Resolved PROMISE Pegasus R4 4TB RAID System

[bdodds1985]

I am looking for advice on if it is a good idea to use the PROMISE Pegasus R4 4TB RAID System for general storage of media and back ups or if it can be done at all. At first I was thinking about just buying a HDD Bay with 5 or 6 slots and using my older 5400rpm drives via firewire. I have about 4 drives to consolidate. But then I saw this and I read a little on what a raid system does, and still don't fully understand it. Basically I am wondering if this can just be used as a huge external since it is the biggest option that supports thunderbolt.

Second, if I am running dual monitors or even 1 monitor, can I plug this into the back of the TB Display or does it have to be plugged into my MBP?

For advice I am not looking for anything eSATA or SATA, and have no option given my 15" MBP. But I would love some feedback as to if this is a good idea or will work at all. I am not worried about the price. I have been saving for a while to get dual TB displays and hopefully this 4TB RAID system.

 

[Nielsenius]

RAID setups have a lot of flexibility. Typically, a user will run RAID-0 or RAID-1.

RAID-0 combines two or more hard drives into a what the user sees as a single disk. You get increased performance because data is split evenly among each hard drive. You also get the combined storage capacities of each hard drive in a single disk.

RAID-1 is a redundant setup for data protection. Everything that is written to one disk is written to the other.

There are a bunch of different RAID levels, but those are the most common. I'm not an expert on the subject.

As for your display question, you can plug the Pegasus into the Thunderbolt port on the display and access it whenever your Mac is hooked up to the display.

I hope this answers some of your questions. Maybe someone else can get into the particulars a little better than I can.

 

[phrehdd]

present thunderbolt options way too expensive

If you are using a network at home of any sort that is either wire or wireless then you would be far better considering a NAT solution (network attached storage).

While it is true that Tbolt will provide great speed, you may that a network based storage to be reasonably fast for typical storage needs and back up.

There are plenty of 4 and 5 drive NAS units that do run a bit cheaper than the Tbolt option you mentioned AND as RAID 5 should provide a good mix of speed and protection. Using same size slower drives also can work well enough. 4-5 5400 rpm drives work fine and require less power.

You might want to look at "smallnetworkbuilder" site to see some examples, reviews and discussion. They cover NAS, routers etc.

I use both NAS and direct attached storage. My NAS contains my media library (including al songs for iTunes), software installs and personal files. It can (though I don't) provide Time Machine services.

To be candid, I am furious with Apple once again putting out an "odd" item like Tbolt and not even providing themselves adaptors or storage to match. The price of Tbolt devices will more likely be prevalent when PCs later this year adopt Tbolt and thus, Apple users are now dependent on PCs to get the price down to something more reasonable. Apple could have at least provided an adaptor for Tbolt to USB 3/2, Firewire 800, eSATA. Sorry if I appear truly annoyed (which I am) but I just find Apple to be unapologetic on getting us to spend more for their products (which is okay) then turn around and have no real support as they move forward until much much later.

 

[bdodds1985]

As for your display question, you can plug the Pegasus into the Thunderbolt port on the display and access it whenever your Mac is hooked up to the display.

Thank you. And It sounds like mainly a raid system is used for networking. I was looking for something easy to use, and thunderbolt provides this option, but I think a Raid system is a little advanced for what I need. I wouldn't mind dishing out the moolah for it if I could use more than 2TB's for data/media and only about 200-500GB for backup. I am not sure if I can do that with the Pegasus R4.

While it is true that Tbolt will provide great speed, you may that a network based storage to be reasonably fast for typical storage needs and back up.

There are plenty of 4 and 5 drive NAS units that do run a bit cheaper than the Tbolt option you mentioned AND as RAID 5 should provide a good mix of speed and protection. Using same size slower drives also can work well enough. 4-5 5400 rpm drives work fine and require less power.

You might want to look at "smallnetworkbuilder" site to see some examples, reviews and discussion. They cover NAS, routers etc.

