External Thunderbolt 2.0 chassis Recommendations

[3282868]

My Mac Pro went from ~2 weeks to just shipped, arriving tomorrow. Caught off guard, I haven't had much time to research Thunderbolt chassis' for the 4x HDD's in my current Mac Pro5,1.

From what I know, the Promise Pegasus2 seems the most recommended. I've been told by Apple you shouldn't use the HDD's in your current setup (not sure what brand ships with them). Any other recommendations? Do external Thunderbolt chassis' come with mixed media, for example holding my HDD's and internal LG Blu-Ray burner?

Thanks for any help!

Update: Came upon OWC's "ThunderBay IV". Using an OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD as my main boot and other products, they seem very reliable. $494.99 for a 4 bay that can use your own drives seems pretty darn good. Thoughts?

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/ThunderBay-IV

 

[ogilloire]

I ordered pegasus2 r4 diskless and put my existing RAID array in it, no problem.

I use WD red disks, not listed as comaptible i believe.

The pegasus i am convinced will accept anything to stick into it as long as it's not a mix of SSD and HDD in the same RAID array.

 

[3282868]

I ordered pegasus2 r4 diskless and put my existing RAID array in it, no problem.

I use WD red disks, not listed as comaptible i believe.

The pegasus i am convinced will accept anything to stick into it as long as it's not a mix of SSD and HDD in the same RAID array.

Great news! I spent the past hour reviewing, I almost went for the OWC until I realized it's Thunderbolt 1.0. Pegasus2 seems to be one of the few Thunderbolt 2 external array's available. The downside, Apple went from 5-7 days to 1-2 months shipping, and they're the only company that sells the diskless version (that I could find).

B&H carriers the Promise 8TB Pegasus2 R4 Thunderbolt 2 Raid Storage Array, in stock, for $1454.00. I suppose I could sell my Mac Pro5,1 with all the HDD's and make back the $$$ for the model with HDD's included?

(WD Red's, nice setup!)

 

[rasputin666]

My Mac Pro went from ~2 weeks to just shipped, arriving tomorrow. Caught off guard, I haven't had much time to research Thunderbolt chassis' for the 4x HDD's in my current Mac Pro5,1.

From what I know, the Promise Pegasus2 seems the most recommended. I've been told by Apple you shouldn't use the HDD's in your current setup (not sure what brand ships with them). Any other recommendations? Do external Thunderbolt chassis' come with mixed media, for example holding my HDD's and internal LG Blu-Ray burner?

Thanks for any help!

Update: Came upon OWC's "ThunderBay IV". Using an OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD as my main boot and other products, they seem very reliable. $494.99 for a 4 bay that can use your own drives seems pretty darn good. Thoughts?

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/ThunderBay-IV

Great review of the thunderbay here:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-Thunderbay.html

 

[3282868]

Great review of the thunderbay here:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-Thunderbay.html

That's a great review, same review I read that got my interest.

Only thing, it's Thunderbolt 1.0.

I was thinking though, is 2.0 necessary right now given the HDD's in my 5,1 are 7200RPM? Unless I grab a Pegasus2 with HDD's included, maybe I'm wasting money with a Thunderbolt 2 chassis given the speed bottleneck of my current HDD's?

 

[RoastingPig]

im hoping for some fanless Thunder 2.0 enclosures to house some ssd's im looking to get. A raid 0 2tb evo external setup would be amazing for me.

 

[ogilloire]

Great news! I spent the past hour reviewing, I almost went for the OWC until I realized it's Thunderbolt 1.0. Pegasus2 seems to be one of the few Thunderbolt 2 external array's available. The downside, Apple went from 5-7 days to 1-2 months shipping, and they're the only company that sells the diskless version (that I could find).

B&H carriers the Promise 8TB Pegasus2 R4 Thunderbolt 2 Raid Storage Array, in stock, for $1454.00. I suppose I could sell my Mac Pro5,1 with all the HDD's and make back the $$$ for the model with HDD's included?

(WD Red's, nice setup!)

Regarding shipping, apple announced 4-6 weeks when i ordered, and they actually delivered in 2 weeks
As they don't manage the supply chain for this product their estimates are less precise I guess.

I would not bother buying the full enclosure and sell back the drives, you'll waste your time and most probably not make as much $ you'd like to.

 

[Stephent]

My Mac Pro went from ~2 weeks to just shipped, arriving tomorrow. Caught off guard, I haven't had much time to research Thunderbolt chassis' for the 4x HDD's in my current Mac Pro5,1.

From what I know, the Promise Pegasus2 seems the most recommended. I've been told by Apple you shouldn't use the HDD's in your current setup (not sure what brand ships with them). Any other recommendations? Do external Thunderbolt chassis' come with mixed media, for example holding my HDD's and internal LG Blu-Ray burner?

Thanks for any help!

Update: Came upon OWC's "ThunderBay IV". Using an OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD as my main boot and other products, they seem very reliable. $494.99 for a 4 bay that can use your own drives seems pretty darn good. Thoughts?

