What is the best solution to use my HDDs from my cMP to nMP?

[Korican100]

I have two HDD's (7200 rpm). I'd like to use them independently on my nMP.

What's the best way to do that?

USB 3.0 real estate is low (at 4 ports), so thunderbolt looks the way to go. Anyone have any suggestions?

If anyone can help out what are some good solutions to bring over storage from cMP that would be awesome.

 

[apple.fiend]

Best bet is to find a housing for the harddrives and use them with that. Not sure if there are any thunderbolt housings however.

 

[Korican100]

Best bet is to find a housing for the harddrives and use them with that. Not sure if there are any thunderbolt housings however.

I am dreading that solution because then I will need external power correct?

 

[AidenShaw]

USB 3.0 might be fine

If the old drives are archived data, USB would be fine for occasional access. (Actually, a single USB 3.0 drive would simply be fine - USB 3.0 is faster than the raw bandwidth from almost any spinning drive.)

 

[hfg]

OWC has both dual and quad drive thunderbolt enclosures which can be used in JBOD for your existing drives from your cMP.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/

 

[antonis]

It'd be a waste to use TB interface for a mechanical HDD, as the HDD's speed will be the bottleneck. Unless you have no plans of using the TB ports now or in the near future, or make a raid with the HDDs.

 

[VirtualRain]

I have two HDD's (7200 rpm). I'd like to use them independently on my nMP.

What's the best way to do that?

USB 3.0 real estate is low (at 4 ports), so thunderbolt looks the way to go. Anyone have any suggestions?

If anyone can help out what are some good solutions to bring over storage from cMP that would be awesome.

If you're only accessing them occasionally get a USB3 enclosure or dock and a hub if you're low on ports.

If you want a single TB enclosure, I echo the recommendation for the OWC products. I have a Thunderbay IV connected to my Mac Mini and it's the perfect external enclosure. Reliable, quiet, and fast.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

I have two HDD's (7200 rpm). I'd like to use them independently on my nMP.

What's the best way to do that?

USB 3.0 real estate is low (at 4 ports), so thunderbolt looks the way to go. Anyone have any suggestions?

If anyone can help out what are some good solutions to bring over storage from cMP that would be awesome.

What are you using the HDD's for?

 

[Korican100]

What are you using the HDD's for?

im using one 4gb for storage of my video's before I convert them to proxies for my workflow.

I have another 2gb that I use for general me stuff.

Then I have a samsung 840 pro I want to use as a scratch disk

Then I have another drive I would like to use to backup my nMP's boot drive (the 1tb flash storage)

So I am looking at OWC thunderbay iv option, and use it as a JBOD.

But I have a question, does the JBOD only work in a "span"? or can I use them as individual drives?

 

[hfg]

im using one 4gb for storage of my video's before I convert them to proxies for my workflow.

I have another 2gb that I use for general me stuff.

Then I have a samsung 840 pro I want to use as a scratch disk

Then I have another drive I would like to use to backup my nMP's boot drive (the 1tb flash storage)

So I am looking at OWC thunderbay iv option, and use it as a JBOD.

But I have a question, does the JBOD only work in a "span"? or can I use them as individual drives?

The Thunderbay IV will present you with 4 individual disks (JBOD) which you can use Disk Utility to create RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-10, concatenate, or ... just use them individually. There is no hardware RAID in the Thunderbay 4. You can also purchase SoftRAID5 to create a RAID-5 array with 3 or 4 of the disks.

 

[calaverasgrande]

It'd be a waste to use TB interface for a mechanical HDD, as the HDD's speed will be the bottleneck. Unless you have no plans of using the TB ports now or in the near future, or make a raid with the HDDs.

I believe most of OWC's TB enclosures have a pass through TB port. So you aren't losing a port to the Thunderbay IV or whatever.
If you believe that it is a waste simply because it doe snot fully exploit the bandwidth, I suppose that could be one point of view. I'd just call it headroom?
Personally I spent a bit more and went for a multi-terabyte DAS raid enclosure. Then I spent probably a month of weekends copying all my external drives, opticals SD cards etc into one big filesystem. I was surprised at how many dupes I had!

 

[Korican100]

The Thunderbay IV will present you with 4 individual disks (JBOD) which you can use Disk Utility to create RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-10, concatenate, or ... just use them individually. There is no hardware RAID in the Thunderbay 4. You can also purchase SoftRAID5 to create a RAID-5 array with 3 or 4 of the disks.

so i can put all my drives in there, plug it up on thunderbolt - and boom same individual drives like how they were on my cMP? (And their max speeds?)

Just what I needed. Will buy right now.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

im using one 4gb for storage of my video's before I convert them to proxies for my workflow.



I have another 2gb that I use for general me stuff.



Then I have a samsung 840 pro I want to use as a scratch disk



Then I have another drive I would like to use to backup my nMP's boot drive (the 1tb flash storage)



So I am looking at OWC thunderbay iv option, and use it as a JBOD.



But I have a question, does the JBOD only work in a "span"? or can I use them as individual drives?

Thanks for your explenation! What I miss in your summery is your backup scheme for your vidio raw and other data!

I personally would get a multiple HDD/SSD device and make sure to be able to RAID1 the HDD/SSD for your (backup) video raw/personal data! An OSX and apps can easily be replaced, but your video raw/data NOT!

So in a 4 bay enclosure I would make 2x 1TB in RAID0 for workflow and 2x 2TB in RAID1 for backup of your video raw/data.

My best advice for OSX backup would be an external HDD/SSD in RAID1 on which you can make a BOOTABLE Carbon Clone Copy and have a 2 drive redundency!

OSX boot drive dead? Install new, reinstall OSX and put your users/apps/data back with Migration Assistant! Saved my bacon a lot of times!

Good luck and Cheers!

 

[antonis]

I believe most of OWC's TB enclosures have a pass through TB port. So you aren't losing a port to the Thunderbay IV or whatever.
If you believe that it is a waste simply because it doe snot fully exploit the bandwidth, I suppose that could be one point of view. I'd just call it headroom?
Personally I spent a bit more and went for a multi-terabyte DAS raid enclosure. Then I spent probably a month of weekends copying all my external drives, opticals SD cards etc into one big filesystem. I was surprised at how many dupes I had!

Absolutely. At the end of the day, someone may want to keep USB ports free for other more important devices, while don't mind to occupy a TB port. Besides, since there are 2 HDDs, he can always make a raid 0 with them to significantly improve their speed, and take a better advantage of the TB bandwidth.

 

[Infrared]

I'm not sure where to post this. A while back I think I recall seeing someone posting about Thunderbolt docks for use with a single external SSD. And at the time I thought I would get one if I upgraded my Mac, because they looked quite tidy and small, which is one thing I'm after. Well, upgrade time may be approaching but I can't find those posts and I'm not having much luck searching on, e.g., Amazon (for the adapters, not the posts ). I wonder if somone could point me in the right direction.

Thanks.