Fastest external hard drive enclosure?

[stanw]

I have a OWC Thunderbay 2 that I bought several years ago, and I believe it uses Thunderbolt 2. It seems like it might stop working any day now, so I want to start looking into what else is out there. The new iMac Pros use USB C, so I'd like to if possible, get something that I can put multiple hard drives in a JBOD setup for storing photos for Lightroom, video for editing in Premiere, and files for storage, and have the fastest cable option for connecting it. Is USB C the fastest cable option out now? Which enclosures should I look into based on how I described I will be using it?

Thanks.

 

[Weaselboy]

I think Thunderbolt 3 over the USB-C port is going to be fastest. I believe OWC has some new models like this.

 

[matreya]

OWC make Thunderbay 4 and 6 models with Thunderbolt 3

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-4/thunderbolt-3

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/thunderbay-6/thunderbolt-3

 

[stanw]

1. I want to use the enclosure as JBOD, not in a RAID configuration. Can I use different size drives inside the enclosure? Example: 2 8TB, 2 4TB?

2. It is sold pre-configured in either RAID 0, 5, or RAID 5 (Enterprise). Which should I get?

Thanks.

 

[matreya]

1. I want to use the enclosure as JBOD, not in a RAID configuration. Can I use different size drives inside the enclosure? Example: 2 8TB, 2 4TB?

The links I provided were for the JBOD versions of the enclosures. OWC also offer the enclosures bundled with SoftRAID to permit RAID 0,1,4,5 and 0+1. I use one of the original TB1 Thunderbay IVs with 4 HDDs in JBOD, up to 12TB in size.

2. It is sold pre-configured in either RAID 0, 5, or RAID 5 (Enterprise). Which should I get?

Here's the link for the bare enclosure, discounted: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3IVKIT0GB/

 

[FireWire2]

For the JBOD, there are four, eight, twelve and even sixteen tray-less hot-swap bay models. No more spending money on hard drive tray.
https://tinyurl.com/yas72mvn