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OWC 4 Bay ThunderBay IV Released - 0GB for $494.99 - ThunderBolt Enclosure

adr1974 said:
that's surprising. this review seems pretty good...
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-EliteProDual-TB-USB3-Thunderbolt-vs-USB3.html
Click to expand...
I got the same results with empty drives, then the throughput fell slightly (as can be expected) after I added data. However there was just something about that drive setup that I didn't like (the fan for one thing, and having to open the case to change drives). So I ordered a CalDigit 3TB T3 and it arrived today. So far I am extremely impressed with the overall feeling of quality. I got about 460MB/s when empty (RAID 0, 3 drives), but I have not tested it since. It uses software RAID (the OWC to its credit did have hardware RAID) and comes pre-configured for RAID 0 using all 3 drives.
 
adr1974 said:
that's surprising. this review seems pretty good...
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-EliteProDual-TB-USB3-Thunderbolt-vs-USB3.html
Click to expand...

aside from lloyd's relationship with OWC....

i put 2 840 EVOs in that enclosure. performance via TB was WORSE than USB3 (marginally, but still lower -- 420/340 TB vs 380/320 USB3).

yeah, that's for a 2 SSD RAID0.

the same two drives get 820/490 in a pegasus2 r4 and 800/650 in a sonnet enclosure.

(tests were performed on a 2013 iMac, so even though the pegasus2 is TB2 the connection was TB1.)

i guess the elite pro might be OK if you use HDDs, but it sure was disappointing for use with SSDs.

----------
danny_w said:
I got the same results with empty drives, then the throughput fell slightly (as can be expected) after I added data. However there was just something about that drive setup that I didn't like (the fan for one thing, and having to open the case to change drives). So I ordered a CalDigit 3TB T3 and it arrived today. So far I am extremely impressed with the overall feeling of quality. I got about 460MB/s when empty (RAID 0, 3 drives), but I have not tested it since. It uses software RAID (the OWC to its credit did have hardware RAID) and comes pre-configured for RAID 0 using all 3 drives.
Click to expand...

i've asked this before (elsewhere) and haven't received a reply: is hardware RAID (for simple RAID setups like RAID0, RAID1, RAID10) *really* better?

i imagine in the past when systems were constrained by a CPU's power, any cycles that went to management of the software RAID were lost productivity. seems like this overhead would be pretty insignificant these days.

perhaps more notable is the fact that if your enclosure fails (or if one just moves on to something better/different in the future), the software RAID will work. if an enclosure fails but the drives are OK, one's hand is forced with a HW RAID.

(does not apply for RAID5 or other versions of RAID not supported by software RAID.)
 
My Akitio 2.5" dual drive Thunderbolt enclosure was delivered today.

I installed my two 250GB Samsung 840 EVO drives in to the enclosure (pulled them out of the OWC Mercury mini USB 3.0 cases). The Akitio drive case came with an approximately 18" Thunderbolt cable.

Attached is a Blackmagic speed test of the drives in the TB case running OS X's software RAID 0. The speed test of the previous dual-channel USB 3.0, dual-enclosure RAID 0 is attached to an earlier post.

Read speed is very slightly slower than the two-channel USB 3.0 RAID 0 I had been using (734.5MB/sec on TB versus 770.3MB/sec via dual USB 3.0). Write speed is measurably slower (514.0MB/sec on Thunderbolt versus 732.0MB/sec on dual-channel USB 3.0).

I'm a little disappointed that the write speed isn't faster, but really I'm splitting hairs here, really. For the work I do, the real-world difference will negligible to none. And I gain back two precious USB 3.0 bus channels, too. The drive is also at the end of the TB chain, plugged in to the outbound port of my LaCie eSATA hub, though I expect that makes little difference in performance.

The case itself is quite small and compact, much smaller than I expected it to be, and seemingly of sturdy quality. Stylistically it looks almost exactly like a (much) smaller OWC Qx2. Same kind of perforated PowerMac G5/Mac Pro style aluminum front panel and two engraved stripes running down the bottom side edges of the case, just like the Qx2's. And virtually the same black front panel iconography and LEDs as the new version of the Qx2. I would't be surprised if someone told me they came from the same Asian OEM.

