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CalDigit Quality/Warranty?
- Thread starter danny_w
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Well I still don't know what happened and couldn't get a straight answer from ShirtPocket (I read things about writing scripts to disable everything and then more scripts to copy only the folders that you want to copy, too much trouble), so I am just going to use ChronoSync to sync folders on my external drive with my home directory and iTunes library to other backup disks. I will then use SuperDuper! only for cloning my internal boot disk. I have just tried syncing with Chronosync and everything works fine. Moral of the story: Don't use SuperDuper! to backup (clone) an external disk that contains your home folder.
That you get it mounted wrong? Unless they have changed the sled from the AV Pro (which is a compatible sled), you will have to drill holes to mount the SSD. They apparently use(d) a different sled for 3.5" drives than they did with their SSD's. I never bought an SSD from them, just going by what I observed with my HDD sled.
Hmm, never thought about cloning from a raid to a single disk (if that's what you did) I imagine Super was designed to work 1 to 1 and the Raid Stripe is a no-no when it compares the files. Thanks for the report & lesson learned, huh?
I have found some pictures from an ssd tray online.
http://macperformanceguide.com/Thunderbolt-CalDigit-T1.html
http://www.storagereview.com/caldigit_t1_thunderbolt_drive_review
It seems that they use some kind of extra black frame to attach the ssd to the tray. I guess this makes it quite impossible to mount your own ssd. Until someone posts a video tutorial about this, I will have to rest my case.
- Well, I can tell you that a light SSD (Evo in my case) will just hang on the pins with no tray in the vertical position on the AV. It's ugly, but it works. Note: the smart fan feature doesn't work when you do this. The Fan runs.If you really wanted to "Hack The Tray" for your own SSD, you could test and measure where your 9.5 or 7mm SATA pins land and shim the thing just right.
Life is short, as they say. People are willing to go long with time and effort to make up for what would be a quick decision in a bar on any given evening. Go Figure?
Is it possible to use one of the 2.5" to 3.5" drive converters (i.e. Icy Dock) to mount a SSD in one of the HD trays? It seems like that would be foolproof with no connector misalignment.
I've bought a Caldigit T3 3TB and this are my tests.
- The fan is always on, I never notice any diminish speed. I already disconnected the fan, Way quieter but the HDD suffer from high temperature, and I put the fan On again.
- I just test it with my Macbook Air, the macbook air did go to sleep, but the Caldigit didn't. I didn't wait to much, just a couple of minutes with the macbook air in sleep mode. When the computer shut's down, the CT3 shut down too. When I power on the CT3 will power on too (this is if the last state was on)
- I changed the Hitachi 1TB for 2x 3TB seagates and 1x Samsung SSD 840 Pro. For now they are at JBOD. But I might use as the 3TB drives as RAID0 (and use a backup system a USB3 dock). (I'm not liking how the SSD is behaving, I can't have 500MB/s read/write, I need to dig more about this "problem")
- None of screws were protect to void the warranty. I was very careful not to damage any screw.
- The Caldigit comes standard already in Raid 0 mode, they used Disk Utility, they explain how to do Raid with disk utility in there site (videos).
About warranty this is what Caldigit emailed me when I question about exchange myself the HDDs:
There're couple issues:
Q: Can I use my own SSD inside Caldigit T3, will I lose warranty?
1. If you remove the drive from the drive tray, it will VOID the caldigit warranty on that drive module, not the entire enclosure
- that drive will still have the manufacture warranty covered.
2. Your drive has not been test with our enclosure, so we cannot guarantee its compatibility or performance.
3. Your SSD may not fix inside the tray
- our tray is for the 3.5" desktop drive, you may need a bracket for it. (duh)
Cheers
- The fan is always on, I never notice any diminish speed. I already disconnected the fan, Way quieter but the HDD suffer from high temperature, and I put the fan On again.
- I just test it with my Macbook Air, the macbook air did go to sleep, but the Caldigit didn't. I didn't wait to much, just a couple of minutes with the macbook air in sleep mode. When the computer shut's down, the CT3 shut down too. When I power on the CT3 will power on too (this is if the last state was on)
- I changed the Hitachi 1TB for 2x 3TB seagates and 1x Samsung SSD 840 Pro. For now they are at JBOD. But I might use as the 3TB drives as RAID0 (and use a backup system a USB3 dock). (I'm not liking how the SSD is behaving, I can't have 500MB/s read/write, I need to dig more about this "problem")
- None of screws were protect to void the warranty. I was very careful not to damage any screw.
