LaCie Thunderbolt Little BigDisk Disassembled - Pics SSD XFer Rates Added

[luke99]

Thank you so much!
An NXP 6D212 (I'm guessing this is a DisplayPort splitter.)
A Parade PS161HDM DisplayPort to HDMI/DVI Converter.
A Parade PS8321 Dual Mode DisplayPort Source 2:1 Multiplexer (to rejoin the DP and HDMI/DVI signals.)
Another NXP 6D212 (I reckon to split the signal once again.)
2 Parade PS8301's which I believe are DisplayPort re-drivers (we also see these just before the Thunderbolt ports on most new Macs.)
Then 2 NXP LPC1114F's (I reckon that the bi-directional DP AUX channel can't survive the split/MUX/split cycle, and may be wrapped in PCIe for transport by Thunderbolt anyway, so these are for adding that back in.)
And finally 2 PI3VeDP's (I'm guessing these are eDP drivers which combine the AUX signals from the LPC1114's with the output from the PS8301's. There is also one of these on the MBA's logic board right next to a Parade PS8301.)
10 chips just to light up a DP display...

wow! It's a video grinder shredder
LaCie news about cloud computing: Houston, we are in the dust cloud

 

[luke99]

Could be interesting to compare LaCie's Little Big Disk video section with Apple Thunderbolt Display...
iFixit teardown: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple-Thunderbolt-Display-Teardown/6525/1

 

[repoman27]

LaCie should develop this software as Promise has done for it's Pegasus drive.
I don't know if there is a tool for Linux and if could be usable on a virtual machine (parallels desktop or vmware...)

Since the hardware would be virtualized in a VM, that route probably wouldn't work. But just booting Ubuntu or Windows PE from a USB stick should do the trick.

However, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and speculate. The SSD version of this drive isn't due to ship for another month or two. Having looked things over, there doesn't seem to be any reason why LaCie would incur the additional expense of having two different hardware designs, or changing anything really besides just the drives. ender21 showed us that while the HDD version lives up to LaCie's performance claims, simply replacing the drives with SSD's won't produce results that match their claims for the SSD version. I suspect that they do have a Mac OS X driver for the 88SE9182, but it's not quite ready for prime time yet. Because the stock Lion drivers don't cause any dramatic performance hit when you're only using HDD's, I think they went ahead and started shipping, and we'll see the SSD version as soon as the driver is finished.

This might also explain why Anand hasn't received his test unit yet. LaCie knows that 10 minutes into his review he's going to pull it apart and fill it full of SSD's ('cause that's pretty much how he rolls), and that the benchmarks won't be at the level they want them to be.

Some Boot Camp benchmarks using either the Windows 7 AHCI driver or one of the available Marvell 88SE9182 drivers would probably show us whether I'm barking up the right tree or if the performance limitation lies elsewhere. I'm content to wait and see how things develop though... (Read: I don't have the cash to drop on one this month anyway.)

Could be interesting to compare LaCie's Little Big Disk video section with Apple Thunderbolt Display...

Yeah, I was just checking that out and comparing it to Anand's teardown. (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4832/the-apple-thunderbolt-display-review/11) The DisplayPort output from the Thunderbolt controller goes pretty much straight to the display connector in the ATD though. The ATD logic board has a single NXP LPC1114 micro-controller on it (as well as a much more heavy duty LPC2144), but that was the only component it seems to have in common, aside from the Thunderbolt controller itself, with the TB LBD.

 

[admanimal]

Just unpacked my Pegasus R4 (4TB), switched the array to RAID0, and ran a quick test:

Sequential 313.37
Uncached Write 1367.51 839.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 741.08 419.30 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 107.11 31.35 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 741.94 372.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1589.53
Uncached Write 1033.49 109.41 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 1140.98 365.27 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 4296.95 30.45 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 2274.27 422.01 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Not too shabby. SSDs will be here tomorrow. I'm also pleased with how relatively quiet it is for having 4 drives and 2 fans. It's definitely humming but not unpleasantly so.

After looking at these numbers again, I realize they can't possibly be correct. Random uncached 4k read on one of the HDDs in the Pegasus can't be more than 1-2MB/s at the absolute maximum, so there's no way that 4 of them get 30MB/s in RAID0. I also tried the test with 2 drives in RAID0 and again with 2 drives in RAID1, and got almost the same numbers, which definitely can't be correct, unless it has something to do with the fact that the drives are all completely empty.

 

[sjh]

LaCie LBD TB Drive with one Drive installed ...

Here ya go:
Image



Did that. Nada.

what do you mean ... Nada...?

