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Review: OWC ThunderBay 8 Offers High-Volume, High-Performance Mac Storage
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No thanks. I'm happy with my Synology 1621+ with 10GB ethernet connection. 
I bought a OWC (Other World Computing: what World? The fallen one, ‘cause also hw made in 4º World is still better than that!) Mercury Elite Pro QX2 years ago, in Europe, without discs: over 300€.
The plastic part of the USB-A connecter in the case broke.
Weeks asking the support for a diagram on how to open the case because there are no visible screws.
After over a month and a numerous series of misunderstandings, despite having sent the photos and explained in detail several times what I asked for, they answer me that they do not have a product scheme and do not have certified service in Europe.
Well, for me they can fail.
Incapable and of poor quality, in 40 years I have never seen a connecter break in the case.
Other than $1500, not even 50 cents.
The plastic part of the USB-A connecter in the case broke.
Weeks asking the support for a diagram on how to open the case because there are no visible screws.
After over a month and a numerous series of misunderstandings, despite having sent the photos and explained in detail several times what I asked for, they answer me that they do not have a product scheme and do not have certified service in Europe.
Well, for me they can fail.
Incapable and of poor quality, in 40 years I have never seen a connecter break in the case.
Other than $1500, not even 50 cents.
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Not a lot of people are good at using Terminal for controlling apps. A good GUI is needed.
These Thunderbay 8 units are a bit too big for me, and the Thunderbay 4 was too small. I picked up several of the Thunderbay 6 units, when they were still selling them, and they've been rock solid. The 6 also comes with a slot for an M.2 NVMe SSD blade but it's capped at about 800 MB/s. I popped in some of the 480 GB blades I pulled from the Envoy FX/SX units I have when I upgraded them to 2 TB.
Why anyone would buy a Thunderbolt-based solution using SoftRAID® over something like a Synology NAS is beyond me.
My two original TB1 version are still running, and makes a great landing spot for junk, but you're better off using the RAID in disk utility than softraid. It tends to lag in support for new OS version (even dot versions can be incompatible), and boy if you forget and upgrade the OS before it's supported, it can be a world of hurt. We've got a different brand of array, and those drivers require disabling SIP protection to get it to run (they still haven't updated the drivers to fix it), so looking to replace them when we can afford it - but only with units that don't require any software because of those kind of issues - either give me hardware raid that just looks like a big disk, or let me use the built-in OS features.
Aside: NAS isn't an option because it's too darn slow (and they have their own world of hurt with software and security issues).
Aside: NAS isn't an option because it's too darn slow (and they have their own world of hurt with software and security issues).
I really really want to love OWC; lots of innovative products, solutions, and they're even local to me. But every single thing I have purchased from them over the years has had one issue or another, and every interaction with their customer service team leaves something to be desired. Just a small sample:
RAM - Purchased and received the correct module as per my Mac model, however, my new unmodified stock Mac would not boot with their RAM. After a lot of work with a CSR, I ended up needing a slightly different version of this RAM stick. It's a mystery since the specs were identical. CSR was helpful with troubleshooting, but not so helpful for making a painless exchange.
SSD Drive and PCI Adapter - Mercury Electra SSD and Accelsior S PCIe Adapter bundle. I only use this drive for my operating system boot drive. It's failed about once a year since I installed it - for a total of four times; it fails to boot and it's not repairable via Disk Utility. Since simply reformatting and reinstalling the OS or Time Machine restore gets me back up & running, OWC will not acknowledge even the slightest possibility that there is something wrong with it since day one. First three failures were within warranty and OWC was notified and involved in "troubleshooting" each one. CS experience is very mixed. "if you reformat and it works, then there is nothing wrong with it". Maybe it's the adapter? "Maybe it is, but you're out of warranty now". LOL - A OWC manager offered to "test" the PCI adapter board if I send it in, but the replacement cost would still be on me despite the majority of failures that occurred within warranty.
"Refurbished" Mac - They sell refurbished Macs. I needed to replace the motherboard on a Mac Mini for somebody and purchasing a refurb from OWC made more sense than a new motherboard. It arrived beat up and dirty. External cosmetics aside, I honestly don't even know what "refurbished" means to the OWC team, since the internals were caked in dust and the coin-cell on the motherboard was dead, I don't even think they opened it. Maybe they restored the HDD to factory OS - does that count as refurbishment? I called to complain and instead of an apology/explanation, they mailed out a new coin cell.
I was at the point where Apple brand charging cords were the only thing I would buy from them. Now I don't think so:
RAM - Purchased and received the correct module as per my Mac model, however, my new unmodified stock Mac would not boot with their RAM. After a lot of work with a CSR, I ended up needing a slightly different version of this RAM stick. It's a mystery since the specs were identical. CSR was helpful with troubleshooting, but not so helpful for making a painless exchange.