- The Caldigit comes standard already in Raid 0 mode, they used Disk Utility, they explain how to do Raid with disk utility in there site (videos).
About warranty this is what Caldigit emailed me when I question about exchange myself the HDDs:
There're couple issues:
Q: Can I use my own SSD inside Caldigit T3, will I lose warranty?
1. If you remove the drive from the drive tray, it will VOID the caldigit warranty on that drive module, not the entire enclosure
- that drive will still have the manufacture warranty covered.
2. Your drive has not been test with our enclosure, so we cannot guarantee its compatibility or performance.
3. Your SSD may not fix inside the tray
- our tray is for the 3.5" desktop drive, you may need a bracket for it. (duh)
Cheers
The T3 does go to sleep for me (connected to a 2012 Mac Mini) if I put the Mini to sleep and there is no access to the drives (such as iTunes, AppleTV, VNC, etc). The T3 wakes immediately if I wake the Mini. If I have a VNC session open to the Mini or if I am playing (or even resting on) a video in AppleTV the T3 will NOT go to sleep.
Thanks Danny for the info
I didn't wait to much. The Caldigit was the only thing connected to the macbook air.
You're welcome. I like how fast the T3 is at going into and especially coming out of sleep. I have a USB2 G-Drive that does not go to sleep but it does power down the drive after some internal time period, and accessing the drive causes the drive to spin up but it seems to take forever (I have also read where others said the same thing about the G-Drive). The T3 never powers down the drives but that may be because I have my home directory on it or because it is using software RAID 0 (yes I do have multiple backups).Thanks Danny for the info
I didn't wait to much. The Caldigit was the only thing connected to the macbook air.
Multiple backups it's a must be this era.
I might buy another T3 for clone backup of the main T3. or if it works flawless I'll use my 4 HDD dock USB.3 station.
Now let's wait for the nMacPro to arrive and start setting up the beast.
I still need to decide what Monitor to use with the nMacPro.
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what is the read/write speed of Samsung 840 Pro via T3 enclosure? I'm very interested in the single SSD performance.
It's something from 200/300MB/s read and 400MB/s write very inconsistente performance, I think. I might be wrong.
Which ssd bracket do you use? Icy Dock for example has some extra electronics between the ssd and the connector of the hdd bay which may cause lower speed. Have you tried plugging it in directly or using a different ssd?
Which brand of ssd does Caldigit support?
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Hi Helsen,
I'm using a OWC bracket that I keep from my old Mac Pro 2008.
I didn't thought about that.
I think Caldigit uses OWC SSD too.
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Could you provide a link to information about the electronics and slowdown in the Icy Dock?
Thanks ...
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I have read a customer review on Amazon about the Icy Dock mentioning this.
Some threads on MacRumors on bad/not working Icy Docks as well. It might be worth checking this even when it is not proven I guess.
I bought this bracket myself: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0027JQ0SI/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Without any electronics, just to be sure. Seems to fit well in a Caldigit tray. Don't know which ssd to buy though. I had planned to go for the Samsung 840 Pro, but since I have read Unfragile's performance troubles, I 'm in doubt. Caldigit's Crucial ssd might be a safe alternative but it performs less then the Samsung from what I have read. Anyone have any good experience with Samsung ssd's or other brands in combination with the T3?
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The bracket I'm using it's an "old" one that I use in my Mac Pro early 2008 -
http://www.amazon.com/Newer-Technology-AdaptaDrive-Converter-Bracket/dp/B005PZDVF6 (it have the board green instead of red)
I can't find any info if they are different in specs.
I'll try to get the "newer" one and test it.
