PROMISE Pegasus2 R4 Diskless JBOD?

[rene.bonvanie]

Does this still work?

Just loaded my new Promise Pegasus2 R4 diskless with four new blank WD RE 4 TB drives. Hooked it up to a 2013 MBP 15 inch retina display running 10.9.1 and it appeared without difficulty as four separate drives. The Promise utility lists each drive as pass-thru and functions as a JBOD. Just waiting for my Mac Pro sometime in January. . .

Does this still work for you? I am thinking of using WD Red disks too.

 

[Rad]

Pegasus2

Now using my Pegasus2 R4 with four WD RE 4 TB drives on my new Mac Pro for the past few days without any problem. Using two drives in RAID 1 for critical files and the other two as pass-thru/JBOD. No problems whatsoever. Quiet enclosure.

The drives are not regular WD Red but are WD RE 4 TB Enterprise Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD4000FYYZ. They are faster and more expensive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0090UEQ8I/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[GoogleFish]

Now using my Pegasus2 R4 with four WD RE 4 TB drives on my new Mac Pro for the past few days without any problem. Using two drives in RAID 1 for critical files and the other two as pass-thru/JBOD. No problems whatsoever. Quiet enclosure.

The drives are not regular WD Red but are WD RE 4 TB Enterprise Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD4000FYYZ. They are faster and more expensive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0090UEQ8I/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Those are expensive drives! Sorry for the noob question, but how are these compared to the blacks?

 

[Rad]

RE vs Black

I actually had 4 WD Blacks in my prior Mac Pro but these were getting a little old, tended to run hot and are not rated to be constantly on as a server drive is. The RE are specifically designed for RAIDs and server use. My Mac Pro was so expensive that I did not want to cut any corners on such a critical part as the storage. If you just use the Pegasus as JBOD, I would think the Blacks would be fine.

 

[orytek]

I was going to order 4 new WDRE drives for my NMP but am thinking I could probably run 2 of my existing WD blacks as JBOD and then just purchase 2 WDRE drives for RAID0.
These drives would all be put in the Pegasus2 R4. Does this configuration using two different types seem possible with the Promise Utility?

 

[Rad]

Raid

Other posts have stated that the RAID drives should be the same and you may need to create a two drive RAID without the other drives in the enclosure. Then you can add different drives. All of mine are the same and it was easy to select and create the RAID using the Promise utility.

In the past I have run Velociraptors as RAID0 without any problems. These days I am paranoid about data loss so I am using RAID1. My internal drive is 1 TB so it is big enough for the boot drive and work files. Very happy with the new setup!

 

[AVonGauss]

Deleted.

 

[Rad]

Raid 10

I still need to clone each drive for offsite backup. Being 4 TB each drive , if I join any in a RAID 0 of any kind, it would appear as an 8 TB drive, which does not yet exist as a standalone external drive. I also need to be able to switch out one of the two non-RAID drives at will as needed. I am using the system primarily for medical imaging and programming, with sporadic FCP X use that can fit on the internal SSD at the time, so the non-RAID 0 speed should be fine.

 

[spaz8]

Now using my Pegasus2 R4 with four WD RE 4 TB drives on my new Mac Pro for the past few days without any problem. Using two drives in RAID 1 for critical files and the other two as pass-thru/JBOD. No problems whatsoever. Quiet enclosure.

The drives are not regular WD Red but are WD RE 4 TB Enterprise Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA III, 64 MB Cache - WD4000FYYZ. They are faster and more expensive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0090UEQ8I/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was planning to run 4x2Tb in raid 5.

Is there a newer HDD compatibility chart from Promise? The newest I've found is v.1.8 from July 30th 2013. Which doesn't even list WD drives as a compatible option. So I was looking at Seagate.

 

[ABCDEF-Hex]

Another thread mentioned a problem with SSD's.

I was planning to run 4x2Tb in raid 5.

Is there a newer HDD compatibility chart from Promise? The newest I've found is v.1.8 from July 30th 2013. Which doesn't even list WD drives as a compatible option. So I was looking at Seagate.

It also is not bootable.