Each drive slides in on a set of removable rails. I cannot hear the very small fan the Akitio enclosure has unless I put my ear right to the unit. But then again, it's sitting directly on top of a pair of Qx2's with eight 7200RPM drives between the two of them, so whatever noise the Akitio makes is going to be totally drowned out anyway.

The power supply is an external brick. This might bother some people who want to use a unit like this as a portable drive, though makes no difference for me, and I'm sure it helps keep the size and heat of the unit down to a minimum. The unit is also nice in that it has a second TB port for daisy chaining additional devices, unlike the portable TB drives made by Buffalo and LaCie.

I'll try to post a couple pictures later tonight.

So far, I give it two thumbs up.
 

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propower said:
The more I see these case results I conclude that the BM Multidock was an excellent purchase for my needs (JBOD only). 4 bays, silent, one IEC power cord. 392MB/s read and 350MB/s on 512G 840 Pro SSD. Not as fast as it could be but fast enough and on par with many other TB cases... Not cheap though...

http://www.gearspace.com/board/music-computers/901031-blackmagic-multidock-first-impressions.html
Click to expand...

in your post in the thread you linked to, did you mean "RAID0" instead of "RAID1"? it's the only way the #s make sense.

the blackmagic multi dock is an interesting solution but probably a non-starter for many due to the form-factor. i guess the fact that drives can be easily pulled out is a positive for some but is a negative for others.

that performance for one 840 PRO isn't so hot.

curious on the OWC TBIV numbers, but i'm betting they won't be overwhelming.
 
xraydoc said:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-Thunderbay.html

RAID 0 X 4: 720 / 753 write/read MB/sec
RAID 0 X 3: 553 / 564 write/read MB/sec
RAID 0 X 2: 368 / 375 write/read MB/sec
Single HDD: 185 / 185 write/read MB/sec
Click to expand...

Yes, nut no test was run with SSDs and 750MB/s is nowhere close to the TB1 limit (as Lloyd incorrectly says).

Two SSDs which are capable of 700-900MB/s achieve in the 300s in the OWC mercury elite pro dual enclosure, so until I see real numbers with SSDs in the thunder bay I remain skeptical.

My guess is that 4 SSDs in a RAID0 will be limited to the 700s, but I would love to see real data and be proven wrong.
 
analog guy said:
My guess is that 4 SSDs in a RAID0 will be limited to the 700s, but I would love to see real data and be proven wrong.
Click to expand...
You may be correct (though I got close to 800MB/sec with my USB 3 RAID posted above), however I suspect that with the relatively inexpensive OWC TB enclosure (as compared to, say, the Promise R4), that's about all we're going to get until the price to top-performing TB chipsets comes down. Either that, or due to inefficiencies in the TB protocol we just can't expect more.

Has anyone confirmed any real-life TB-based RAID getting over 1000MB/sec? I'm curious.

Not that I'm complaining. Personally, I think having a device capable of over 700MB/sec, on a consumer-grade machine like my iMac, is pretty amazing. Though it was still $620 for 500GB. ($180x2 for the SSDs and $260 for the case). An interesting experiment but still not practical enough for most people.
 
xraydoc said:
You may be correct (though I got close to 800MB/sec with my USB 3 RAID posted above), however I suspect that with the relatively inexpensive OWC TB enclosure (as compared to, say, the Promise R4), that's about all we're going to get until the price to top-performing TB chipsets comes down. Either that, or due to inefficiencies in the TB protocol we just can't expect more.

Has anyone confirmed any real-life TB-based RAID getting over 1000MB/sec? I'm curious.

Not that I'm complaining. Personally, I think having a device capable of over 700MB/sec, on a consumer-grade machine like my iMac, is pretty amazing. Though it was still $620 for 500GB. ($180x2 for the SSDs and $260 for the case). An interesting experiment but still not practical enough for most people.
Click to expand...

i know you're talking about the akitio; i was speaking of the stats on the thunderbay -- i'm skeptical of those until i see it tested with 2 and 4 SSDs, based on the lackluster performance with the mercury elite pro dual 2-drive enclosure.

the sonnet delivers notably faster performance with 2 SSDs in RAID0 vs the pegasus2 r4, and way, way faster than the OWC mercury elite pro dual.

i'd love for the thunderbolt to be a good performer but have a suspicion that it won't be all that is promised.

could be just fine for HDDs (as the elite pro dual is) but less so for SSDs. if someone is going to pay for SSDs in a 2- or 4-drive RAID, they should get the best performance.

