6TB LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Transfer Rates

Hi There.

I have a few questions concerning setting up this drive/s and also wondering if anyone could give me some real world transfer rates that I may get from this drive.

I have a 15" rMBP (2.7GHz i7 / 16GB RAM & 768 GB SSD) + a 27" Thunderbolt Display and my main uses for it are photographic editing + using HandBrake and Make MKV to rip and convert our Bluray movies & TV shows for XMBC. I hate using BD players and much prefer to have the uncompressed rips viewed via XBMC, especially TV shows

Currently all my storage is on my windows computer ... so I edit, convert and rip on Mac and then transfer to a USB3 HDD and then transfer again to the Windows comp.

I'd like to now move to a Thunderbolt drive/s for storage and get rid of the windows computer all together.

What I was thinking of doing is getting 2 x 6TB LaCie 2big Thunderbolt and setting up all 4 drives inside the two cases as RAID 0 for max speed when transferring from the MBP's SSD. All my data from these two LaCie's will also backed up again to USB 3 drives, so I'm not to concerned about using RAID 0 and data loss ... just time consuming. The thought of having a fast 12TB TB HDD is very appealing !!

What I would like to know, is what sort of experience people are getting when transferring large 5GB to 30GB BluRay rips etc from an SSD (MBP) to a RAID 0 Thunderbolt drive/s ... especially the 6TB LaCie? I see lots of bench marking with these drives from programs, but are these the same as what I could expect with real world moving of files ... will they be around 300 MB/s?

Also, one last thing regarding the set-up of these drives. From what I understand ... I would attach one 6TB drive to the back of the Cinema Display's TB port and then daisy chain the 2nd drive to the 1st drive ... is this correct? I also understand I could then attach another couple of devices still via daisy chaining.

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers !

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I bought the two 6TB units yesterday and set all 4 drives as RAID O.

I got to say ... I'm so impressed !!

One of the things I was a bit worried about was noise, but the drives are pretty quiet. Not totally silent, but definitely quiet enough.

I did some very unscientific tests with normal stuff I'd be transferring and the results were mind-blowing for me. I've never had this sort of speed before. I also compared two drives in RAID 0 and then the 4 drives in RAID 0 and there's a nice speed boost with the 4 drives all working together.

1 x 27 GB MKV Bluray rip / desktop -> 6TB RAID 0 = 71 secs (380 MB/s)
1 x 27 GB MKV Bluray rip / desktop -> 12TB RAID 0 = 55 secs (490 MB/s)
34.46 GB folder (NEF's & Jpegs / 3217 files) / desktop -> 6TB RAID = 108 secs (319 MB/S)
34.46 GB folder (NEF's & Jpegs / 3217 files) / desktop -> 12TB RAID = 86 secs (400 MB/S)

I'm super obsessive about having backups, so there is no fear of actually ever loosing any data. All TV shows, movies and music stored on the LaCie drives are actually backed up and again and used on my XBMC / MacMini set-up on external USB HDD's. All my photography is backed up twice outside of the RAID with one HDD at my office. I know RAID 0 is riskier ... but I want the speed.

@MCAsan - I will definitely buy a spare LaCie drive .. thanks for the advice.

I need to stop myself from getting a third one of these !!!

One other question - I noticed there was an option to change the RAID block size from the default 32k ... should I change this?

MCAsan said:

Somewhere I remember that going to a larger block size is good for video storage. I have no experience with this area. I suggest some research is order.

Click to expand...

Yeah, upon reading some info it seems I probably could have benefited from a 128k block size, but I'm in the midst of transferring data so I really can't be bothered starting again.

In any case, transfering a 27GB file in 55 seconds is probably good enough

Cheers !

DaveGee said:

Question for the OP,

First gratz on the latest acquisition you should have lots of fun!!

Now since you seem like someone with a large bluray collection and don't like wasting time with slow hardware... Could you recommend a bluray drive for me to use for ripping my collection?

I'd be buying several and use USB3 / SATA bridge cables to get them connected to my new late 2012 Mac mini i7. Internal models is what I'm looking for... No need for cases ... I plan on buying them using them naked on the desk and then reboxing them and selling them off via eBay or whatever.

Click to expand...

Hi ... and sorry for the late reply. I just use an external LaCie d2 Blu-ray 12x. It's not cheap but it's rock solid and I like the 3 yr warranty. The actual device seems to be a Pioneer BDR-207 according to MakeMKV.

MacSales seems to have some Pioneers at pretty decent prices. I may be mistaken, but I read somehwre that the LG's have some sort of copyright protection in built now but don't quote me on it