray actually outsells DVD on day 1 launches. I remember when DVD players launched first sold at $1000. Like all new, emerging technologies, once support picks up, it's all gravy from there.

Oh, and I don't think Apple failed or "lost" with firewire. They may have failed with industry wide support, but the fact that firewire ports still exist on Macs shipping today is a testament to the protocol's life long endurance. In fact, I still use Firewire devices....How is that a loss?
 
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Ulf1103

macrumors 6502
Jan 5, 2011
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; nl-nl) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

This is nice, I never thought an hard drive could write/read that fast. I'm impressed.

So, wath are the current max write/read speeds of ssd?
4.4 & 6 GB/s wow they say.

http://www.fusionio.com/products/iodriveoctal/

And apple uses ssd's from 200-300 MB/s :(

That's not faster for large files :(
I feel ripped of.
 
S

superericla

macrumors 6502
Sep 27, 2010
301
0
djrobsd said:
Wrong. The memory in the iPhone is FLASH memory, the same kind used in SSD drives. Theoretically, the memory capability in the iPhone should be about 200-300mbps, but USB 2.0 is limited to 28mbps sync speeds currently..

It would be totally awesome if they do some out with that universal connector on the new iphone that does USB 3.0, 2.0, and Thunderbolt. Wifi sync is nice, but iphone only works on the 2GHZ wireless band, which is over crowded in most populated metro areas and will not be much faster then USB sync.
Click to expand...

Sorry but you're wrong. The iPhone using flash memory may be similar to SSDs in some ways but speed is not one of those. SSDs use multiple NAND chips to achieve the high transfer rates while the iPhone only uses a single NAND chip which of course means it's much slower. Toshiba's 128GB flash NAND chips are estimated at around 55MB per second read and 21MB per second write speeds which doesn't even saturate USB 2. This 128GB flash NAND is faster than the NAND Apple currently uses in iPhones as well.
 
S

superericla

macrumors 6502
Sep 27, 2010
301
0
Ulf1103 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; nl-nl) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

This is nice, I never thought an hard drive could write/read that fast. I'm impressed.

So, wath are the current max write/read speeds of ssd?
4.4 & 6 GB/s wow they say.

http://www.fusionio.com/products/iodriveoctal/

And apple uses ssd's from 200-300 MB/s :(

That's not faster for large files :(
I feel ripped of.
Click to expand...

Don't feel ripped off. SATA 2 can only reach speeds as high as around 300MB/s with SATA 3 reaching upwards of 600MB/s. Even if faster SSDs were put in your computer you most likely wouldn't be able to use the higher speeds.
 
0815

0815

macrumors 68000
Jul 9, 2010
1,793
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here and there but not over there
Sounds promising ....

I would like to see some complete comparison of the combinations of USB2/USB3/FireWire400/FireWire800/Thunderbold with SSD/HDD drives.

I'm sure SSD with Thunderbold rocks ....
 
Consultant

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
0815 said:
Sounds promising ....

I would like to see some complete comparison of the combinations of USB2/USB3/FireWire400/FireWire800/Thunderbold with SSD/HDD drives.

I'm sure SSD with Thunderbold rocks ....
Click to expand...

With enough drives, even HDs can reach SSD speed.

Comparison between USB 2, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800 are already done years ago.
 
nutmac

nutmac

macrumors 603
Mar 30, 2004
6,059
7,332
Too bad I can't buy this box diskless. So that I can choose to outfit them with SSD or cheaper hard disks of my choosing.
 
iSayuSay

iSayuSay

macrumors 68040
Feb 6, 2011
3,792
906
How is it compared to single SSD over Thunderbolt. Yes they may not be released to the market yet.

But which would you choose?

Pegasus R4 4TB Thunderbolt vs. 512 GB Whatever SSD 6G??

Considering they both priced around $1000, do you think Pegasus is much much better bargain (it has 8x more capacity)? Or SSD still would be faster?

Transfer rate seems to be equal on both :D .. although I admit the price is crazy for 4TB HDD .. but for this, we pay $250 for HDD .. and $750 for TB port and RAID :p
 
Prodo123

Prodo123

macrumors 68020
Nov 18, 2010
2,326
10
djrobsd said:
Wrong. The memory in the iPhone is FLASH memory, the same kind used in SSD drives. Theoretically, the memory capability in the iPhone should be about 200-300mbps, but USB 2.0 is limited to 28mbps sync speeds currently..

It would be totally awesome if they do some out with that universal connector on the new iphone that does USB 3.0, 2.0, and Thunderbolt. Wifi sync is nice, but iphone only works on the 2GHZ wireless band, which is over crowded in most populated metro areas and will not be much faster then USB sync.
Click to expand...

Incorrect, but you have the right idea. Memory capability in the iPhone is around 180-280MB/s, not 200-300Mbps. USB 2.0 is limited to 480Mbps, or 60MB/s. Therefore, USB is bottlenecking the iPhone's throughput speed. Using Thunderbolt to sync would really be great, which would let the iPhone's flash memory read and write at its full potential. But keep in mind, hardware's only as fast as software. That's going to be the real bottleneck; iOS 5 and iTunes will have to analyze the data before syncing, and that analysis should take long enough to cause loss of performance for Thunderbolt. Also, I don't think iPhones have TRIM, so that might bog down the performance as well.

Universal connector for USB 3.0, 2.0 and Thunderbolt would be impractical to implement. USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt might be a bit better, since USB 3.0 is backwards compatible. But this would just end up making the iPhone thicker, and Apple will probably never do that. Plus, the 2.4Ghz band on the iPhone is irrelevant because that radio interference is actually over-dramatized.
 
iSayuSay

iSayuSay

macrumors 68040
Feb 6, 2011
3,792
906
Prodo123 said:
Incorrect, but you have the right idea. Memory capability in the iPhone is around 180-280MB/s, not 200-300Mbps.
Click to expand...

WHAATTT !! It was just rounded to nearest number, dude .. you correct things which actually have insignificant difference. Oh, please

iPhone memory bandwith is actually 179.98MB/s - 281.36MB/s .. how about that?? You're TOTALLY INCORRECT with your statement

:rolleyes:
 
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