So I understand that the RAID system is the fastest (with TB) and easiest to hook up (one TB cable, daisy chained into my monitor), but not the best for basic storage needs?

I agree with you about apple charging ridiculous amounts for such a great service and I think it is mainly other companies who are scared to adopt these methods fault for not integrating it on more standard systems and devices.

I was looking at NAS bays, because at first I wanted to consolidate all my older hd's into one system. After seeing the Pegasus R4 my head turned, and I wanted fastest option available, with better HDD's.

I am not weighing NAS out of the equation but would rather make use of the thunderbolt port ONLY if I can use more storage on the Pegasus R4. If I cannot then I will buy a HDD bay or NAS as long as it uses FW800.

Does anyone have any suggestions for NAS that uses good HDD's with at least 4TB of memory?

It seems as if I were to take the RAID bait and use Pegasus R4 for basic storage, there is a bigger chance of drive failure resulting in complete data loss than if I were to use a slower FW800 NAS system. Is there a way to write to the drives individually with the Pegasus R4 and if not, is there any drives that use thunderbolt an can be written individually?

EDIT
instead of spending a bunch of money on a raid system that I don't need I will just buy a 2tb lacie thunderbolt drive and daisy chain to another one if/when needed. but for now my set up will consist of a G-Technology 3TB G-Drive and 1 Lacie 2TB Thunderbolt drive. plenty of space for what I need without the RAID Mess.

 

[joaoferro37]

"I agree with you about apple charging ridiculous amounts for such a great service and I think it is mainly other companies who are scared to adopt these methods fault for not integrating it on more standard systems and devices."

Tell you what, the cost of TB chip is around 40 dollars believe or not.
Apple needs to make 45% to 65% profit margin meaning Apple's cost from Promise is around 500 dollars for a 4 Bay TB RAID.
Let's do some mat here.
2X TB chipsets = $80
4X 1TB HDD = $200
The cost of "metal" and PCB and labor more than $120
a $999 dollars TB RAID.
Yes, it ain't cheap but reasonable.

 

[ix400]

Question

Hi there,

I have a question: Is it possible to have two different kinds of disks in a single Promise Pegasus enclosure? For example 2 SSDs and 2 7200rpm drives configured as two seperate RAID 0 stacks?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[martinm0]

Hi there,

I have a question: Is it possible to have two different kinds of disks in a single Promise Pegasus enclosure? For example 2 SSDs and 2 7200rpm drives configured as two seperate RAID 0 stacks?

Cheers,

Chris

Based on what I have learned from philipma1957, yes. He's running two RAID 0's, a time machine backup disk and an SSD (he has the R6 model). The Pegasus can ultimately have each individual disk show up while connected through Thunderbolt. It also natively supports 3.5 and 2.5 inch drives, so no adapters need to be purchased. (I'm getting my open box R6 today, and will be testing all of this out first hand).

To bdodds1985 - the pegasus can be set up to be a JBOD (just a bunch of disks), which avoids the RAID set up (for the most part). This set up allows you to have any capacity HDDs loaded and it will sum them and provide a single pool of xGB's/TB's of storage. RAID ultimately offers either high speed, or backup mirroring (its not a networking thing). This would be what I believe you want, but unless you need Thunderbolt its a costly investment that can be duplicated with a decent NAS or enclosure. Look at OWC's Qx2 quad bay enclosure as an option. I'm using an HP mediasmart server that is great, but I just got the itch for Thunderbolt and couldn't help myself. (the HP is available for sale if anyone is interested. Just PM me).

The JBOD (or spanning, NRAID, whatever you call it) is done through Apple's Disk Utility and there will be no mention of this on the Pegasus site.

Hope this helps.

 

[kjetilbj]

Both...

Is it possible to set up the 4TB, so that the first 2 disks are RAID 0, and the 3 and 4 are getting synced from 1 and 2? As backup? And will this be a setup, so that it does its work at night or whenever I want?

thank you