1.) the drive did not take advantage of the Sata III (6Gb/s)
2.) couldn´t figure out how to connect power inside the lacie
3.) the drive is 3Gb/s so 1.) does apply
4.) the drive is faster with a different casing or directly in the computer on a 3Gb/s
Sata II (read: is bugged down by LaCIe firmware).

pls. check one of the above
thx ender...
s.

 

[jacktronics]

I have just received 2 Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD and i have installed them on my Lacie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt.

For sure it's not the maximum performances of these SSD ... but it's far better than the benchmark i've seen here !

Please see by yourself :

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2162/dsc00916g.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/9081/dsc00918zu.jpg
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/6476/configip.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/2212/diskspeedtest.jpg

EDIT : please forgive the "french" disk utility panel ...
EDIT : On the system information panel, the chipset is seen as a Unknown AHCI controller, with the maximum bandwidth of 6Gbps per link, but my SSDs are negociated as 3Gbps ... When LaCie will bring to us their own SSD version we will see if it's a physical limitation or a logical one ...

 

[mac jones]

I have just received 2 Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD and i have installed them on my Lacie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt.

For sure it's not the maximum performances of these SSD ... but it's far better than the benchmark i've seen here !

Please see by yourself :

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2162/dsc00916g.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/9081/dsc00918zu.jpg
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/6476/configip.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/2212/diskspeedtest.jpg

EDIT : please forgive the "french" disk utility panel ...
EDIT : On the system information panel, the chipset is seen as a Unknown AHCI controller, with the maximum bandwidth of 6Gbps per link, but my SSDs are negociated as 3Gbps ... When LaCie will bring to us their own SSD version we will see if it's a physical limitation or a logical one ...

Ha, wouldn't you know. I imagine the OP is blushing (his may have a defect, which in itself is not good news).

Note: the test it's the last image

note2: I just noticed that the Apple store (the only one selling the HD version, as far as I know), is now showing 4- 6 weeks delivery. This probably just means they sold out, but then again, I suppose it could also mean that there was an issue with the first batch (I doubt this, but you never know: HEY! this IS a rumor site right? )

 

[admanimal]

The SSDs used by the two guys are quite different, so it is possible that is what is making the difference. The only way to say that someone's unit is defective would be to try the same SSD model in two different Little Big Disks attached to the same model computer.

 

[jacktronics]

The price of this configuration is quite high, i can't buy an other TB disk and other SSDs in order to make other tests

Yeah i forgot to give the performance ... 480MB/s on read, 356MB/s write, the RAID0 configuration use 128KB blocks.

The machine is a 27 inches iMac Core i7 3.4GHz.

 

[ender21]

Ha, wouldn't you know. I imagine the OP is blushing (his may have a defect, which in itself is not good news).

Note: the test it's the last image

note2: I just noticed that the Apple store (the only one selling the HD version, as far as I know), is now showing 4- 6 weeks delivery. This probably just means they sold out, but then again, I suppose it could also mean that there was an issue with the first batch (I doubt this, but you never know: HEY! this IS a rumor site right? )

Nah, not blushing. The numbers I got are the numbers I got. One of my suppositions all along was that the Crucials were somehow underperforming. I have other SSDs, including a couple of OWC 6G 120GBs, which would be ideal for this test, but they're all otherwise engaged.

Of greatest interest would be to know what SSDs LaCie will go with in their shipping units!

 

[ender21]

OWC - Same old same old

Ok so I must be doing something wrong, or have a defective unit.

I went ahead and yanked the OWC 6G from my MacPro and tested it as just a single-drive external. That way I can install it back into my MacPro with no issues.

Pretty much the same as my other single drive tests. Twice the time as the Raid 0 tests. It averaged 105MB/s.

As with jacktronics' test, the device comes up as Unknown AHCI with a link speed of 3Gbps on a 6Gbps interface.

The OWC in the MacPro, which only has 3Gbps:

System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7.1 (11B26)
Physical RAM 32768 MB
Model MacPro5,1
Drive Type Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD
Disk Test 342.25
Sequential 210.16
Uncached Write 287.55 176.55 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 286.98 162.37 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 108.46 31.74 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 350.77 176.29 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 921.34
Uncached Write 1500.62 158.86 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 451.61 144.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 3029.67 21.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 884.35 164.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Same drive in the LaCie:

Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7.1 (11B2118)
Physical RAM 8192 MB
Model Macmini5,3
Drive Type Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD
Disk Test 291.17
Sequential 176.30
Uncached Write 280.91 172.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 239.86 135.71 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 85.05 24.89 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 312.28 156.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 835.61
Uncached Write 1147.44 121.47 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 435.52 139.43 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2521.26 17.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 817.85 151.76 MB/sec [256K blocks]


Significantly reduced vs the same drive in the MacPro.