 

[Halon]

Pegasus 2

I was planning to run 4x2Tb in raid 5.

Is there a newer HDD compatibility chart from Promise? The newest I've found is v.1.8 from July 30th 2013. Which doesn't even list WD drives as a compatible option. So I was looking at Seagate.

They have a new configuration list on their website dated Nov 2013.

Using their live chat I spoke to Pegasus about using drives that I currently own that are on their SATA Drive Compatibility list (Seagate 3T ST3000DM001) but are not on the Older Mac Pro drive list and they said they will not provide support for those drives. I asked how that made any sense as Mac Pro owners (like me) had upgraded to new and larger drives due to need. Plus the new drives are on their SATA Drive compatibility list. Basically made no difference. Their trying to sell the Diskless as a hot swap from your current Mac Pro but only if you have the original Mac Pro disks.

It would be useful if folks who own the Pegasus R2 Diskless tell us what Hard drives work with their enclosures. While on chat the rep also indicated you could have a mixed array and JBOD configuration.

 

[spaz8]

It also is not bootable.

What is not boot-able? the P2 R2? or Raid5 = not -bootable? or with SSD's in the enclosure like in your headline?

I did a search today, navigating the promise support docs is not easy. but AFAIK the v1.8 compatibility doc is the newest. Which is sad since it is 7 months old, and dosen't even say its compatible with 10.9, yet they advertise it with the nMP which likely ships with nothing below 10.9.1

I'm looking at the ST2000DM0033 seagate enterprise drives. I was looking at the much cheaper ST2000DM001's, but am scared off them now. Its kind of funny because they recommend using enterprise drives with RAID configs, yet I think the only Enterprise drives on the compatibility list are the Toshiba MG03ACA200 and 300.

 

[ABCDEF-Hex]

Unless they changed it -

What is not boot-able? the P2 R2? or Raid5 = not -bootable? or with SSD's in the enclosure like in your headline?

I did a search today, navigating the promise support docs is not easy. but AFAIK the v1.8 compatibility doc is the newest. Which is sad since it is 7 months old, and dosen't even say its compatible with 10.9, yet they advertise it with the nMP which likely ships with nothing below 10.9.1

I'm looking at the ST2000DM0033 seagate enterprise drives. I was looking at the much cheaper ST2000DM001's, but am scared off them now. Its kind of funny because they recommend using enterprise drives with RAID configs, yet I think I think only the Enterprise drives on the compatibility list is the Toshiba MG03ACA200 and 300.

You can't boot from the J4.

 

[orytek]

You can't boot from the J4.

Anyone know if Bootcamp will work with the Pegasus2 if the drive is set to pass through?

 

[eyeballkid]

Bootcamp and VM

Anyone know if Bootcamp will work with the Pegasus2 if the drive is set to pass through?

I'd like to know this too. Also, has anyone tried using it in a virtual machine (specifically VMware Fusion)? If so, any issue with the vm accessing the passthrough drives?

Thanks in advance.

 

[FireWire2]

Thunderbolt JBoD

Promise, Acrea and DATOptic diskless chassis can be use as JBOD

But there is ONE extra step are requires with Promise and Areca chassis.
Configure the HDD as Bypass device before you can use it
where DATOptic Thunderbolt JBOD chassis does not
http://www.datoptic.com/ec/thunderbolt-jbod-5x-sataiii-enclosure-for-mac-windows.html

 

[HenryAZ]

Promise, Acrea and DATOptic diskless chassis can be use as JBOD

I had never heard of the DAT Optic unit before. Thanks for posting that. But I surely hope their size spec is a misprint (16.5" long...front-to-back).

Here is a comparison of the desktop footprint taken by those three units (and the new Mac Pro), looking down on them.

green=DAT Optic
yellow=Promise R4/R6
red=Areca ARC 5026

 

[FireWire2]

I had never heard of the DAT Optic unit before. Thanks for posting that. But I surely hope their size spec is a misprint (16.5" long...front-to-back)....

Interesting comparison - Amazon has DATOptic's products - DATOptic has a decent rating from theirs customers.