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Thunderbolt storage: What's in the pipeline?

ipedro

ipedro

macrumors 603
Original poster
Nov 30, 2004
6,472
9,255
Toronto, ON
Has anybody heard any news from the big storage brands about Thunderbolt? Anything announced at CES?

I've been shopping around for a Thunderbolt RAID drive for my iMac and was considering the LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt but it's out of stock at the Apple Store and the delivery window online is 1-2 months. Have they announced a replacement? Is it possible that such a niche product can be that backed up?

Given that Thunderbolt is beginning to trickle on to PCs and cheaper Thunderbolt chips have been announced, can we expect anything new this year?
 
ipedro said:
Has anybody heard any news from the big storage brands about Thunderbolt? Anything announced at CES?

I've been shopping around for a Thunderbolt RAID drive for my iMac and was considering the LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt but it's out of stock at the Apple Store and the delivery window online is 1-2 months. Have they announced a replacement? Is it possible that such a niche product can be that backed up?

Given that Thunderbolt is beginning to trickle on to PCs and cheaper Thunderbolt chips have been announced, can we expect anything new this year?
Click to expand...

You may want to check other Internet sources for the 2big.

Also, LaCie announced the 5big at CES.
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10607 Looks like 10TB and 20TB are in stock.

The LaCie online shop also appears to have several 2big configs in stock.

As for Apple...best to give them a call; someties the phone people can give you better info.
 
Thunderbolt storage

I ordered a LaCie Thunderbolt 3TB external disc from MacMall last week and had it online running Time Machine three days later, their normal free shipping.
 
I'm about to pull the trigger on a Promise Pegasus R4. Looks like a really nice RAID system.
 
WilliamDu said:
I ordered a LaCie Thunderbolt 3TB external disc from MacMall last week and had it online running Time Machine three days later, their normal free shipping.
Click to expand...

What speed you get with thunderbolt? Also, how quiet or loud is it?
 
SamPhoto said:
I'm about to pull the trigger on a Promise Pegasus R4. Looks like a really nice RAID system.
Click to expand...

I use the R4 and it is quite fast. I have the 8TB version. Originally, the 4TB used 3 GB/s drives and the 8TB used 6Gb/s drives. I am not sure if that is still the case.

/Jim
 
flynz4 said:
I use the R4 and it is quite fast. I have the 8TB version. Originally, the 4TB used 3 GB/s drives and the 8TB used 6Gb/s drives. I am not sure if that is still the case.

/Jim
Click to expand...

Sounds good Jim. I think I'll order the 8GB R4.

I'm coming from a Mac Pro with internal drives to an iMac with external. I think the R4 RAID setup should provide a fast working drive for video editing while being a reasonably safe from failure. I hope I have this right! :)
 
SamPhoto said:
Sounds good Jim. I think I'll order the 8GB R4.

I'm coming from a Mac Pro with internal drives to an iMac with external. I think the R4 RAID setup should provide a fast working drive for video editing while being a reasonably safe from failure. I hope I have this right! :)
Click to expand...

I run mine using RAID 10... which gives me 4TB (out of 8TB). However... that does not replace the need to have it backed up. RAID (of any flavor) should not be considered a safe alternative for backing up.

/Jim
 
flynz4 said:
I run mine using RAID 10... which gives me 4TB (out of 8TB). However... that does not replace the need to have it backed up. RAID (of any flavor) should not be considered a safe alternative for backing up.

/Jim
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up Jim. What are you using for a backup drive? I've been using a 2gb Apple Time Capsule.
 
SamPhoto said:
Thanks for clearing that up Jim. What are you using for a backup drive? I've been using a 2gb Apple Time Capsule.
Click to expand...

I use a 3TB Time Capsule for my wife's iMac, and a 2TB Time Capsule for our our laptops (two MacBook Airs).

The Pegasus will be permanently connected to my new iMac which is on order. The new iMac will not have a lot of capacity (just a 768 GB SSD)... so the 8TB Pegasus R4 (RAID 10) will add an additional 4TB of storage... which is more than I need. Currently my data set is about 1.5 TB. If I offload my iTunes library + all my iMovie camcorder videos to the Pegasus... everything else (including my Aperture library) will fit within the 768GB SSD.