It just so happens that the System disk on the mac mini is ALSO an OWC 6G 120GB, so I ran XBench on that too. Not that it's apples to apples, since it really *is* a 6Gbps link on that drive, but just to see what it's capable of:

System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7.1 (11B2118)
Physical RAM 8192 MB
Model Macmini5,3
Drive Type OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD
Disk Test 449.94
Sequential 264.93
Uncached Write 656.96 403.36 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 405.15 229.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 107.49 31.46 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 554.18 278.53 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1491.67
Uncached Write 2190.96 231.94 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 828.93 265.37 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2915.79 20.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1479.73 274.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]

MUCH better.

 

[xraydoc]

It's entirely possible that the OWCs don't play well with the LaCie enclosure. OP, do you have access to any other SSD to drop in and test?

Also, it's possible that Xbench is incorrect. While it's frequently used, I'm not sure it's the most accurate benchmark.

 

[jacktronics]

As far as i know the OWC 6G SSD's are using the same type of Sandforce chip as Corsair Force 3/GT and OCZ Vertex 3 ... so this situation is weird.

EDIT : i ran the Xbench benchmark ... the results are very different ... the type of DATA is definitively not the same !

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/5657/benchdiff.jpg

Results 448.32
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.7.1 (11B26)
Physical RAM 16384 MB
Model iMac12,2
Drive Type Macintosh HD
Disk Test 448.32
Sequential 274.83
Uncached Write 446.10 273.90 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 505.88 286.22 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 112.12 32.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 705.53 354.59 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1215.92
Uncached Write 772.08 81.73 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 875.50 280.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 3072.21 21.77 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 1898.27 352.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

[sjh]

Just received mine (2TB version)

Just received mine (2TB version) with 2x Samsung HN-M101MBB 1TB 9.5 mm 5400rpm (MB Cache Sata II 3.0 Gb/s drives in it. These Spinpoint Drives sell for around 90 US...

Its really tiny right next to the LaCie Quadra 2TB... and it is a bit more noisy then i thought...

I have run BM Speed Test on

1.) RAID 0 (Striped, as it came preconfig´d)

WRITE 204.5 MB/s
READ 210.9 MB/s

2.) on a single drive (after splitting the RAID up)

WRITE 97.1 MB/s
READ 106.1 MB/s

3.) and on RAID1 (Mirrored) like i wanna use it w/ Time Machine

WRITE 102.9 MB/s
READ 62.9 MB/s

Here´s the SysInfo under Hardware / Thunderbolt....

---

MacBook Pro:

Vendor Name: Apple, Inc.
Device Name: MacBook Pro
UID: ...
Firmware Version: 22.1
Port:
Status: Connected
Link Status: 2
Port Micro Firmware Version: 2.0.7
Cable Micro Firmware Version: 0.1.18

Little Big Disk:

Vendor Name: LaCie
Device Name: Little Big Disk
Vendor ID: 0x3
Device ID: 0x1
Device Revision: 0x4
UID: ...
Firmware Version: 22.3
Port:
Status: Connected
Link Status: 2
Cable Micro Firmware Version: 0.1.18
Super Port Micro Firmware Version: 0.1.4
Port:
Status: No devices connected
Link Status: 7
Super Port Micro Firmware Version: 0.1.4

---

aand, its available in 3 seconds after you switch it on on the
blue light bulb in the front...

and no, i will not tear them apart.. (at least not for now.. )
i might sell it to some of you since in the states its now on 4 - 6 weeks
delivery time and in Europe the 1 TB version is on 1 - 3 business days
and the 2 TB is instantly available.. just kiddin´

it comes with a set of US/UK/EU power plugs to slide on...

getting the ATB Display 27" tom ....
thx ...

 

[luke99]

I have just received 2 Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD and i have installed them on my Lacie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt...
...On the system information panel, the chipset is seen as a Unknown AHCI controller, with the maximum bandwidth of 6Gbps per link, but my SSDs are negociated as 3Gbps...

...I suspect that they do have a Mac OS X driver for the 88SE9182, but it's not quite ready for prime time yet. Because the stock Lion drivers don't cause any dramatic performance hit when you're only using HDD's...
...one of the available Marvell 88SE9182 drivers would probably show us whether I'm barking up the right tree....

repoman27 was right and barking up the right tree...

 

[admanimal]

I'm still not totally convinced that XBench is giving accurate results, but here are my numbers for 2x Crucial m4 128GB in RAID0 in a Pegasus R4:

Disk Test 543.75
Sequential 326.35
Uncached Write 1374.66 844.02 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 744.69 421.34 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 110.17 32.24 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 901.30 452.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 1628.82
Uncached Write 1026.69 108.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 1105.64 353.96 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 4798.18 34.00 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 2710.68 502.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]

I'm pretty sure each drive only has a 3Gbps connection, otherwise these numbers should be a bit higher, I think.

