Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt RAID Storage Enclosure Reviews

[agentm925]

Has anyone picked up one of these yet and what are your impressions?

0GB Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt RAID Storage Enclosure
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/METB7DK0GB/

I'm thinking of placing the order for one of these but there doesn't seem to be much information about it regarding performance and reliability other than this article:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-EliteProDual-TB-USB3.html

Uses would be placing 2x2TB drives inside in a raid 1 format for our itunes, youtube content creation and iphoto libraries between our 3 macs. It will be connected to a 2011 iMac.

I'm also considering the Lacie 2Big and the Drobo 5D.

All computers are currently being backed up to an old 4tb time capsule I opened and put a larger drive into. Still going after 4 years.

Our current media drive is a Fry's $20 usb 3 enclosure but since the iMac only has USB 2, speeds are dreadfully slow in iphoto and iTunes.

 

[phrehdd]

Has anyone picked up one of these yet and what are your impressions?

0GB Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt RAID Storage Enclosure
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/METB7DK0GB/

I'm thinking of placing the order for one of these but there doesn't seem to be much information about it regarding performance and reliability other than this article:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-EliteProDual-TB-USB3.html

Uses would be placing 2x2TB drives inside in a raid 1 format for our itunes, youtube content creation and iphoto libraries between our 3 macs. It will be connected to a 2011 iMac.

I'm also considering the Lacie 2Big and the Drobo 5D.

All computers are currently being backed up to an old 4tb time capsule I opened and put a larger drive into. Still going after 4 years.

Our current media drive is a Fry's $20 usb 3 enclosure but since the iMac only has USB 2, speeds are dreadfully slow in iphoto and iTunes.

Nice to see OWC getting more into the TB venue here. I'll be curious on how well it works and which chipsets it uses and of course fan noise.

For my needs this might be more to my liking - http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo15prothunderboltdock.html

Given there are models with two drives I can put in hopefully a couple of 2.5" drives, get a good amounts of ports and a disc drive.

Hopefully we'll see reviews somewhere for each of these - perhaps Barefeats.

 

[bigkevracer]

My 2c...

I bought two of these a couple of years ago: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/RAID/Desktop/

One of them dropped the array with no warning, even though it was configured in RAID5 we couldn't rebuild it. It must have dropped two drives.

We had to send it to a specialist to be rebuilt, $2,000 later we had some of the data back.

At the same time the eSATA card I was using with mine dropped, stopped working at all. OWC weren't the most helpful, and sending it back to the US was a bit cost prohibitive from Australia.

In their defence the second Qx2 hasn't skipped a beat, but I wouldn't buy another OWC product myself.

 

[agentm925]

Thanks for the replies and input everyone. When looking into macsales.com, I see this product is still coming soon. I may have asked too early but it does look like a reasonably priced thunderbolt raid device. I'll hold out to see what other options may be available.

 

[danny_w]

I just got mine last night (the 4TB version) and have it setup now as my primary external storage. I have not gotten a change to do much except copy my iTunes media and a few other folders, and run BlackMagic speed tests which show 650-660MB/s for both read and write using the default OWC RAID0 configuration. The box is very small (only slightly bigger than 2 3.5" drives alone) and very quiet. I have only tried the thunderbolt connection so far; reviews show that the USB3 connection is slightly faster. So far I am very pleased with this little box, although $500 plus tax was a little more than I had intended to spend. If you have any questions that I can answer just let me know.

 

[Photoshopper]

Here's a quite favorable review from Lloyd Chambers.

I have a 4TB on my desk, set up as RAID 0 for use with my nMP when it arrives. Was very easy to set up, looks sound (and will handsomely match the Mac).

I've been using several of their Mercury Elite Pro externals (FW, USB) for years with no issues. I've also been buying memory and drives from them with no unresolvable major issues (had one SSD go bad a while back, but was promptly replaced).

Off topic slightly, but I put one of their new Mercury 6G SSD's in my 5,1 and it screams.

 

[rasputin666]

I just got mine last night (the 4TB version) and have it setup now as my primary external storage. I have not gotten a change to do much except copy my iTunes media and a few other folders, and run BlackMagic speed tests which show 650-660MB/s for both read and write using the default OWC RAID0 configuration. The box is very small (only slightly bigger than 2 3.5" drives alone) and very quiet. I have only tried the thunderbolt connection so far; reviews show that the USB3 connection is slightly faster. So far I am very pleased with this little box, although $500 plus tax was a little more than I had intended to spend. If you have any questions that I can answer just let me know.

i am going to assume you bought the 4TB version of this: The Elite Pro Dual? ??

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i am going to assume you bought the 4TB version of this: The Elite Pro Dual? ??

Wanted to add, over 600 MB/s is very good speeds for mechanical HDD on TB1. excellent.

 

[danny_w]

i am going to assume you bought the 4TB version of this: The Elite Pro Dual? ??

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Wanted to add, over 600 MB/s is very good speeds for mechanical HDD on TB1. excellent.

Yes that is the one and yes there seems to be something wrong with those speeds. That is more in line with 3 or 4 disks in RAID0 instead of only 2 disks which should top out at 350 or so.

 

[RoastingPig]

anyone truly test this unit yet? i would like to throw 2 ssd's i already own in here in raid 0

 

[poolluoKin]

yes,Wanted to add, over 600 MB/s is very good speeds for mechanical HDD on TB1. excellent.

 

[ggraves]

Did you get this to work with SSDs?

anyone truly test this unit yet? i would like to throw 2 ssd's i already own in here in raid 0

I am trying to get the Mercury Elite Pro Dual to work with a pair of 1TB Samsung SSDs and I am having nothing but disaster over Thunderbolt in any configuration - RAID 1, 0, independent or span. It works somewhat better when connected via the USB 2 port on my iMac 2011.

Thanks,
George