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As I mentioned in other threads here I have been having a lot of issues with the T3 in my particular (unique?) situation. I had my home folder and iTunes media library on the T3 initially and was having issues with wake from sleep and AppleTV connection issues. See my threads at:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1711041/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1711124/
I just did some more tests and ruled out software RAID as the issue. I broke the RAID volume in Disk Utility and setup one of the 1TB disks for my iTunes library. This alone caused delays in the AppleTV waking the Mini/T3. Using a WD MyBook drive over USB3 it takes from 12-16s to wake and connect o the library, but with the T3 it takes a minimum of 45s and upwards to over 1m. And this is without software RAID in the picture, so the issue must because caused by either the T3 or the Thunderbolt connection. I was thinking of perhaps keeping the unit but using it in JBOD mode; now even that has been shown not to work in my situation.
The gist of the matter is that:
a) Do NOT put your home folder on a T3 volume or the computer will be unresponsive for a while upon waking from sleep.
b) Do NOT put your iTunes library on a T3 volume or attached devices may time out while waiting to connect to the library.
If anybody here has anything that will shed some light on the situation I would love to hear it.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1711041/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1711124/
I just did some more tests and ruled out software RAID as the issue. I broke the RAID volume in Disk Utility and setup one of the 1TB disks for my iTunes library. This alone caused delays in the AppleTV waking the Mini/T3. Using a WD MyBook drive over USB3 it takes from 12-16s to wake and connect o the library, but with the T3 it takes a minimum of 45s and upwards to over 1m. And this is without software RAID in the picture, so the issue must because caused by either the T3 or the Thunderbolt connection. I was thinking of perhaps keeping the unit but using it in JBOD mode; now even that has been shown not to work in my situation.
The gist of the matter is that:
a) Do NOT put your home folder on a T3 volume or the computer will be unresponsive for a while upon waking from sleep.
b) Do NOT put your iTunes library on a T3 volume or attached devices may time out while waiting to connect to the library.
If anybody here has anything that will shed some light on the situation I would love to hear it.
I won't pretend to be an expert on placing your home folder on an external of any sort, but it seems you're using the device for an unusual purpose or perhaps something far away from what the T3 is design to do, i.e. be a fast scratch drive or working drive in RAID mode.
Creating a dynamic link to a user folder on the internal bus/second drive works quite well. Breaking the iTunes library out of the user folder is something I'll leave to others. Sleeping your system in this scenario only adds to the possibilities of something not working well.
With Respect..Why Break the system path onto 3 volumes - 2 external? Yes, you can make it work, but what's the point? I should mention you're using a low powered Mac and expecting WiFi to wake the many paths & wires in this setup? With an Apple TV? The slowest device possible?
Sorry, but Why?
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Yes I'm quite sure you are right about "using the device for an unusual purpose or perhaps something far away from what the T3 is design to do, i.e. be a fast scratch drive or working drive in RAID mode". But that is what I bought it for, so I guess it was sort of force fitting my needs on a device that wasn't designed for that. I am not blaming the T3 in any way, just saying that it is not appropriate for the task that I needed it for. And to me having my home folder on the T3 counts as using it as a "working drive in RAID mode".
I recently upgraded from a 2007 iMac to a 2012 Mini, and installed a 250GB SSD. My home folder was too big to fit, so I searched for solutions, and the most often quoted was to move the home folder to an external drive; it is directly supported by Apple and OS X, and it makes reinstalling system software much easier (or so the articles say). I had never had experience with a home folder on an external drive but thought I would give it a try. Since then I have deleted some files and moved the home folder back to the internal SSD.
My iTunes library has been too large to fit on my internal drive for quite some time, so I am used to keeping the iTunes_Media folder on an external anyway. However I had never experienced the AppleTV timeouts with this solution before.
Please note that I am not bashing the T3 in any way. I am sure it is very good for its intended purpose. However the issues I have run into make me wonder if other people are going to run into similar issues with thunderbolt drives that they are not expecting, and leave them scratching their heads wondering what could be the issue. As more and more people buy thunderbolt drives as the prices come down we may see more issues like mine cropping up. I have read other places that there are startup delays inherent in the thunderbolt design and this may be what I am seeing. Look in the CalDigit Thunderbolt Dock thread and you will see several posts regarding delays on waking.
Anyway I got my RMA from CalDigit and will be sending the T3 back shortly, and plan to get a USB RAID of some sort (can't decide between the Guardian Maximus and the OWC Elite Pro Qx2). I have not had the kinds of delay issues with USB that I have been experiencing with thunderbolt (although USB certainly has issues of its own).