 

[ender21]

I'm still not totally convinced that XBench is giving accurate results, but ...

Hopefully it's all relative, though. So that while the numbers may not be empirically correct, relative to others in the same test, maybe ... ?

 

[kgian]

Can someone test if windows are bootable from a thunderbolt disk? I know they cannot be installed on a USB or FireWire disk but as thunderbolt is an extension of the pci bus I thought maybe it will work.

 

[jacktronics]

This disk system uses by default the Apple Software RAID system, which is not compatible with a Windows boot.

Maybe if you are configuring it as 2 standalone disks you can use bootcamp.

 

[luke99]

Conclusions about the Little Big Disk

Facts:
- LaCie Little Big Disk is based on a Marvell 88SE9182 SATA controller.
- The controller itself is capable to support hardware RAID and SATA 3 (6 Gbps).
- LaCie has not yet developed a software driver and a configuration utility so the controller is recognized by OS X as an unknown AHCI controller and used in legacy mode with support only for SATA 2 (3 Gbps) speed.
- With this heavy limit, the max bandwidth per channel permitted is about 275 MBytes/s (this value can be easily exceeded by most modern SSDs with SATA 3 interface).
- Without a driver the controller is used in AHCI and not RAID mode so, if you need, you must use software RAID with some CPU overhead.
Conclusions:
- Although high priced, the Little Big Disk is not a mature product.
- The Thunderbolt technology is not used at it's best within this product.
- It's disappointing that LaCie has reached those results with a product announced 8 months ago.

 

[philipma1957]

shame on apple lets hope they add a driver to lion for this piece of gear. if it can't do windows and only does lion it does not solve the age old my iMacs hdds has bombed out problem. if you are lion users it can work with an iMac and has no real place with much of the apple gear.

t-bolt is going to bust out. too bad nice tech killed off.

i have a pair of 256gb samsungs I will drop them in my t-bolt when I get it on fri the 7th.

i also have a pair of kingstons I will test them.

 

[sjh]

too slow for Thunderbolt, too noisy, 3Gb/s Interface, overpriced for what you get

LaCie LittleBigDisk Thunderbolt 2TB HDD Version

I have run BlackMagic Speed Test on

1.) RAID 0 (Striped, as it came preconfig´d)

WRITE 204.5 MB/s
READ 210.9 MB/s

2.) on a single drive (after splitting the RAID up)

WRITE 97.1 MB/s
READ 106.1 MB/s

3.) and on RAID1 (Mirrored) like i wanna use it w/ Time Machine

WRITE 102.9 MB/s
READ 62.9 MB/s

Facts:
Conclusions:
- Although high priced, the Little Big Disk is not a mature product.
- The Thunderbolt technology is not used at it's best within this product.
- It's disappointing that LaCie has reached those results with a product announced 8 months ago.

too slow for Thunderbolt, too noisy, 3Gb/s Interface, overpriced for what you get

one could only need it for something like a FCP X Scratch Disk or so...

am returning my LaCie LittleBigDisk Thunderbolt 2TB HDD Version and wait for a fast one-disk-solution from LaCie...

thanx for helping me on my descision Luke 99..
s.

 

[wiregen]

A couple questions regarding the lacie....

Is that the drive bus powered through thunderbolt or would you still need an external psu?

Looking at the photos I does this only support the normal height HDs not the 12.5mm ones?

 

[barefeats]

slow write speeds on LBD a concern

Back in July our lab tested the Promise Pegasus R4 using four 6Gb/s SSDs from OWC.

Using AJA System Test (4G test size, 2K frame size), we saw 627MB/s READ and 742MB/s WRITE.

Using QuickBench Custom Sequential Test (1GB test size), we saw 865MB/s READ and 729MB/s WRITE.

The Pegasus' WRITE speeds are much faster than dual daisy chained Little Big Disk ThunderBolt enclosures with dual SSDs in a RAID 0 set. SlashGear observed a 4G transfer test at a pre-launch demo that clocked 352MB/s WRITE speed. LaCie lists 240MB/s for a single LDB TB with SSDs on their specs page.

 

[ender21]

A couple questions regarding the lacie....

Is that the drive bus powered through thunderbolt or would you still need an external psu?

Looking at the photos I does this only support the normal height HDs not the 12.5mm ones?

You need the PSU.

It doesn't support 12.5mm drives. Well, you could put ONE into the chassis, but not two.