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Thunderbolt external storage options ?

mjoshi123

mjoshi123

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 14, 2010
451
5
My current setup has 2 x 3TB USB 3.0 HDD connected to Macmini for external storage and one 3TB external USB 3.0 drive for TM. I'm moving to either iMac 27" or nMP Hex core. I want to know what are reliable external thunderbolt storage options ? I would prefer external enclosure if that helps with swapping out drives as needed.
 
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danny_w

macrumors 601
Mar 8, 2005
4,465
297
Cumming, GA
I have a Mac Mini with internal ssd and use the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual (TB) for my primary external storage, running in RAID 0.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/METB7DH4.0T/

I would caution against the G-Tech G-RAID in that article. I have had a G-Drive for several years with no complaint except for the long spin-up time, so I ordered a G-RAID to match but it arrived DOA; research showed that may other people are complaining of the same thing with recent G-Tech drives.
 
rasputin666

rasputin666

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2009
166
28
danny_w said:
I have a Mac Mini with internal ssd and use the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual (TB) for my primary external storage, running in RAID 0.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/METB7DH4.0T/

I would caution against the G-Tech G-RAID in that article. I have had a G-Drive for several years with no complaint except for the long spin-up time, so I ordered a G-RAID to match but it arrived DOA; research showed that may other people are complaining of the same thing with recent G-Tech drives.
Click to expand...

have you ever run Blackmagic disk speed test on that OWC drive? i'd love to see those numbers vs what I am seeing on my nMP with various drives. I have the Qx2 [albeit eSata to TB] and i also have a Seagate 3TB drive in a Seagate Thunderbolt drive and I am getting USB 3 numbers from the Thunderbolt drive, basically the same, around 120 MB/s. Essentially, what i am finding, is the drive mechanics are impacting TB benefit, normalizing the field so to speak.
 
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danny_w

macrumors 601
Mar 8, 2005
4,465
297
Cumming, GA
rasputin666 said:
have you ever run Blackmagic disk speed test on that OWC drive? i'd love to see those numbers vs what I am seeing on my nMP with various drives. I have the Qx2 [albeit eSata to TB] and i also have a Seagate 3TB drive in a Seagate Thunderbolt drive and I am getting USB 3 numbers from the Thunderbolt drive, basically the same, around 120 MB/s. Essentially, what i am finding, is the drive mechanics are impacting TB benefit, normalizing the field so to speak.
Click to expand...
BlackMagic shows about 350 in raid 0 with 2 7200 rpm disks which is about whau I'd expect. I have a CalDigit T3 coming Friday and it should do about 500 w/3disks.
 
M

Marty62

macrumors 6502
Mar 11, 2010
394
0
Berlin formerly London
rasputin666 said:
have you ever run Blackmagic disk speed test on that OWC drive? i'd love to see those numbers vs what I am seeing on my nMP with various drives. I have the Qx2 [albeit eSata to TB] and i also have a Seagate 3TB drive in a Seagate Thunderbolt drive and I am getting USB 3 numbers from the Thunderbolt drive, basically the same, around 120 MB/s. Essentially, what i am finding, is the drive mechanics are impacting TB benefit, normalizing the field so to speak.
Click to expand...

Interesting, when I check my Lacie external TB drive, I get less than 100MB/s!!

NOT a great performance from a £200 drive :0(

It might have a TB socket but the internals are not stacking up, seems like
it's not even 7200rpm !!

M.
 
Anim

Anim

macrumors 6502a
Dec 16, 2011
616
25
Macclesfield, UK
Marty62 said:
Interesting, when I check my Lacie external TB drive, I get less than 100MB/s!!

NOT a great performance from a £200 drive :0(

It might have a TB socket but the internals are not stacking up, seems like
it's not even 7200rpm !!

M.
Click to expand...

Don't quote me on this but I think a single 1TB 7200rpm drive is around 140MB/s with nothing on it. The more it fills up the slower it will get as it starts to use the outer platers. My first gen core i7 gaming PC with its internal SATA platter drive is around 110 MB/s.

So it's not that bad a score is it?

SSD and PCI-e SSD speeds are quicker and even more so when they are raided for performance reaching scores above and beyond 800+ MB/s
 
rasputin666

rasputin666

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2009
166
28
danny_w said:
BlackMagic shows about 350 in raid 0 with 2 7200 rpm disks which is about whau I'd expect. I have a CalDigit T3 coming Friday and it should do about 500 w/3disks.
Click to expand...

that's a great score. I can't get over 120 with my Seagate desktop drive connected to a Seagate Thunderbolt adapter. I can understand my Qx2 from OWC as it's connected to an eSata hub then to thunderbolt, so that's limited to the eSata speeds, but i was hoping the drive on the TB adapter would be faster. I just changed my Qx2 setup from Spanning to RAID0, so that should give me more performance.
 
D

danny_w

macrumors 601
Mar 8, 2005
4,465
297
Cumming, GA
rasputin666 said:
that's a great score. I can't get over 120 with my Seagate desktop drive connected to a Seagate Thunderbolt adapter. I can understand my Qx2 from OWC as it's connected to an eSata hub then to thunderbolt, so that's limited to the eSata speeds, but i was hoping the drive on the TB adapter would be faster. I just changed my Qx2 setup from Spanning to RAID0, so that should give me more performance.
Click to expand...
Sorry to say it but a single he'd is never going to give more than 120-180 no matter the interface since the he'd is the limiting factor. And the QX2 according to reviews is about the same speed at any setting, it is just slow.
 
