Enough lead time for new Mac Pro 3rd party storage devices?

http://www.netstor.com.tw/_03/products_Thunderbolt_TB.htm

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/index.html

For those wanting something a little larger.

Sonnet are basically bundling an EchoExpress Thunderbolt PCI-Express Chassis and a PCI-Express RAID card, whereas Netstor is just Thunderbolt, and you need to supply your own PCI-Express RAID Card.

 

None of those are particularly economically effective as replacing 4-5 standard drive bays. They all throw RAID on top which raises costs. Same thing with bundling HDDs into the solutions; also drives up costs.

For example the WD Thunderbolt Duo is around $500. To substitute 4 drive sleds that is $1000+ ( plus cable ). That is not particularly effective at all. If the entry level system is priced $2,499 then that is an additional 40% cost increase to add 4 drives.

The vendors are not going to tank the prices for the current devices ( that would just buy them backlash. ). What is hugely missing is a simple JBOD box that is in the $200-299 range for 3-4 drives bays. [ To put things into context this 4 bay SAS JBOD enclosure is $229
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111183 Swapping a SFF-8088 physical connector for Thunderbot and adding TB infrastructure ( TB controller, extra power, and DP pass through) shouldn't be much more than another $70. ]




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It isn't about market it is more so about trying to solve the problem.


In terms of making a new storage product that fills the new "hole" opened up by the Mac Pro. It will take a while before anything shows up. Unless Apple worked with a vendor ahead of time to get them started on a better fit design it will likely 9-12+ months before anything shows up that is economically effective.

 

As far as I can tell, the Promise units are sold only with disks. That's useless for those of us who have a smattering of this and that and only want a way to move them from a current MP to an external enclosure. In my case, this is 2 SSDs and two HDDs.

I'd want to see a 5 unit JBOD TB device. I'm sure others would want larger units.

 

Amen, mate .

Affordable (as in Firewire) single drive, and dual/multi drive JBOD TB enclosures would go a long way to smoothen the old-new MP transition .

So would reasonably priced hubs or docks , TB-TB/FW/USB etc . .

Oh, and cables ...

 

In many cases, TB is overkill for spinning HDs. USB 3 is a great affordable alternative if you need external enclosures for your HDs. USB 3 will sustain around 275MB/s I/O which is great for two disks in RAID0 and plenty for any number of drives in JBOD. And two or four drive enclosures are readily available for cheap.

Where TB becomes necessary is large RAID arrays or external SSDs... then you need a TB enclosure. For up to four 2.5" drives, Promise makes the J4 enclosure for around $370... ideal for someone who wants to repurpose some SSDs...
http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?region=en-US&m=574&rsn1=40&rsn3=62

 

Given the Mac Pro has USB3 and USB3 has been out for a long time and many USB3 storage devices already exist, why is lead time even needed?

 

Yeah, something like this.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Rack_Mount/FireWire_USB3_eSATA_1U

Though, I wouldn't need the extra RAID levels.

 

I've been looking at USB 3.0 storage for cost saving but there seems to be problems with the multi-drive storage option such as the drives don't always show up and require a reboot.

 

It must be a very limited problem then because I have used several different ones and have never experienced those problems.

 

a cheap, but not so elegant, solution is to buy a http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEQX2KIT0GBR/

with esata -> usb3/thunderbolt converter and you could use it to get ~300 MBps. Not good enough for a couple of SSDs but for 2-3 mechanical drives it's nice.

The promise pegasus j4 has room for 4 2.5"-drives and seems to be the most "cost efficient" thunderbolt solution to fit 2.5"-drives that you already have.

So there, eight drive bays for 2 thunderbolt ports or 1TB and 1USB3

 

That's encouraging news. What ever works for a 4 or 5 drive JBOD SATA box for DAW work and doesn't break the bank.

 

I've also heard alot of good stuff about this one (usb3)

http://www.ssi.com.tw/en/goods.php?act=view&no=33

 

The OWC thing is a refurbished unit, not that cheap .

Also, check the specs : matched, supported drives only (aka no warranty) , no JBOD, just Span, which they dare calling NRaid .
That's typical for FW and USB ports piggy-backing a cheap eSATA interface without port multiplying.

The lingo is maddening; since no company can seem to agree on the same terminology, I wished they just wrote 'every individual drive will be accessible and available for configuration' .
Or some such in proper English .

The Pegasus J4 looks good, apart from the price, underwhelming speed even on paper, and that a workstation usually comes with that kind of stuff .