MBP External Hard Drive Storage Enclosures

[Chevron]

For storage of large amounts of data what do you guys use?

This OWC Thunderbay 4 external 4 bay enclosure looks good, Thunderbolt 3, fan and good connections.


I am looking to hook up some kind of external enclosure that I can host NVMe drives (via a 3.5" tray0, SSD drives and the odd spinner or two.

Cheers

 

[Fishrrman]

I doubt you'll find a single enclosure that can handle all that stuff "in one box"...

 

[Chevron]

I doubt you'll find a single enclosure that can handle all that stuff "in one box"...

Au contraire, these 3 items below will give you all that stuff in one box.

Enclosure
Shuttle 4 NVMe
SSD to 3.5" adapter

 

[rodedwards]

Au contraire, these 3 items below will give you all that stuff in one box.

Enclosure
Shuttle 4 NVMe
SSD to 3.5" adapter

I think this is just what i need too !

May i ask your advice ...

1 ) Are OWC one of the most reliable 3.5" enclosures on the market? I see cheaper Chinese ones on Amazon but they get some bad Mac reviews.

2 ) I'll be getting a new Mac Studio to replace my 2009 Mac Pro with four 3.5" 6Tb internal hard drives. Is Thunderbolt data transfer faster than my 2009 5,1 Mac Pro internal hard drive connections?

Thanks !

 

[Ay-Yo-Its-Edge]

For storage of large amounts of data what do you guys use?

This OWC Thunderbay 4 external 4 bay enclosure looks good, Thunderbolt 3, fan and good connections.


I am looking to hook up some kind of external enclosure that I can host NVMe drives (via a 3.5" tray0, SSD drives and the odd spinner or two.

I use A BlackJet TX-4DS for for 90% of my needs, it's the most versatile solution (with a small footprint and a fan) that I've found. Speeds are great (TB3) and it allows me to use NVME, Sata SSD, and any combination of SD/CF cards when working. I've been slowly transferring over my older data stored HDD's to SSD (high capacity SATA SSD are always on sale) and I use the NVME module's for my workflow. Being able to just swap out SSD's makes things easier when I need to pull up items from other jobs or previous years. I still use an older TB2 HDD dock for when I need to dig into some of old/yet to be transferrd work. The best part is that I can access any of the 4 installed modules at the same time if need be, which makes racing up and card transfers from my cameras super easy. If you use other types of media, they have a module for almost everything. Blackjet is overlooked by a lot of people, mainly because they push their products for video creators/workflows but I'm a full time photographer and have used their products for years.

Current Modules they offer:
RED MINI-MAG, CFexpress A , CFexpress B, CFast, XQD, SxS, SDXC, Atomos, 2.5" SSD, and M.2 NVMe media cards.

BlackJet TX-4DS

 

[justashooter]

2 ) I'll be getting a new Mac Studio to replace my 2009 Mac Pro with four 3.5" 6Tb internal hard drives. Is Thunderbolt data transfer faster than my 2009 5,1 Mac Pro internal hard drive connections?

Thanks !

The simple answer is NO. You are limited by the transfer rate of the hard drive itself. Hard drives don't even come close to the rate USB3 can transfer. You have to be using SSD's and NVMe drives to approach the speed thunderbolt can transfer.
Here are some sample speeds from my own test using my 2012 MacBook Pro (internal SATA3, USB3, Thunderbolt 1 and a friends MBP that has TB2):
------------------------------------------------------------write mb/s-------read mb/s
Internal 2.5 inch hard drive via SATA3 (2012 MBP)--------96--------------102
2TB Hitachi 7200rpm dive via USB3 dock------------------134-------------146
2 - 2TB Seagate hard drives in striped raid USB3 dock----377-------------390
Samsung 2.5 inch SSD via SATA3 (2012 MBP)-------------483-------------505
4 - 500gb Crucial SSD's striped raid via Thunderbolt 1----755-------------810 (seems to be the limit for Thunderbolt 1)
4 - 500gb Crucial SSD's striped raid via Thunderbolt 2----984------------1181

NVMe drives are in the 3000 mb/s + realm. They are more expensive, can get hot (and may throttle their speed because of high temps. You will need Thunderbolt 4 to take advantage of that speed.

 

[rodedwards]

The simple answer is NO. You are limited by the transfer rate of the hard drive itself. Hard drives don't even come close to the rate USB3 can transfer. You have to be using SSD's and NVMe drives to approach the speed thunderbolt can transfer.
Here are some sample speeds from my own test using my 2012 MacBook Pro (internal SATA3, USB3, Thunderbolt 1 and a friends MBP that has TB2):
------------------------------------------------------------write mb/s-------read mb/s
Internal 2.5 inch hard drive via SATA3 (2012 MBP)--------96--------------102
2TB Hitachi 7200rpm dive via USB3 dock------------------134-------------146
2 - 2TB Seagate hard drives in striped raid USB3 dock----377-------------390
Samsung 2.5 inch SSD via SATA3 (2012 MBP)-------------483-------------505
4 - 500gb Crucial SSD's striped raid via Thunderbolt 1----755-------------810 (seems to be the limit for Thunderbolt 1)
4 - 500gb Crucial SSD's striped raid via Thunderbolt 2----984------------1181

NVMe drives are in the 3000 mb/s + realm. They are more expensive, can get hot (and may throttle their speed because of high temps. You will need Thunderbolt 4 to take advantage of that speed.

Interesting read ... thanks ...

I think I'll probably go with an OWC Thunderbay 4 enclosure as it will work with my four 6Tb 3.5" HD's. The Seagate Barracuda 6Tb are cheaper SMR drives and my Drobo doesn't like them.

OWC also got some decent reviews on Amazon, and if the data transfer rate is similar to my 2009 Mac Pro - i guess I'm already used to it.

I work with files on the main OS drive and just the externals for storing large amounts of data.

 

[justashooter]

The Thunderbolt speed test in my previous post were performed using a Thunderbolt 2 OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini. I use and rely on OWC products and find them very reliable.

 

[monokakata]

I had an earlier OWC Thunderbay quad unit that often didn't seem to work right. OWC units are rebadged Akitio units.

I replaced it with an Akitio unit - the one that looks like a Mac Pro 5,1. It's been flawless for going on 5 years now.

Considering exploring the Akitio line.