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OWC Thunderblade upgrade SSDs possible?
- Thread starter AdamSeen
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They are good for what I need them for and was about 2/3rds the price of the Samsung 990 Pros. I retired them from a workload that had far more writes, now the Thunderblade will mostly be serving files. Crucial are a good brand - the firmware hasn't been updated since it came out years ago, so very stable.
I wouldn't use these for professional heavy write loads, however. My workhorse SSD is now a 8TB WD Black 850x in an OWC 1M2 enclosure.
Thank you. I own also the Thunderblade V4. One from the early one`s. Since then I have used it occasional only but wanted to upgrade to 8 TB SSD`s but not spend so much as for a used car. so the report is super and an example why NOT to buy QLC Rams. I dont understand and ask myself, when the people never get tricked from the read and write throughput rates of their small SLC cache. The old samsung m.2 ssds used no SLC cache and therefor MLC rams only. 970 pro for example). Only TLC rams. I only one time used a crucial and sent it back. Crucial was in my opinion the last Xxx. but now the 705er version should be with no competition. if it is tru what they all say, or all the tests are a lie. I only trust my eyes. One tipp. Guys if you buy a SSD NEVER NEVER look at the sythetic benchmarks only real file copy! and the transfer rates AFTER the SLC cache is full!! Don`t be a fool. I registered for this threat only. actually I plan a passiv cooled nuc. I plan to use the 705er crucial (pcie 5.0/TLC) for system (13 GB/s = BYTE not bit) are promissed. If this M.2 continous read/writes only the half (7500 MB/sec are promissed, when I remember right, AFTER SLC cache) I am excited!! If not it is trash! So you can use a pcie 5.0 M.2 in a pcie 4.0 Slot. like I do. the bottleneck is not the BUS it is the M.2 after their short SLC cache. I am excited if the BUS is on continous impact or not. When the SSD is half full, the rates drops. If the SLC Cache is full the SSD have to write the datas from the cache parallel. If the SSD is half full and read writes something and have to write the data from the SLC cache and get into throttling: Houston, you have a problem!! by the way. so far i know is in the thunderblade v4 OWC aura MLC SSDs. In this review they are replaced with crucial QLCs. QLCs are inferior as TLCs. and tlc are inferior to MLC. how much you can see that they blind you with a short and cheap SLC cache instead build the whole ssd with SLC rams!! The first SLC SSD from Intel where with SLC only. then came MLC, than TLC with SLC cache and then QLC. The Intel Optane 900 and 905 is SLC only! and a real SSD not that crap they sell and fool you!!!
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nice to see OWC reads this threat. So I want to say I like the old Thunderblade V4 and that origin design with the long and bright LED(s). the new one (x8 is ugly) build more like the old V4 or the 1M2 (is cool also, the rest is rubbish 
) perhaps, in a few weeks, when it is build, I post a picture from a passive cooled NUC 13 Pro in a tranquil IT case, in the middle the thunderblade v4 surrounded to the left and to the right by the long LED`s from WD Book Duo, a G-Raid shuttle, TB 3, 8 x 2,5" SSD raid and a G-Raid shuttle, TB 3 with 4 x 3,5" HDD´s.
) perhaps, in a few weeks, when it is build, I post a picture from a passive cooled NUC 13 Pro in a tranquil IT case, in the middle the thunderblade v4 surrounded to the left and to the right by the long LED`s from WD Book Duo, a G-Raid shuttle, TB 3, 8 x 2,5" SSD raid and a G-Raid shuttle, TB 3 with 4 x 3,5" HDD´s.
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I do like the older look too myself, but the newer one has a few benefits.nice to see OWC reads this threat. So I want to say I like the old Thunderblade V4 and that origin design with the long and bright LED(s). the new one (x8 is ugly) build more like the old V4 or the 1M2 (is cool also, the rest is rubbish
A) The size is much better suited for heat dissipation. The cooling ability is significantly better with this larger chassis.
B) The individual lights face down so are less distracting. They also make it easier to tell which drive is being blinked/accessed, whereas the light bar before didn't really make that as easy to read. Though the light bar is back with the x12 and the LED can be turned off with a switch, so who knows what future Thunderblades may have ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
FYI, if you were going to put 8TB blades inside an early unit, I'm not sure how they will behave. When 32TB models were introduced, there was a hardware change to allow for more power to each drive since we found that 8TB blades consumed significantly more power than the other capacity and were not stable without the change. YMMV.
It is not a firmware change so there is nothing to flash. It is a hardware change that I don't have much knowledge on.
I just did this upgrade with 4 x Samsung 990 Evo+ 4tb drives to make a RAID 5. Mechanically the swap for the OEM drives was a piece of cake - remove four screws, and then I used a very small Phillips screwdriver to gently pry the edges of the PCB away from the housing. Did not need a hair dryer to soften adhesive.
The 990s are slightly thicker than the OEM drives so I put some new thermal tape in that's a bit thinner than the OEM material.
Reassembled, powered up, and my M2 Macbook Pro immediately recognized the drives. This is where I went wrong - OWC's website was down for several days and I didn't have a copy of SoftRaid handy. So I formatted the drives in Disk Utility to make sure they were working. That all went fine.
However, once I did get SoftRaid downloaded and wanted to make a volume with the formatted drives, hilarity ensued. I did have to delete the volumes in Disk Utility, and I also had to quit Disk Utility (and maybe quit and relaunch Softraid as well) before Softraid finally agreed to initialize the disks and make a new volume. This took 45 minutes of poking the software and trying X and then Y and then Z before it finally worked. But, it worked. I have a nice speedy 12tb volume now.