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/ThunderBay-IV

Shouldn't have any issues putting current dives in your nMP. Out of curiosity what date did you order on. Ordered mine hours after it switched to March Delivery so I am chomping at the bit.

 

[rwbarna]

Don't believe Apple store

I ordered the diskless Pegasus2 from Apple, and they threatened 2 months delivery. 1 week later it arrived.
They publish a list of compatible drives, but I feel those would only be necessary for disks in a RAID array. For "pass through" mode, any disk should do.
That's my expectation and hope.

 

[chrisn123]

Check out Areca 8050T2 if can use 8-bays

Overkill (and overpriced) if you only need/want four bays, but I got the 8-bay Areca 8050T2 and love it. I'm running RAID5 with 8 drives and am getting throughput and random I/O basically identical to the 1TB PCIe SSD inside the nMP (around 950MB/s). Some initial testing with RAID0 (not recommended) showed it to basically saturate the PCI bus (which apparently is slower than the TB2 connection speed) at 1200-1300MB/s.

http://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt2.htm

 

[3282868]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

I went with a Pegasus2 8TB system from B&H that arrives on the 11th (had a discount that made it too good to pass).

I have 12TB's of HDD's and a 256GB SSD in my Mac Pro5,1 (the 4TB drives required formatting using a USB dock as the Mac Pro5,1 models won't format anything over 2TB's in HFS+ Journaled - only as a "Fusion" type drive). I figure with the discount I won't gain back the money but it'll be a mere difference selling my 5,1 with all the hardware, including a USB 3.0 and HDMI PCIe additions.

In the interim, I haven't hooked up my new system until the Pegasus2 arrives, unless I use my 5,1 as a server. Hmmmm.

Shouldn't have any issues putting current dives in your nMP. Out of curiosity what date did you order on. Ordered mine hours after it switched to March Delivery so I am chomping at the bit.

Ordered January 18th. My keyboard and trackpad shipped immediately. The arrival date for the system was February, we know how that went. Oddly, Apple charged me three times for the AppleCare, although redacted almost immediately on my CC when the system was delayed. However, it took ~5 calls in a weeks time to clear the matter up, which gained me free peripherals and AppleCare. Funny thing, during the last call about the third AppleCare charge, my status went from "Processing" to "Shipped" while waiting ~2 minutes for the rep to make some changes. The next morning, it was delivered by UPS. Go figure.

 

[Stephent]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

I went with a Pegasus2 8TB system from B&H that arrives on the 11th (had a discount that made it too good to pass).

I have 12TB's of HDD's and a 256GB SSD in my Mac Pro5,1 (the 4TB drives required formatting using a USB dock as the Mac Pro5,1 models won't format anything over 2TB's in HFS+ Journaled - only as a "Fusion" type drive). I figure with the discount I won't gain back the money but it'll be a mere difference selling my 5,1 with all the hardware, including a USB 3.0 and HDMI PCIe additions.

In the interim, I haven't hooked up my new system until the Pegasus2 arrives, unless I use my 5,1 as a server. Hmmmm.



Ordered January 18th. My keyboard and trackpad shipped immediately. The arrival date for the system was February, we know how that went. Oddly, Apple charged me three times for the AppleCare, although redacted almost immediately on my CC when the system was delayed. However, it took ~5 calls in a weeks time to clear the matter up, which gained me free peripherals and AppleCare. Funny thing, during the last call about the third AppleCare charge, my status went from "Processing" to "Shipped" while waiting ~2 minutes for the rep to make some changes. The next morning, it was delivered by UPS. Go figure.

Well that is encouraging. I ordered January 20th Hours after it switched to March. Maybe This will be my week

 

[phrehdd]

Overkill (and overpriced) if you only need/want four bays, but I got the 8-bay Areca 8050T2 and love it. I'm running RAID5 with 8 drives and am getting throughput and random I/O basically identical to the 1TB PCIe SSD inside the nMP (around 950MB/s). Some initial testing with RAID0 (not recommended) showed it to basically saturate the PCI bus (which apparently is slower than the TB2 connection speed) at 1200-1300MB/s.

http://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt2.htm

Areca bet I recall has a couple of options that have gotten excellent feedback from purchasers. Barefeat also gave a great review on one of the Areca 8 bay units along with some measurements. When it is time for me to get a large multi-bay solution - Areca will be my first (and only choice). In the meanwhile I have had excellent luck with some Firmtek products. Firmtek is also coming out with a couple of smaller external enclosures that look extremely promising for SSD and other drives. I have Firmtek's USB3 single drive enclosure based on a Barefeat review and it is everything they said as it pretty much beats most single SSD external devices using Thunderbolt.

 

[rjbenson83]

Isn't Pegasus the only Thunderbolt 2.0 device on the market today?

 

[VirtualRain]

Isn't Pegasus the only Thunderbolt 2.0 device on the market today?

Both the Pegasus and the Areca enclosure (linked in post #10) offer TB2. Sonnet also offers a few PCIe expansion chassis with TB2 interfaces that are potential solutions if you're migrating existing PCIe storage (like Sonnet Tempo Pro).

