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LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series 6TB Review & Custom Specs

rw3

rw3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 13, 2008
679
41
DFW, TX
To All,

I've been following the thread by philipma1957 (shortcut3d also deserves some praise) on the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter and I am really impressed by the thoroughness of what he and shortcut have been able to find out about compatibility, etc.

I am going to try and do the same with the LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series enclosure because I know that there is EXTREME potential with this enclosure consider what I've been able to do with regular old SATA III Mechanical HDDs.

The LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series uses the 1TB platter HDDs from Seagate (Model ST3000DM001 & Specs) and I can truly see why they are using them. They run cool, are stupid fast, and are very quiet consider the performance that they give in an enclosure that is 100% aluminum .

Performance Numbers
Anandtech did a great REVIEW on these drives and I was actually able to best the numbers that Anandtech found in his review.

Read of File via AJA from the 2big - Avatar Extended 720p - File Size : 4.29GB (Finder Info)

Result - 378.8 MB/s

ScreenShot2012-03-13at120400PM.png


Read/Write using AJA - 1920x1080 10bit Video in 4GB size

Results - Reads of 344.9 MB/s & Writes of 332.5 MB/s

ScreenShot2012-03-13at120317PM.png


Pictures

DSCN2578.jpg
DSCN2579.jpg

DSCN2580.jpg
DSCN2581.jpg


Custom Specs

I will have some Corsair Performance Pro 256GB SSDs on the way to me by the end of the week to put into the sleds and find out if this enclosure will support the full SATA III spec of 6Gbps. If it will, I can see reads being the well into the 800-900 MB/s range and writes on up there as well. If anyone would like to send me drives to review in RAID, please let me know. I have a couple of left over WD Caviar Blacks (WD2001FASS) that I am also going to see how they perform.

Thanks
Ryan@XM

P.S. If anyone is interested in one of these, either the 4TB or 6TB, I can get a 10% discount on them. Email me. Thanks
 
Thank you for the mention. I look forward to seeing your test results. Both the LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series and the Promise Pegasus will have great 3.5" options if OCZ's Everest 2 claims of terabyte drives in 3.5" enclosures come true. Right now these drives are vaporware, but hopefully they will allow for $0.75 per gigabyte pricing and insane RAID performance.

If possible, I'd like to understand the quality of the Display Port pass through from the 2011 Mac Mini. I've had sometimes flaky results using my 2010 27" iMac as a display for my 2011 Mac mini when daisy chained through the LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk. The connection would appear to hang switching between target display mode and/or the display would have stars.
 
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UPDATE

So I worked the overnight on Thursday to get the store ready for the new iPad launch so since I was already up, I drove down to Fry's to wait until 8am for them to open. I purchased 2x Samsung 830 256GB SSDs (both notebook kits) and promptly came home and installed them in the LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series.

Performance Numbers
So I am disappointed and saddened to announce that the internal SATA connection appears to be limited to SATAII so we will not be seeing anything near the 800-900MB/s range.

Read/Write using AJA - 1920x1080 10bit Video in 4GB size

Results - Reads of 435.9 MB/s & Writes of 357.5 MB/s

ScreenShot2012-03-16at51341PM.png


Read of File via AJA from the 2big - Avatar Extended 720p - File Size : 4.29GB (Finder Info)

Result - 442.2 MB/s

ScreenShot2012-03-16at51507PM.png


I also threw in a BlackMagic Disk Speed Test just to compare to AJA and the results very similar across the board.

ScreenShot2012-03-16at51548PM.png
 
Sad that its the same issue as the LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk :(

The cheapest solution for 800MB/s - 900MB/s is to get a base 2011 Mac mini and run it in target disk mode :rolleyes:
 
Fan noise Lacie 2big issues

Hey guys, was wondering whether you had any problem with the fans! Just unpacked my new Lacie 4Tb 2big thunderbolt and though the performance are great, the noise is killing me!!

Any help / headsup appreciated. I did just open a ticket on lacie support website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VuzJrtUgE0
 
well as for fan noise in the lacie LBD it is terrible.

It is so bad that if you are not putting in ssds as a diy mod do not buy the LBD. If you read my thread samsung 810/470 series ssds run cool and the fan can be disconnected.


