CalDigit Quality/Warranty?

Looking forward to your report - BTW, vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJDjEtz9Qzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be4NAENkv4c

Can't speak for the V3, but I've install a number of AV Pros & all have been high quality.

i read couple caldigit reviews from the internet and this is why I didn't order a T3:

All the caldigit hard drive module are NOT user serviceable, they use the custom security screw to lock the drive on the module and it's not possible to remove the drive or swap your own drive.

The price for individual drive module is quite expensive.

I email Caldigit regarding which drives they sport in the T3 and this is what's inside:

6TB - Toshiba DT01ACA200
9TB - Toshiba DT01ACA300
12TB - HGST HDS724040ALE640 (P/N: 0F14681)

danny_w said:

Also the OWC uses hardware RAID but the CalDigit uses only software RAID which I have never used before.

Click to expand...

^^ may not be an advantage for simple RAIDs.

Does T3 switch off when you shut down the computer?

danny_w said:

Well everything warmed up enough ti finally get the T3 installed as my iTunes media hosting drive. It came pre-configured as a RAID 0 set using the built-in OS X software RAID support (3 1TB drives giving a single 3TB volume). Speed tests were not as quick as CalDigit advertises (BlackMagic shows about 430-450MB/s compared to the claimed "up to" 550MB/s) but it is still plenty fast. The unit is quite compact and quite heavy to boot, with a very solid feel to it. The single large fan is much quieter than the smaller fan of the OWC, and much lower pitched so it is much less annoying as well. The power and activity LEDs are very unobtrusive, unlike many competing drive boxes; there is a power LED and an activity LED for each of the 3 drives. Of course there are no fault indicators since this uses software RAID of your computer.

So far I am very impressed with the T3. It appears to be a very high quality product, built very well, with replaceable drive trays. My Mac Mini recognized it immediately upon power on and it has been operating quietly ever since. I have no experience using software RAID so I plan to monitor it for a few days and see how it goes. If all goes well I expect to return the OWC for a refund.

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Thanks! Sounds like a CalDig external to me

BTW, my experience with several AV Pros leads me to believe you would see the top rated speed IF there were 5 platter 4TB drives in the case. I noticed a 2TB version of the AV (with a Toshiba) only gets 80-85% of the rated speed and all the 4tb I tested (with HGST) made the top speed and over just a bit in some cases.

And yes, a torx security will release the drive on the day you go out and buy those 4tb drives from amazon. Then again, the ones from Cal are vetted from a batch and come in a nifty orange, padded, labeled case for storage.
Close call when you factor in the extras, but I've considered swapping one at some point.

I have received the new Mac Pro and I am looking for the right external storage solution. The Caldigit T3 seemed perfect until I read in this thread that putting in your own disks voids the warranty. My initial plan was to buy the 3x 2TB HDD model and replace one HDD with an SSD 256GB disk.
Is there anything on the market which is more or less the same as the T3 and lets you put in your own drives?

Helsen said:

I have received the new Mac Pro and I am looking for the right external storage solution. The Caldigit T3 seemed perfect until I read in this thread that putting in your own disks voids the warranty. My initial plan was to buy the 3x 2TB HDD model and replace one HDD with an SSD 256GB disk.

Is there anything on the market which is more or less the same as the T3 and lets you put in your own drives?

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If you are using mainly ssd, pegasus j4 from promise technology might be a better option for you.

williamh said:

If you are using mainly ssd, pegasus j4 from promise technology might be a better option for you.

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I only need one small ssd to put my ongoing projects on. One hdd to store my archived projects and one hdd for TimeMachine. With the T3 this seemed to fit into one single thunderbolt case.
Maybe there is even a better solution for what I need since I don't really use raid? All suggestions are welcome.

Helsen said:

I only need one small ssd to put my ongoing projects on. One hdd to store my archived projects and one hdd for TimeMachine. With the T3 this seemed to fit into one single thunderbolt case.
Maybe there is even a better solution for what I need since I don't really use raid? All suggestions are welcome.

Click to expand...

Running JBOD on this box would likely be slower on the HDs than separate USB3 externals. The SSD would still speed along though. It's a nice option for someone who needs the flexibility, but if you don't need RAID some of the time, it's probably not the right fit.

danny_w said:

Sorry I don't understand your throughput statement. The T3 is a JBOD enclosure since all RAID functionality come from OS software. So what is the difference? My understanding is that each drive has a separate dedicated SATA III controller for the fastest throughput.