OWC doesn't disclose that the elite pro dual is effectively limited in performance. if a 2-drive SSD can't even get 50% of the speed it should then there is a problem.
 
analog guy said:
i know you're talking about the akitio; i was speaking of the stats on the thunderbay -- i'm skeptical of those until i see it tested with 2 and 4 SSDs, based on the lackluster performance with the mercury elite pro dual 2-drive enclosure.

the sonnet delivers notably faster performance with 2 SSDs in RAID0 vs the pegasus2 r4, and way, way faster than the OWC mercury elite pro dual.

i'd love for the thunderbolt to be a good performer but have a suspicion that it won't be all that is promised.

could be just fine for HDDs (as the elite pro dual is) but less so for SSDs. if someone is going to pay for SSDs in a 2- or 4-drive RAID, they should get the best performance.

OWC doesn't disclose that the elite pro dual is effectively limited in performance. if a 2-drive SSD can't even get 50% of the speed it should then there is a problem.
Click to expand...
No, I was talking about the OWC ThunderBay. I was agreeing with you that likely it's not going to give you much more than 700MB/sec, even with 4 SSDs. I'd be thrilled if it did, but given it's (relatively) inexpensive cost, I suspect it won't.
 
xraydoc said:
My Akitio 2.5" dual drive Thunderbolt enclosure was delivered today.

I installed my two 250GB Samsung 840 EVO drives in to the enclosure (pulled them out of the OWC Mercury mini USB 3.0 cases). The Akitio drive case came with an approximately 18" Thunderbolt cable.
...

So far, I give it two thumbs up.
Click to expand...

Is this the "Cactus" unit from MonoPrice, or the "Neutrino Thunder Duo" from Akitio or Amazon? Is there a difference (different part numbers)?

The specs also indicate that it can be "bus powered". Did you try comparing transfer speeds when bus-powered vs. AC powered?

Thanks for your review ... this is a very interesting enclosure to me.

I wonder if it will boot Windows on one drive ... I would like a small enclosure to put a small Windows boot SSD along with a larger Windows data hard disk. I have tried the LaCie "Little Big Disk" which works nicely under OS X, but it won't boot Windows (although with their new driver it should work as a Windows data drive, even in RAID-0 with Windows raid driver).

-howard
 
I think:

- You cannot split the drives into several independent volumes using port multiplication
- You cannot lock the management
- There's no LCD
- There's no management software

So, I prefer Onnto (but the TB don't have LCD and buttons)
 
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hfg said:
Is this the "Cactus" unit from MonoPrice, or the "Neutrino Thunder Duo" from Akitio or Amazon? Is there a difference (different part numbers)?

The specs also indicate that it can be "bus powered". Did you try comparing transfer speeds when bus-powered vs. AC powered?

Thanks for your review ... this is a very interesting enclosure to me.

I wonder if it will boot Windows on one drive ... I would like a small enclosure to put a small Windows boot SSD along with a larger Windows data hard disk. I have tried the LaCie "Little Big Disk" which works nicely under OS X, but it won't boot Windows (although with their new driver it should work as a Windows data drive, even in RAID-0 with Windows raid driver).

-howard
Click to expand...

You're correct in that this is the Akitio Neutrino Thunder Duo. It's the same as the Cactus Ridge (or whatever) from Monoprice. I bought from Monoprice. The box is came in was a white, unlabeled box but all documentation states Akitio Neutrino Duo.

Have not tried bus powering it, though I'm not sure it'll power two 250GB 840 EVOs without the AC adapter.

The unit is just a JBOD controller, so any RAID is done via software. I can partition any way supported by Apple's software.

Not sure if it'll boot Windows. I'm not able to test is because a) the array has data on it that I don't want to wipe and b) I don't have a copy of Windows I can easily use (my one copy is activated/registered to my Parallels installation).
 
xraydoc said:
You're correct in that this is the Akitio Neutrino Thunder Duo. It's the same as the Cactus Ridge (or whatever) from Monoprice. I bought from Monoprice. The box is came in was a white, unlabeled box but all documentation states Akitio Neutrino Duo.