So far it's running reasonably cool. Will see how it goes with heavier use.
The 990s are slightly thicker than the OEM drives so I put some new thermal tape in that's a bit thinner than the OEM material.
Reassembled, powered up, and my M2 Macbook Pro immediately recognized the drives. This is where I went wrong - OWC's website was down for several days and I didn't have a copy of SoftRaid handy. So I formatted the drives in Disk Utility to make sure they were working. That all went fine.
However, once I did get SoftRaid downloaded and wanted to make a volume with the formatted drives, hilarity ensued. I did have to delete the volumes in Disk Utility, and I also had to quit Disk Utility (and maybe quit and relaunch Softraid as well) before Softraid finally agreed to initialize the disks and make a new volume. This took 45 minutes of poking the software and trying X and then Y and then Z before it finally worked. But, it worked. I have a nice speedy 12tb volume now.
So far it's running reasonably cool. Will see how it goes with heavier use.
Update - so far so good. I have around 5tb of data to migrate to the Thunderblade from a Synology DS920+ NAS with 4 x 8tb Ironwolf NAS drives in RAID 5. Transfer speeds from the NAS to the Thunderblade run around 90-100mb/sec so it's around 3hrs/tb in case this info is useful to anyone else doing this.
I would strongly recommend using GoodSync or another backup program to transfer files rather than a direct Finder copy. Finder doesn't do a great job on really big data transfers in my experience - I'll come back hours later and find that there was an unspecified error, and there's no information easily available on what went wrong or where the transfer stopped.
Even with Goodsync I have to run the sync multiple times until I get 2-3 runs with zero sync items. Then I'm pretty confident I got everything.
So far the drives are running cool. I will try to post my Blackmagic read/write speed tests on the Thunderblade with the Samsung 990 Evo+ drives before long.
I would strongly recommend using GoodSync or another backup program to transfer files rather than a direct Finder copy. Finder doesn't do a great job on really big data transfers in my experience - I'll come back hours later and find that there was an unspecified error, and there's no information easily available on what went wrong or where the transfer stopped.
Even with Goodsync I have to run the sync multiple times until I get 2-3 runs with zero sync items. Then I'm pretty confident I got everything.
So far the drives are running cool. I will try to post my Blackmagic read/write speed tests on the Thunderblade with the Samsung 990 Evo+ drives before long.
Once you own the hardware, it is yours to do with as you wish. But at the same time, if you make modifications and say that leads to data corruption or even loss of data, that is now your responsibility as well. The Thunderblade is extensively tested for the drives that specifically go inside it, down to the firmware. There have been variants of our own drives we have tested that do not meet our performance and reliability standards- and those drives do not ship in the Thunderblade. So essentially, it is a complete solution that works as intended 100% of the time. It is very possible to change drives in the Thunderblade and have an unstable system and at the opposite, have no issues.
We don't lock out people from using third party drives- the hardware does not check for this at all. But if one chooses a drive that exceeds the available power budget or thermal envelope of the enclosure, again that part is the responsibility of the person doing the modifications.
So just to reiterate, the Thunderblade is our premium solution "that just works"- it is reliable, fast, dependable, etc. What a user modifies once they own it is completely in your right, just like any other hardware out there (eg, see automobiles). Of course though, any modifications just like automobiles bear the risks of the modifier.
Hello OWC_TAL,
I have a accelsior 8m2 with 8x4tb combined with Akitio titan connected to my Mac mini m4 pro. But all that hardware taking to much space on my desktop, so here is my question.
Can i buy a Thunderblade X8 8tb and put my 8x4tb from the accelsior 8m2 in it ?
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The first issue you will find is that the X8 uses 8x 2242 sized SSDs. Yours are like 2280 sided. So A) they wont fit.
A few other suggestions:
1. Our AOC cables should be shipping again- they were pending for a while due to a firmware revision. You can get these in 10ft and 15ft sizes, so you could put the Titan not on your desktop. A 2M TB cable also works.
2. You could use something like 2x Express 4m2s and span the RAID across both. SoftRAID doesn't care that they are not in the same box. Though the 4m2 is OOS and a revision is not quite announced yet. So maybe that is more of a future option.
Okay I’ll go for a cable much longer, just to know does the X12 will also use 2242 ?
X12 uses 2280. It's not sold as 0GB but once you own the hardware, it technically is yours to do with as you wish. But do keep in mind power draw of the SSDs- the X12 has 12 SSDs, and some drives are more power hungry than others. We've tuned our SSDs to draw less power in this enclosure and not exceed the power budget. Secondly, not all SSDs are compatible with this version of the Thunderbolt chipset (it is called a stepping), since this is the first of Barlow Ridge devices. We don't lock out any drives ourselves, but there may be certain brands or controllers that are simply not compatible. I don't know which ones though.
Here is the AOC cable: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-usb4-cables shows pending but I think that should be changing in the next day or so.
I currently have 3 ThunderBlade V4 drives (16TB / 8TB / 8TB).
I now generally use my 1M2 drives for day-to-day work so hardly touch my Thunderblades, which now only serve as backup drives every now and then. I wish OWC had a trade in option where I could trade them in towards credit against a single, higher capacity, Thunderblade - is that at all a possibility?
I now generally use my 1M2 drives for day-to-day work so hardly touch my Thunderblades, which now only serve as backup drives every now and then. I wish OWC had a trade in option where I could trade them in towards credit against a single, higher capacity, Thunderblade - is that at all a possibility?