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Thunderbolt Little BigDisk SSD Replacement

K

Kohnj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 5, 2012
11
0
New York, NY
I want to order a Little BigDisk with two hhd's and replace them with at least one ssd to boot OSX from. Is it possible to use the drive with one ssd for applications and OSX with the second drive being a hhd for media and backup? Or do i have to replace both drive with ssd's for the external drive to work. Any feedback is appreciated.

Thanks
 
I don't think this is possible. In the specifications, it says you can configure the two disks as Raid0, Raid1, or JBOD...That's not to say it won't work with a little tinkering, but I have never tried it because I don't have a Little Big Disk. :)

What I would do is buy a SeaGate Thunderbolt Desk adapter, an SSD to go with it, then a SeaGate portable Thunderbolt adapter and a HDD...you can daisy chain the portable to the desk and have two disks that way. It might cost a little more, but you can replace either the SSD or HDD without having to tear apart an enclosure.
 
WesCole said:
I don't think this is possible. In the specifications, it says you can configure the two disks as Raid0, Raid1, or JBOD...That's not to say it won't work with a little tinkering, but I have never tried it because I don't have a Little Big Disk. :)

What I would do is buy a SeaGate Thunderbolt Desk adapter, an SSD to go with it, then a SeaGate portable Thunderbolt adapter and a HDD...you can daisy chain the portable to the desk and have two disks that way. It might cost a little more, but you can replace either the SSD or HDD without having to tear apart an enclosure.
Click to expand...

this is what I do, looks a bit ghetto, but works great
 
I do exactly as you want. I have an SSD as boot and storage Hd inside a LaCie lbd works perfect.
 
I completed the process this weekend with two SSD from OWC.com. The screws on the unit were extremely difficult to remove, it was almost impossible not to strip the screws. I wonder if they had some form of glue on the screws to prevent opening the unit. Once I the unit open the screws on the second hard drive would not come off. I had to use a drill bit to destroy the screws that were holding the hard drive to the side wall. Once the screws were removed it was very simple to add the SSD's.

The only problem I am having is that I can not hit speeds over 190MB per sec when reading data. Can someone please let me know what I can do to improve the individual speeds of the disks. I have the same SSD in my MacPro and I get over 400MB a second.
 
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I checked out you old posts and your screen shots show very high transfer speeds in the 400mb range. How were you able to get those speeds when it seems that you did the same swap out with the HDD's that I did.
 
Kohnj said:
I checked out you old posts and your screen shots show very high transfer speeds in the 400mb range. How were you able to get those speeds when it seems that you did the same swap out with the HDD's that I did.
Click to expand...

I run raid0 in the lacie.


I have an ssd in the mini.

I have had ssd's in the seagate adapter.


when you do long copies of a lacie little big disk lets say 2x samsung 256gb series 810/470 Sata II in a raid0 you run into a few speed bottle necks.


(first)


bottle neck on a long copy from the LBD is what are you copying to?


If you copy to a standard hdd either inside of the mini or daisychained to the LBD the hdd 's top write speed Is 80 to 120 MB/s depends on the hdd.

So any test that involves long writing needs to be ssd to ssd to get a speed idea.

(second)

bottle neck is the sata jacks in an lbd are sata II. plus they bridge the bridge is sata III so 2 ssds in a lbd in raid0 may get up to 440 read 380 write you can beat this limit by using a second LBD! does not pay but I raid0 two lbds using 3 samsung series ssds 3x 256gb = 768gb in a raid0 as my osx drive. I have managed to get a 565 read and a 510 write with this.

Not important but it does give me a huge ssd and I have used this since april with no failures.


(third) chips chips chips picture my raid0 lbd.

first chip is in the mini (1) a t-bolt chip

second chip (2) is in the 1st end of the first t-bolt cable

third chip (3) is in the 2nd end of the 1st t-bolt cable


fourth chip is in the sata bridge in the 1st lbd

fifth chip is in the lbd it is the t-bolt chip this would be 5 steps thats what you do inside of 1 the sata set in the imac.


in my setup I do those 5 and then 2 for the next cable 1 for the sata bridge and 1 for the t-bolt in the second lbd

so I run 9 steps boards chips to do a 3 drive raid0 across 2 lbd's then 3 more to have a 1tb after the 2 lbds total of 12 .

look at the screen shot to the left see the drives and my t-bolt tree is a lot more complicated then just a sata III jack like the inside of you imac.


also remember besides this complexity you have the sata II plus sata II bridge deep inside the lbd ...


with out a raid0 you get maybe 220/210 read write for either sata jack. still it lacie lbd is very stable and here is a power supply link for a spare


these will work I use them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/APD-WA-24E1...US_Drive_Enclosures_Docks&hash=item43af51722c



I will be the first to say compared to a trapped hdd in an imac a lacie lbd is a godsend. For mac mini user it is a good thing as the hdd swap is a bit easier for mini users.
 

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