Have not tried bus powering it, though I'm not sure it'll power two 250GB 840 EVOs without the AC adapter.

The unit is just a JBOD controller, so any RAID is done via software. I can partition any way supported by Apple's software.

Not sure if it'll boot Windows. I'm not able to test is because a) the array has data on it that I don't want to wipe and b) I don't have a copy of Windows I can easily use (my one copy is activated/registered to my Parallels installation).
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to post all the information on this enclosure ... I should have one in a couple of days. I will post here if it will boot Windows as that is one way I want to use it, I have several LaCie LBD RAID Thunderbolt units for OS X, but they will not boot Windows.


-howard

EDIT: Akitio has added a note to their data sheet page on the "Neutrino Thunder Duo" stating that it is NOT BootCamp compatible.

http://www.akitio.com/portable-storage/neutrino-thunder-duo

badge-no-bootcamp.png


This Thunderbolt product is not compatible with Apple's Boot Camp.
 
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First impressions of my ThunderBay

Well, I finally got around to setting up my OWC ThunderBay IV this evening. Currently have 3 drives in it. A 512GB Crucial M4 drive, and 2 4TB and 2TB WD Black drives. I'll buy a fourth 4TB HDD for an internal Time Machine backup later this week.

Since I'm coming from a MP 3,1 with its SATA II limitation, I expected to see increased performance on the SSD compared with my internal bays on the old MP. My new setup is a late 2013 rMBP model (11,3) running a 27" NEC PA271W on the other TB channel, so I'm not sure if these are sharing an internal TB connection. This might affect things compared to a nMP.

My Blackmagic numbers:

1. 512GB Crucial M4:
MP 3.1 internal - 240.8 Write / 267.3 Read
rMBP via TBay IV - 248.6 Write / 385.4 Read

2. 4TB WD Black (about 55% full):
MP 3.1 internal - 141.9 Write / 140.6 Read
rMBP via TBay IV - 140.6 Write / 142.2 Read

So it looks like the M4 performance is much better on Read and a bit better on Write, while the TB connection on the HDD (which never maxed out the old MP) is about the same.

A few other observations.
1. My assortment of drives all mounted without problem, so does not appear as fussy as the Pegasus2.
2. The fan is loud enough to be noticed, at least when on my desk.
3. I also tried sleeping and restarting a few times, and the drives seem to reappear fine.
4. The drive caddies appear to go in and out smoothly .
5. When I open Disk utilities in 10.9.1, the S.M.A.R.T. status is available.
 
CalfCanuck said:
Well, I finally got around to setting up my OWC ThunderBay IV this evening. Currently have 3 drives in it. A 512GB Crucial M4 drive, and 2 4TB and 2TB WD Black drives. I'll buy a fourth 4TB HDD for an internal Time Machine backup later this week.

Since I'm coming from a MP 3,1 with its SATA II limitation, I expected to see increased performance on the SSD compared with my internal bays on the old MP. My new setup is a late 2013 rMBP model (11,3) running a 27" NEC PA271W on the other TB channel, so I'm not sure if these are sharing an internal TB connection. This might affect things compared to a nMP.

My Blackmagic numbers:

1. 512GB Crucial M4:
MP 3.1 internal - 240.8 Write / 267.3 Read
rMBP via TBay IV - 248.6 Write / 385.4 Read

2. 4TB WD Black (about 55% full):
MP 3.1 internal - 141.9 Write / 140.6 Read
rMBP via TBay IV - 140.6 Write / 142.2 Read

So it looks like the M4 performance is much better on Read and a bit better on Write, while the TB connection on the HDD (which never maxed out the old MP) is about the same.

A few other observations.
1. My assortment of drives all mounted without problem, so does not appear as fussy as the Pegasus2.
2. The fan is loud enough to be noticed, at least when on my desk.
3. I also tried sleeping and restarting a few times, and the drives seem to reappear fine.
4. The drive caddies appear to go in and out smoothly .
5. When I open Disk utilities in 10.9.1, the S.M.A.R.T. status is available.
Click to expand...

Nice. Thanks.
 
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