SSD Drive and PCI Adapter - Mercury Electra SSD and Accelsior S PCIe Adapter bundle. I only use this drive for my operating system boot drive. It's failed about once a year since I installed it - for a total of four times; it fails to boot and it's not repairable via Disk Utility. Since simply reformatting and reinstalling the OS or Time Machine restore gets me back up & running, OWC will not acknowledge even the slightest possibility that there is something wrong with it since day one. First three failures were within warranty and OWC was notified and involved in "troubleshooting" each one. CS experience is very mixed. "if you reformat and it works, then there is nothing wrong with it". Maybe it's the adapter? "Maybe it is, but you're out of warranty now". LOL - A OWC manager offered to "test" the PCI adapter board if I send it in, but the replacement cost would still be on me despite the majority of failures that occurred within warranty.
"Refurbished" Mac - They sell refurbished Macs. I needed to replace the motherboard on a Mac Mini for somebody and purchasing a refurb from OWC made more sense than a new motherboard. It arrived beat up and dirty. External cosmetics aside, I honestly don't even know what "refurbished" means to the OWC team, since the internals were caked in dust and the coin-cell on the motherboard was dead, I don't even think they opened it. Maybe they restored the HDD to factory OS - does that count as refurbishment? I called to complain and instead of an apology/explanation, they mailed out a new coin cell.
I was at the point where Apple brand charging cords were the only thing I would buy from them. Now I don't think so:
I've used Softraid for years. The only issue I've had is trying to use it with some betas of MacOS before Apple and OWC sorted out some issues. Otherwise, I've had real good luck. Besides, you never, ever, rely on RAID for backup. It is simply not an appropriate solution for safety.
As for their cheap fans, I hear you. But on the other hand, the main issue is they do not keep stock of parts after they upgrade or discontinue a product. I had to track down the factory in China by pulling my fans out and getting the manufacturer from the label, and contacting them via their website. But the good thing is, the fans were $11 each.
As for their cheap fans, I hear you. But on the other hand, the main issue is they do not keep stock of parts after they upgrade or discontinue a product. I had to track down the factory in China by pulling my fans out and getting the manufacturer from the label, and contacting them via their website. But the good thing is, the fans were $11 each.
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When you need big, fast, direct-connected storage for multi-stream 4K / 8K / 360 video editing.
I've got one of these populated with 4TB SSDs in RAID4, connected to (of all things) an M1 Mini over TB3. 2326 MB/s write, 1964 MB/s read (that's Bytes, not bits). 10GbE is less than half the speed and a NAS doesn't have the benefit of APFS. It gets backed up to LTO every night, just in case.
I wouldn't get one for home use though. Overkill.
Great read/write speeds for very large files, but spinning RAID arrays with any sort of redundancy/parity have horrendous write speeds on small files. I stopped using spinning arrays completely and now use only NVMe. You get what you pay for...
Not in my experience, depending on hardware vendor. Had a lot of issues with SoftRaid during the version 5-6 transition.
Lots of reasons. Assuming from "clunky ... mechanical" you are proposing to use SSDs instead:
1. Assuming we're talking about an 8 drive multi-disk enclosure the largest common SSD I've seen is ~8 TB costing ~$1200 each. That's ~$10K for just the 8 drives with ~64 TB
2. Assuming (1) there is no way to get to any larger sizes, configurations > 100 TB.
3. At some point you will reach the saturation point of the interface at which point SSD speed is irrelevant. The 8 TB drives in the example are running at ~16 Mbps so even a Thunderbolt interface would be saturated if you used 8 SSDs. Waste of money.
Despite my reservations about SoftRaid it might have some advantages over a hardware solution - such as more flexible configuration. I have mine set up with 3 volumes - one 4 disk multi disk RAID 5 and 4 JOBD for Time Machine.
They had multiple SoftRaid versions and I unfortunately purchased the wrong one. Their website is much clearer now but you have to pay more to get higher RAID levels. Even though I had just purchased the version 5 version a month ago or so ago they refused to upgrade me to version 6 at no charge. Had to pay the upgrade price.
SoftRAID - OWC Software Store
software.owc.com
Have 2 units - a 4 bay and 8 bay. Haven't had any hardware problems with them.
Lots of reasons. Much simpler to maintain than a NAS unit which needs constant maintenance and is another OS which has to be configured and updated. Because of OS overhead a NAS is slower. I have never been able to get TM to work reliably on any NAS device.
As a network device you have to worry about security issues which may require frequent updates. Synology has had 3 critical and 2 important security updates in 2023 alone.
Not an issue with direct attached storage.
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For this price, I would grab a Synology. Cheaper and way more feature packed. I currently use a 1522+ that has 5 bays (only using 3 right now). Using Synology's own raid, I get 18TB of usage out of 3 10TB drives, along with lots of apps like Drive, Photo, backup, VPN, external backup.... the list goes on.
