All I was saying is that people should give answers like the one you just gave, not "if you don't know you don't need it so don't ask".
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First 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 RAID Arrays Now Shipping Ahead of Mac Pro Release
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All I was saying is that people should give answers like the one you just gave, not "if you don't know you don't need it so don't ask".
It's a very useful design but it's clearly expensive for what it offers. All tone modules and audio interfaces that aren't desktop with some proprietary design are 19" rackmounted. It's a completely standardised form-factor in the audio/video world but you'd expect something with Thunderbolt to literally be a Thunderbolt to PCIe bridge going to a 4 port SATA 6Gb/s controller so each drive bay has the full 500Mb/s bandwidth, or at worst, the maximum Thunderbolt offers in total (still well over 1200Mb/s).
If the total bandwidth it offers all 4 drives combined is only 500Mb/s, there's plenty of cheaper alternatives that work via eSATA or SAS with the same restrictions. It's a complete waste of Thunderbolt's bandwidth NOT to saturate it.
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Still waiting on some real world results and speed tests. Although I would much rather get a RAID from Maxx Digital 
Thunderbolt 2.0 on the way http://www.maxxdigital.com/thunderraid.html
Thunderbolt 2.0 on the way http://www.maxxdigital.com/thunderraid.html
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Still waiting on some real world results and speed tests. Although I would much rather get a RAID from Maxx Digital
I just fired up the R8 that got delivered yesterday. Experimenting with stripe sizes but its topping out around 1200 MB/s with Blackmagic Disk Speed test.
I hope you realize I was making a small joke. I'm intimately familiar with the world of rack-mounted equipment, although the only rack-mounted equipment near me these days are patch panels.
Pegasus J4 then? $400 and two ports, although just TB1, for now at least:
http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?region=en-global&m=192&rsn1=40&rsn3=62
Here's a review:
http://macperformanceguide.com/PromisePegasusJ4.html
Did you get the 24TB or 32TB model?
What brand and model of HDD's are in it, please? And what's their advertised speed: 5400/5900/7200?
Really important for buyers to know what exactly Promise are offering here. Thanks!
(any DIY pix? Would be extra cool!
)Optical Thunderbolt is already here, so that's irrelevant. The optics is done in the cable connector head now... http://www.corning.com/CableSystems/OpticalCablesbyCorning/products/thunderbolt.aspx#.UqqsB2RdWz4
e.g. I have the above 10m Thunderbolt cable "Optical Cables by Corning" brand (had to import to UK from US, as annoyingly current distribution plans for EU is not until JULY 2014!), and use it to store 2x Pegasus R6's (v1) away from my Mac Mini. It works just fine, and will work just as well with Tbolt 2 as well.
If you need the >3m length (3m is the max copper Tbolt cables can do), then I strongly suggest getting one, as you won't be disappointed!
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That looks an incredible bit of kit. Think of the options you'd have once the 2Tb 9.5mm 2.5" Samsung Spinpoint M9T drives come out!
3 x 500Gb SSDs for 847Mb/s read/770Mb/s write.
1 x Samsung 2Tb HDD for cloning the striped set to.
1 monster drive for HD video or streaming huge amounts of high end sample libraries. If you had very modest storage requirements but needed the speed, you could have it set up to just offer 3 x 250Gb or even 128Gb SSDs and then use any number of inexpensive HDDs for a cloned backup too.
I'm going to keep an eye on that when I get a more recent mac.
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And why would I want to pay $4,600 for a 20TB Thunderbolt system when I paid $1,700 for a 20TB Drobo 5D over a year ago and I can put whatever drives I want in it
I have a drobo 5d and unfortunately it can't even reach half the speeds of the first Pegasus. Let alone this new version of Pegasus.
Especially for video editing the drobo 5d is quite horrible.
I found that out the hard way...
Drobo's marketing is extremely misleading in this aspect
Guess it depends what you are doing - I just finished editing on my Drobo Mini 2x 2.5hr HD projects and it seemed perfectly capable. Sure, if you are producing professional broadcast shows and the like, or dealing with 4k, then it's an issue. But I think it all hinges off the use case. I'm sure Pegasus will have plenty of high end customers eg those buying the Mac Pro.