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Single Drive Mode
It's an educated guess, but TB externals with Platter drives are either no faster or in some cases slower than a USB3 external with the same HD installed. Keep in mind I'm assuming Late 2012 and newer Macs with UAS support and USB3 cases with the same UAS chip support when I talk about transfer speed. Again, a SINGLE drive - no RAID.

It is known that a 4tb 5 platter HD in some external USB3 cases (CalDigit AV Pro is one of a few) with reach 190-200 up and down. Smaller drives with less platters will be a little slower. Since you have a T3 at hand, you could take a single drive out of the RAID config and run Blackmagic on it to find out how it does.

An SSD in the T3 will be very fast. You can't make any HD go faster in single mode. If you get something higher, I'd love to hear about it. So would Caldig. The box is designed to task in RAID.

These are the numbers from Mac Performance Guide (so far the only review)

MB/sec:
Single drive: 184 write / 181 read
2-drive mirror: 184 write / 198 read
3-drive mirror: 184 write / 271 read

Note the write speed is constant - interesting is the fact that I have the exact same drive in one of my AV Pros (USB3) and get a slightly higher number.

This test is with 2TB Toshiba/HGST (Really Hitachi) drives, so larger than the 1TB and likely a little faster. The 4TB drives I tested over USB3 were HGST 5 Platter and my results were much like what Mike at BareFeats published. Very close to 200.
Real world performance will be up and down from the top numbers.

Obviously, the RAID speeds and versatility are where the action is on the T3.
Once you determine it's a quality device, the numbers fade and you work...Happy

williamh said:

If you are using mainly ssd, pegasus j4 from promise technology might be a better option for you.

Click to expand...

until one needs 1TB SSDs....which don't work on the j4.

Maybe just wait for OWC to release the 2.5" thunderbolt enclosure. That's kinda solution I'm also looking for.

I've been thinking of getting the T3 for quite a while, I'm a composer and I have performance demand for loading large sample libraries.

My ideal setup for T3 is 1x2TB HDD for libraries backup, 2x1TB SSDs to configure in RAID 0 for working drives.

since the screws for the drive caddy is custom made for security & warranty issue, I've never gave up on researching to replace with my own drives.

danny_w: would you mind to take some pictures of the screws of the drive caddy? I wanna see if it's truly "impossible" to remove the drives.

Thanks.

@thedeske: very interesting explanation.

So in my case I would be better off with some USB3 JBOD enclosure + a separate external SSD thunderbolt drive?

Any suggestions for this configurations?

williamh said:

I've been thinking of getting the T3 for quite a while, I'm a composer and I have performance demand for loading large sample libraries.

My ideal setup for T3 is 1x2TB HDD for libraries backup, 2x1TB SSDs to configure in RAID 0 for working drives.

since the screws for the drive caddy is custom made for security & warranty issue, I've never gave up on researching to replace with my own drives.

danny_w: would you mind to take some pictures of the screws of the drive caddy? I wanna see if it's truly "impossible" to remove the drives.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I'll help - 6 point Torx Security - https://www.google.com/search?q=tor...ApP7yAHHrYGIAw&ved=0CFUQsAQ&biw=1264&bih=1070

Helsen said:

@thedeske: very interesting explanation.

So in my case I would be better off with some USB3 JBOD enclosure + a separate external SSD thunderbolt drive?

Any suggestions for this configurations?

Click to expand...

3 devices and a hub is the first thought (Old School here)

firmtek miniswap/u3 is an interesting solution for 2.5 SSD - fast & many people on this board know about this review http://barefeats.com/hard168.html

The 3.5s can be anything. Obviously, the Cal AV Pro is a great choice, but there are cheaper solutions that have an AS Media chip on board for speed.

Example - an HGST 4TB Deskstar is around 200 - a medium quality case can be under 100. The Cal AV in 4TB is 388 (Best price I know about for USB3 only) so it depends on what you need quality wise. Will you ever swap drives, etc? Oh, BTW a 1TB version of the AV Pro is 189 shipped, so it get's interesting on the low cap side of things.

Most pre-assembled externals don't have the best performing HDs, but they are cheap, so...?

thedeske said:

I'll help - 6 point Torx Security - https://www.google.com/search?q=tor...ApP7yAHHrYGIAw&ved=0CFUQsAQ&biw=1264&bih=1070

Click to expand...

Thanks!