S

Stephent

macrumors member
Jan 31, 2012
92
0
A lot depends on how much you want to spend. If you want to be able to mix and match drives an enclosure like the drobo 5d would be good. However it is still TB1 and is slow compared to a Pegasus2. If you already have 4 of the same drive to use something like the Pegasus2 R4 w/out any drives is a good option. It is TB2 and just about the fastest enclosure of this type out there. I personally have a r6 12TB sitting on my desk waiting for my nMP.
 
G

g4cube

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2003
760
13
Marty62 said:
Interesting, when I check my Lacie external TB drive, I get less than 100MB/s!!

NOT a great performance from a £200 drive :0(

It might have a TB socket but the internals are not stacking up, seems like
it's not even 7200rpm !!

M.
Click to expand...

You'll want to fire up Disk Utility to discover what drive or drives you have inside and how they might be configured.

If RAID-1, it could be slow with some 5400rpm drives inside a Little Big Disk.
 
A

analog guy

macrumors 6502
Mar 6, 2009
387
12
Stephent said:
A lot depends on how much you want to spend. If you want to be able to mix and match drives an enclosure like the drobo 5d would be good. However it is still TB1 and is slow compared to a Pegasus2. If you already have 4 of the same drive to use something like the Pegasus2 R4 w/out any drives is a good option. It is TB2 and just about the fastest enclosure of this type out there. I personally have a r6 12TB sitting on my desk waiting for my nMP.
Click to expand...

one can use different drives in the r4; it supports independent drive access and/or software RAIDs.
 
S

Stephent

macrumors member
Jan 31, 2012
92
0
analog guy said:
one can use different drives in the r4; it supports independent drive access and/or software RAIDs.
Click to expand...

Yes you are correct, I was to brief in my comment. If you want to run say a RAID 5 all the drives need to be the same size. From what I understand there is also a significant hit to speed when you mix drives, but that may just be apocryphal.
 
A

analog guy

macrumors 6502
Mar 6, 2009
387
12
Stephent said:
Yes you are correct, I was to brief in my comment. If you want to run say a RAID 5 all the drives need to be the same size. From what I understand there is also a significant hit to speed when you mix drives, but that may just be apocryphal.
Click to expand...

i don't think this is true: i think one CAN mix drives (it can be inadvisable for a number of reasons) in a RAID set, but an amount of space equal to the smallest drive's size will be applied to all drives in the set.
 
S

Stephent

macrumors member
Jan 31, 2012
92
0
analog guy said:
i don't think this is true: i think one CAN mix drives (it can be inadvisable for a number of reasons) in a RAID set, but an amount of space equal to the smallest drive's size will be applied to all drives in the set.
Click to expand...

yes, but that would just be silly to do now wouldn't it.
 
A

analog guy

macrumors 6502
Mar 6, 2009
387
12
Stephent said:
yes, but that would just be silly to do now wouldn't it.
Click to expand...

our first post implied that other enclosures might not be able to use drives of different sizes, then you followed up by saying RAID5 requires it.

neither statement was correct so just wanted to make sure someone else reading this wasn't confused by them.

don't mean to be picky -- just trying to be precise here as we compare enclosures. TB enclosures are an interesting topic to me lately and i've compared a few.
 
M

Marty62

macrumors 6502
Mar 11, 2010
394
0
Berlin formerly London
g4cube said:
You'll want to fire up Disk Utility to discover what drive or drives you have inside and how they might be configured.

If RAID-1, it could be slow with some 5400rpm drives inside a Little Big Disk.
Click to expand...

No Raid, simple 2.5 external TB enclosure.

Found out that it's 5400rpm :0( pretty bummed out about that !!
It didn't say in the included "blurb" so with 10GBS transfer rates all over the
box, you assume it's not a bloody 5400 speed plain 'ole drive ..ggrrr....
M
 
Anim

Anim

macrumors 6502a
Dec 16, 2011
616
25
Macclesfield, UK
Marty62 said:
No Raid, simple 2.5 external TB enclosure.

Found out that it's 5400rpm :0( pretty bummed out about that !!
It didn't say in the included "blurb" so with 10GBS transfer rates all over the
box, you assume it's not a bloody 5400 speed plain 'ole drive ..ggrrr....
M
Click to expand...

I assume they went for the 5400 RPM drive as it will use less power and thus favourable for laptops.
 
G

g4cube

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2003
760
13
I assume you have a LaCie Rugged drive with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0

Your speed is limited by the hard drive mechanism.

Same model with SSD inside is 3x or more faster.

A 7200 RPM drive might get you 110-120MB/sec, so not that much faster.
 
FireWire2

FireWire2

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2008
363
6
Thunderbolt RAID on MAC and Windows

doastler said:
I am using a Pegasus r4 with 4 3TB drives in RAID0 and I am getting
Write 722.8 Read 652.0
David
Click to expand...

That is scary :) Back up my friend!

I have the tRAID-T2
http://www.datoptic.com/ec/dual-thunderbolt-raid-with-5x-sata-bay-for-mac-and-windows.html

about 2 months, their page update with FW/eSATA/USB3.0 connections.

Talk to the tech and get the parts to update to my tRAID-T2

One thing i like it lots more than other is upgrade-able.

After 30 min UPS delivered, my tRAID-T2 has Thunderbolt, eSATA, USB3.0 and FireWire800...

I formated 16TB RAID5 as NTFS, and used Tuxera NTFS http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/

My tRAID now can be use between Window and MAC, even with Thunderbolt connection in both OS, where other thunderbolt device refuses to work on Windows

I dont believe, there is other offers this much of interfaces and ability to upgrade
 
Last edited:
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