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1280118/

I run one mini with two lbd's holding 4 samsung 470/810 series ssds 256gb each.

the raid0 is 767gb and it is the osx silent and flawless operation.

I think you will have a lot of problems with noise if you use the fans in the big model , but maybe I am wrong. You could have a bad fan www.anandtech.com said the big version fans were okay. I will try to find the link.
 

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philipma1957 said:
well as for fan noise in the lacie LBD it is terrible.

It is so bad that if you are not putting in ssds as a diy mod do not buy the LBD. If you read my thread samsung 810/470 series ssds run cool and the fan can be d...
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply buddy.
It actually is a LaCie 2Big not a LittleBigDisk...
I read the anandtech review and I remember them saying it was ok noise wise.

Do you know of any utility to control the fans?
Would recommend I disconnect the fan? or is that a bad idea. I guess it is a bad idea, but with that noise, it really is impossible to work next to it. Let alone watch a movie..
 
nounoursbleu said:
Thanks for your reply buddy.
It actually is a LaCie 2Big not a LittleBigDisk...
I read the anandtech review and I remember them saying it was ok noise wise.

Do you know of any utility to control the fans?
Would recommend I disconnect the fan? or is that a bad idea. I guess it is a bad idea, but with that noise, it really is impossible to work next to it. Let alone watch a movie..
Click to expand...

If you have hdds in it I think it will be too hot. The op of this thread has the big lacie maybe he can chime it about the fan volume. If i recall correctly the lacie fan in this big unit is supposed to have a speed control.
 
My fan(s) hardly ever get to the point of being "noisy".....

That includes having 2TB of data copied to it at a single clip...
 
This thing is drools, saw it at my apple store yesterday. So wanted to pick ump one but no way I could justify throwing seven bills on something I can rarely take advantage of.

The seagate mini thunderbolt adapter is a better and more economical route for me.

Just curios though, is there a way to disable/unplug the fan wire in these enclosures?
 
plucky duck said:
This thing is drools, saw it at my apple store yesterday. So wanted to pick ump one but no way I could justify throwing seven bills on something I can rarely take advantage of.

The seagate mini thunderbolt adapter is a better and more economical route for me.

Just curios though, is there a way to disable/unplug the fan wire in these enclosures?
Click to expand...

it can be done. also if you do it and use an external fan solution like a quiet laptop cooler you may keep the drives cool enough.
 
So if you were to get SSD's with a SATA III connection, would you be able to take advantage of the higher speeds?
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Awesome little review....interested to see if they will update the 2big to use the same chipset that the new LBD uses to get over 600MB/s
 
m11rphy said:
so they have brought out a new version that is quicker ?
Click to expand...

yes the newe version is supposed to be faster chipset in both

the LBD = 2x 2.5 inch and in the 2 big.thunderbolt. I have the older versions they are 2 sata II blended into 1 if you want so raids of ssd's were good but not great. the newer versions should get 2 sata III which would push 700Mbs with 2 ssds in raid0. I know from experience the older 2.5 lbd's were reliable as booter's I would pull the loud whiney fan and drop in sata II ssd's I own 3 of them.

I just have not been testing as much since I cut back my ebay business . I would sell tested gear on ebay. but The business has slowed a lot. I would not mind testing a newer lbd or a newer 2 big lacie
 
Noise

Just to throw another leg up on the pile...

The LaCie 2big is ungodly loud. The idea that this is marketed to audio professionals is criminal.

I will be turning it off when I'm recording.

I don't understand why it's so much to ask that someone makes a quiet box with a RAID card and and a TB interface so you can load it with disks, and that that costs around $200.

I just succumbed to the hype and moved to a maxed-out iMac to replace my 2008 Pro.

It is not acceptable.
 
Kurtz25 said:
Just to throw another leg up on the pile...

The LaCie 2big is ungodly loud. The idea that this is marketed to audio professionals is criminal.

I will be turning it off when I'm recording.

I don't understand why it's so much to ask that someone makes a quiet box with a RAID card and and a TB interface so you can load it with disks, and that that costs around $200.

I just succumbed to the hype and moved to a maxed-out iMac to replace my 2008 Pro.

It is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

i pulled the fan in the little big disk put in 2 ssds silent running.
 
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