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OWC ThunderBay 4 Drive Mechanisms

DesertNomad

DesertNomad

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Last year I bought a 16TB ThunderBay 4 direct from OWC. I love it. It came with very quiet 4TB Toshiba drives. I tried to by another one but they were out of stock from July to November. Then I went out of the country when they had a few available briefly. Now they are back-ordered again. So I bought one from B&H in New York. It came with loud Hitachi HGST drives.

I have a spare Toshiba drive but if I keep this unit, I feel I need to buy a spare Hitachi drive to keep in case a drive dies. If I return it, OWC says it could be a month to get one from them. The weird thing is, OWC specs say it comes with Toshiba mechanisms, so maybe ordering another from B&H might get me one with Toshibas.

Thoughts? If anyone has a 16TB model, what drives are in it? I'd like to only keep one brand of drives for spares and swaps. The Toshiba also has a 40% better MTBF.
 
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Interesting. I have the Toshiba drives (although 5tb - 20TB) and the thing is a beast. Sounds like the old school computer setting on my desk making all sorts of noice when I use it. I just bought the Akitio Thunder 3 Quad X and put 8Tb red drives and the drives are much quieter even though the fan noise is the same. I wish I could contribute to this more, I just thought it was interesting you experienced quiet Toshiba drives.
 
Maybe the 4TB Toshiba are quieter. The 4TB Hitachi HGST are really loud when seeking... like a high pitched tone or chirp. I was really disappointed to find out this didn't have Toshiba drives, but I have been trying to buy one from OWC directly since July. I kinda hate to give up the one I just got today from B&H. I'm planning to call them Sunday to see why mine has HGST and if I can swap the unit. I really don't care if I have to pay for SoftRAID again (buying the RAID version vs the JBOD version), I just want to stick to one brand of mechanisms in my office.

The Toshiba drives also seem faster. A full certification in SoftRAID took 44 hours with Toshiba and the HGSTs look like they'll take 51 hours.
 
DesertNomad said:
Maybe the 4TB Toshiba are quieter. The 4TB Hitachi HGST are really loud when seeking... like a high pitched tone or chirp. I was really disappointed to find out this didn't have Toshiba drives, but I have been trying to buy one from OWC directly since July. I kinda hate to give up the one I just got today from B&H. I'm planning to call them Sunday to see why mine has HGST and if I can swap the unit. I really don't care if I have to pay for SoftRAID again (buying the RAID version vs the JBOD version), I just want to stick to one brand of mechanisms in my office.

The Toshiba drives also seem faster. A full certification in SoftRAID took 44 hours with Toshiba and the HGSTs look like they'll take 51 hours.
Click to expand...

I currently run my Akitio Thunder 3 Quad with the same softraid software from the Thunderbay. I'm not sure it's completely necessary to have the same unit. Honestly, if your concerned about the drives, just buy them separate with an empty thunderbay. The spare drives they are selling now on macsales are currently the HGST drives. Maybe they went away from Toshiba due to reliability? You can buy the Toshiba 4tb drives through amazon or Newegg for under $150. It's an easy setup process to do it yourself and you'll save a decent amount of money.

Also, I'm sure you noticed but they're releasing newer versions with thunderbolt 3.
 
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