Not in my experience, depending on hardware vendor. Had a lot of issues with SoftRaid during the version 5-6 transition.
Lots of reasons. Assuming from "clunky ... mechanical" you are proposing to use SSDs instead:
1. Assuming we're talking about an 8 drive multi-disk enclosure the largest common SSD I've seen is ~8 TB costing ~$1200 each. That's ~$10K for just the 8 drives with ~64 TB
2. Assuming (1) there is no way to get to any larger sizes, configurations > 100 TB.
3. At some point you will reach the saturation point of the interface at which point SSD speed is irrelevant. The 8 TB drives in the example are running at ~16 Mbps so even a Thunderbolt interface would be saturated if you used 8 SSDs. Waste of money.
Despite my reservations about SoftRaid it might have some advantages over a hardware solution - such as more flexible configuration. I have mine set up with 3 volumes - one 4 disk multi disk RAID 5 and 4 JOBD for Time Machine.
They had multiple SoftRaid versions and I unfortunately purchased the wrong one. Their website is much clearer now but you have to pay more to get higher RAID levels. Even though I had just purchased the version 5 version a month ago or so ago they refused to upgrade me to version 6 at no charge. Had to pay the upgrade price.
SoftRAID - OWC Software Store
Have 2 units - a 4 bay and 8 bay. Haven't had any hardware problems with them.
Lots of reasons. Much simpler to maintain than a NAS unit which needs constant maintenance and is another OS which has to be configured and updated. Because of OS overhead a NAS is slower. I have never been able to get TM to work reliably on any NAS device.
As a network device you have to worry about security issues which may require frequent updates. Synology has had 3 critical and 2 important security updates in 2023 alone.
Not an issue with direct attached storage.
To add, some of those NAS set ups are targets of malware on their OS, so you have to be on your toes and keep the updates current. Oops posted to soon.
When are they going to start shipping products like this that are not limited to SATA? I get that you will quickly saturate the connection, even with spinning rust drives. That said, There are questions related to seek latency, the time it takes to spin up the array when you have not been using it and the mechanical wear from idling the drives all day long when not in use. I would love to see an enclosure that supports 8 or 16 NVMes.
I did the same...OWC "use to" use Noctua unit fans before in their units until recent offerings. Whomever actually make their gear before bought out their cheaper competitor some years ago (forgot who) and I noticed the change of fans (Taiwan or China made fan brand now). Nactua fans are more expensive (I think made or designed in Germany) and are well worth replacing any fans that you need quiet environments. Can cost of course...but..worth it. Issues are to find the right size for whatever you are using.
Apple should just use Noctua as a supplier, but Apple of course would charge even more for their units. Apple fans now are quiet generally anyway, so probably now-a-days would be over kill.
Per TB cost for NVMe is still prohibitively expensive vs HDD. Also, NVMe has the TBW issue, and the non-usage problem.
While I love SSDs (far smaller form factor, way faster, and use less energy), but until they go down in cost where I can afford to have a backup copy of ever SSD I would own (via RAID or manually), I'll stick to HDDs.
You don’t have to use SoftRAID (their product), any software RAID works. Using macOS’ built-in RAID setup in DiskUtility works fine. Maybe it’s not as fast or feature rich as SoftRAID but it’s much more reliable and you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues between OS and RAID.
That's good to know. I somehow thought they had ditched this feature a while back. Either way, I'm fine with OWC's hardware and their customer support. I am another one who has had some problematic experiences with SoftRaid, so I just don't use it. I sometimes will create a raid unit, either via hardware or, for certain uses, the occasional one with SoftRaid, but rarely.
For large file storage - certainly as a photographer and video editor - I prefer direct attached storage to any NAS. And I would never use Synology for many reasons, but I won't convince any of its fans. I'll just say that I don't know any serious users who use it. Fine to stream your home media if you want to waste time setting it up, but I'd never use it.
This 8 bay unit is probably too much for me now. I also got in on the 6 and that's generally good. I have a few Thunderbay units and they all get used. I also am still running some eSATA ProMax units and they are all about to get retired, so an 8 bay unit may be somewhere in my future. Decent company. Softraid is not for me, though.
I bought a FireWire ssd adapter from them a couple of years ago and was extremely disappointed. Build quality was cheap and it’s unreliable (sometimes it just won’t work).
If you want RAID more sophisticated than JBOD, 0 or 1, you'll have to go with SoftRaid or some other third-party RAID. Apple's support for software RAID is pretty rudimentary, and doesn't allow the redundency (and security) of RAID 5, 6, or 1+0 (10).
I was surprised at how accessible openzfs is. There's a lot of information about it as well as recipes that are easily found on the Internet. arstechnica.com has had some educational articles about it.
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