 

[Einz]

The downside, Apple went from 5-7 days to 1-2 months shipping, and they're the only company that sells the diskless version (that I could find).

Don't let the shipping time fool you. I got one in less than a week.

 

[Marty62]

I ordered pegasus2 r4 diskless and put my existing RAID array in it, no problem.

I use WD red disks, not listed as comaptible i believe.

The pegasus i am convinced will accept anything to stick into it as long as it's not a mix of SSD and HDD in the same RAID array.

I would highly recommend using WD "Black" drives, I have just bought 2 for
a new system ( cMP ) and got over 170MB/s read/write in Speed Disk!
They are 7200rpm 64MB cache, I was really surprised by how well they perform.
5 year warranty also.
M.

 

[jasonvp]

Don't let the shipping time fool you. I got one in less than a week.

You're one of the lucky few then. My two have been on order since late Feb, and Apple is still saying, "Maybe late March, or late April."

 

[chrisn123]

I would highly recommend using WD "Black" drives, I have just bought 2 for
a new system ( cMP ) and got over 170MB/s read/write in Speed Disk!
They are 7200rpm 64MB cache, I was really surprised by how well they perform.
5 year warranty also.
M.

I went with slower and cheaper NAS rated drives due to reduced power/heat/noise. Performance is still great. I also have lots of Black drives, including the Rev 2. Version of the 4TB 7200 drive (but not in my office array).

The Blacks are A LOT louder due to: more power = louder fans, spinning noise and especially the crack-crack head moving. Sounds kinda cool / retro to have four or eight of those click-clacking away as they do you bidding, but just note that it can be distracting in other-wise quiet environments.

 

[Marty62]

I went with slower and cheaper NAS rated drives due to reduced power/heat/noise. Performance is still great. I also have lots of Black drives, including the Rev 2. Version of the 4TB 7200 drive (but not in my office array).

The Blacks are A LOT louder due to: more power = louder fans, spinning noise and especially the crack-crack head moving. Sounds kinda cool / retro to have four or eight of those click-clacking away as they do you bidding, but just note that it can be distracting in other-wise quiet environments.

OK, thanks for the tip, have not noticed any "clacking" so far

 

[3282868]

My Pegasus2 R4 just arrived from B&H. Got it for $1395.99 plus $79.99 for a 2 year protection plan. Finally connected, it's listing 6TB's even though 8TB's should be available, I'm assuming it's RAID configured. I simply want to use it as 4 separate 2TB drives, no RAID configuration (I know, I know, defeats the purpose). I just needed a system to hold the data from the 4 HDD's in my Mac Pro5,1, and would rather not risk one drive in a configured volume crashing the entire array.

I just installed the utility app, I'll dig further. So far, it's whisper quiet. The HDD's are Toshiba 2TB (will check exact model).

Any one with the new Mac Pro6,1 experience a moderate amount of heat dispersion on top? I realize this is the intention, I'm just surprised it's giving off more heat than I anticipate. Also noticed each AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB is listed as completely separate units, with my two 27" DisplayPort ACD's connected to one while the other is essentially "free" for use (assuming the new drivers/OpenGL/OpenCL will take advantage of this configuration).

 

[theSeb]

Overkill (and overpriced) if you only need/want four bays, but I got the 8-bay Areca 8050T2 and love it. I'm running RAID5 with 8 drives and am getting throughput and random I/O basically identical to the 1TB PCIe SSD inside the nMP (around 950MB/s). Some initial testing with RAID0 (not recommended) showed it to basically saturate the PCI bus (which apparently is slower than the TB2 connection speed) at 1200-1300MB/s.

http://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt2.htm

If you're using mechanical hard drives, then it is impossible to be getting random I/O speeds anywhere near that of an SSD. It does not matter what RAID level you use. It is simply impossible. I think you meant sequential transfer speeds?

 

[RoastingPig]

I hope they do a redesign of the pegasus j4 since this current one is junk

 

[3282868]

I hope they do a redesign of the pegasus j4 since this current one is junk

Yikes! I've read mixed reviews on Pegasus2 R4's, most negative reviews seemed to be linked to those who purchased the diskless models and used their own HDD's. I bought the 2-year B&H plan as I've had nothing but great experiences with their customer service. Worst case scenario, if it doesn't work out I can exchange it for either a newer model or credit towards a different system.

Now, just to figure out how to reconfigure my 8TB's.

 

[chrisn123]

If you're using mechanical hard drives, then it is impossible to be getting random I/O speeds anywhere near that of an SSD. It does not matter what RAID level you use. It is simply impossible. I think you meant sequential transfer speeds?

Umm. OK. Have a look. Keep in mind that I have 8 spindles with a boat load of cache and advanced command ordering, so the drive heads in modern arrays aren't really doing "random" physical seeks because of out-of-order execution and speculative read-ahead caching, blah blah blah.

But, hey, I was surprised too, to be honest. Is QuickBench not the best tool to test with?