When you use multiple drives together in a RAID set (RAID 5, 0, etc) one of the effects is their bandwidth is combined (yes I'm been over simplistic here for those of you who understand RAID). Combining the bandwidth of all the drives 8 x 150MB/s (as an example) = 1,200MB/s. Add the bandwidth needed for a display too and you can see how lots of bandwidth can easily be used. Hence the need to for multiple Thunderbolt 2 ports.
As for all of these 'If you don't understand it you don't need it' comments, I hate to burst the bubble of all the 'Professionals' on here but none of the Thunderbolt storage arrays are 'Professional'. They are high-end desktop storage devices at best. Why? They have no resilient power supply, a single data path (i.e. there is no dual data ports - iSCSI/FC/SAS), they don't scale beyond 8 drives and they are not rack mountable. More importantly they don't have the level of support and service for businesses. Where the survival of my business depends upon the availability of data I wouldn't trust any storage without these features. If you think that's expensive, then you aren't professional and you don't need it ;o)
The Promise thunderbolt arrays are very fast for a home device and probably good enough for freelancers (photography, etc). If you have a load of data and you want fast access to it (and you can justify the cost) then go for it. If you can't justify the cost then look for something like one of the Western Digital thunderbolt arrays. Much cheaper, but not as quick, with fewer features and less capacity.
Diskless are shipping
My 4-drive diskless Pegasus2 has shipped and will arrive tomorrow Dec 18, not Dec 30 or later as stated when it was ordered. Too bad there is so far no new Mac Pro available to order it for! and
Setup the drive and for anyone interested, it does work as a JBOD in addition to RAID.
My 4-drive diskless Pegasus2 has shipped and will arrive tomorrow Dec 18, not Dec 30 or later as stated when it was ordered. Too bad there is so far no new Mac Pro available to order it for!
and Setup the drive and for anyone interested, it does work as a JBOD in addition to RAID.
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Newegg carries the original Pegasus units (I bought my R6 there). I don't think they yet have the Pegasus2 units. On the Apple store, you can buy the diskless R4 which will be mine next! Just FYI, my R6 original Pegasus is a beast! I have the one with 1 TB drives. I get over 700 MB/s read and write speeds (with 5 of the drives in Raid5)!
This is a good point. I originally got my Pegasus R6 because I wanted a flexible Raid enclosure with good speed for my home server. So, for now, I've got my Pegasus hooked up to my server for filesharing. That is a criminal waste of all that speed, considering it is capable of 4 or 5 times the bandwidth of ethernet. DOH! I'm now thinking of getting the Drobo 5D for the server, and using the Pegasus with my workstation where I can actually make use of the blinding speed!
My only concern is that I'm not as confident in the reliability of the Drobo as I am with the Pegasus!?!
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My Pegasus R6 was bought from Newegg as a REFURBISHED model. I don't see them offered on there anymore, but I got a smoking deal. Less than $1K for the 6 x 1TB model. I've been using for ~11 months and very reliable so far. Not sure if they can still be found, but the Refurb is one way to get good deals on these!
Also, if the Pegasus1 is any indication, the qualified drives are NOT enterprise class. For example, I plan on upgrading mine with these: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive. This is one of the Promise recommended drives.
Drobo is pretty good reliability wise, its a more consumer orientated offering than others so does a lot of things automatically like rebuilding a set after a drive has been swapped. You do lose some flexibility because of the automation though.
How about some updates guys - I know more of you have these units deployed now.
I'm particularly interested in remote deployment - having all my storage in another room or closet would make the nMP a thing of beauty (and silence at last as right now I've got a 8 disk external array sitting right next to my MP and it's not quiet, for sure).
I'm particularly interested in remote deployment - having all my storage in another room or closet would make the nMP a thing of beauty (and silence at last as right now I've got a 8 disk external array sitting right next to my MP and it's not quiet, for sure).
Yep. Couldn't agree more with you! For maintenance and file storage drobo 5d is quite good for a hassle free raid. But for speed... Look elsewhere!