I've been holding off on buying a new TC for the new iMac in hopes of them releasing a 4TB version. If not released by the time my new iMac arrives, I will get the 3TB TC since it will work fine given my 1.5 TB of data.

I *could* backup to a NAS array... but I prefer not to do so, since the only NAS officially supported by Time Machine is the TC. I do not want to deal with NAS firmware upgrades every time Apple decides to change something with TM. Backup should "just work" and not be a hobby to keep running... my data is too important for that. I could also use a direct connect drive... but I have a strong preference to keep my backup Time Capsules in a different part of the house, in a physically locked location. This prevents my iMac and its associated backup data from being stollen simultaneously if the local junkie does a smash and grab on my home office.

Of course... everything is also backed up to the cloud as well. Both iMacs and both MBAs... plus two other iMacs and two MBAs for my daughters who are college students living out of state or out of country. I use Crashplan+ to backup 8 computers... each every 15 minutes, all for $6/month. What a bargain!!!

I also have a pair of small cheap 1.5 TB Thunderbolt portable GoFlex drives that I use with CCC to create media backups (Aperture 3 library and camcorder videos) which I rotate between my home office and my corporate office whenever I make major changes to my libraries. This is just an extra belt + suspenders + jockstrap + condom approach to being extra safe with my irreplaceable data.

/Jim
 
Last edited:
flynz4 said:
I use a 3TB Time Capsule for my wife's iMac, and a 2TB Time Capsule for our our laptops (two MacBook Airs).
/Jim
Click to expand...

I'd say you're very thoroughly backed up, Jim! I keep smaller critical files backed up to Dropbox, but for video and everything else I've only used Time Capsule.

I've thought about CrashPlan and I know people who use it, but I wasn't sure how practical it is for backing up someone who does HD video. It must take forever to upload video, even with my relatively fast 30mbs cable connection. I mainly do tutorial videos so I'm not a professional producer who cranks out a high volume, but I'd hate to make everyone else in the house suffer because I'm constantly hogging our internet connection with huge uploads each time I shoot another chapter. Pardon my ignorance here if I'm way off base with my concerns :confused:
 
flynz4 said:
I use the R4 and it is quite fast. I have the 8TB version. Originally, the 4TB used 3 GB/s drives and the 8TB used 6Gb/s drives. I am not sure if that is still the case.

/Jim
Click to expand...

I have a relatively new (one year ) R4 and it uses 1TB drives. I'm shortly going to daisy chain in a larger Pegasus unit to expand my storage...What with Blu-Ray files running at a minimum of 15GB in unconverted state, it's pretty asy to chew up space. I can highly recommend Pegasus thunderbolt storage...They too have the fairly new j range:

http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?region=en-global&m=15&rsn1=40&rsn3=62

Superfast... I have a freind who is using 2X 4 modules....The entire range is not cheap though, and prices have remained high, despite the competition releasing new products. Is there an element of "Paying for the name" here? Maybe, but I'm sold on the reliability which is of course the most important factor here with speed running a close second.
 
mario24601 said:
What speed you get with thunderbolt? Also, how quiet or loud is it?
Click to expand...

See http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10600

LaCie advertises 170mb/sec, but speed varies with computer.

The drive Time Machined my new 2012 27" iMac 3TB Fusion HDD in about 1/4th the time my older LaCie USB 2 1TB drive took, both starting from scratch and doing a full backup of the 230GB currently in use.

The drive is essentially silent. I can just barely hear both the LaCie and the internal drive in my iMac start up, but once they are both running, I can't hear either of them.

I've been using LaCie drives for over twenty years with zero problems.

I went to the 3TB size to accommodate the time machine back up plus lots of extra music and photos that were pushing my old 1TB LaCie external with over 900gb of stuff.

I only run the LaCie drives about once a week unless I add something important to my HDD, or update major software. The iMac runs 24/7 on an APC UBS with software that protects the entire system and shuts the iMac down properly along with the La Cie drives, our WiFi and other peripherals powered by the UBS in case of power failure even if I'm not around.

I haven't bothered to check whether power failures can bother the Thunderbolt LaCie drives. It's just easier and safer to protect the whole mess.
 
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