External RAID with TB3?

[BeechFlyer]

I placed an order today for an iMac (new 2017 model), 27", i7, with the 2TB SSD. It'll replace my aging 2008 Mac Pro for my video editing workstation.

On the MacPro, all my HDD storage was internal - using four large drives, two of them in a RAID 1 configuration. On the new iMac, I'm thinking I will need an external RAID for larger storage. On macsales.com I see several choices with TB2 interfaces, but nothing yet with TB3. Is it worthwhile waiting for newer products with TB3? Are any such products on the horizon?

Thanks!

 

[Trebuin]

I placed an order today for an iMac (new 2017 model), 27", i7, with the 2TB SSD. It'll replace my aging 2008 Mac Pro for my video editing workstation.

On the MacPro, all my HDD storage was internal - using four large drives, two of them in a RAID 1 configuration. On the new iMac, I'm thinking I will need an external RAID for larger storage. On macsales.com I see several choices with TB2 interfaces, but nothing yet with TB3. Is it worthwhile waiting for newer products with TB3? Are any such products on the horizon?

Thanks!

It depends on the type of system. I have a Drobo with TB1 (with a TB3 to 1 adapter) that has a few WD green drives. I'm pretty sure the performance of the Drobo itself is maxed out. Basically, know drives & configuration you plan to use & select the version based on that. If you're doing archiving like I do, you can get away with an older version as you probably use spinning drives & don't configure it for performance. TB3 is just overkill & would take SSDs to come close to maxing it out.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I placed an order today for an iMac (new 2017 model), 27", i7, with the 2TB SSD. It'll replace my aging 2008 Mac Pro for my video editing workstation.

On the MacPro, all my HDD storage was internal - using four large drives, two of them in a RAID 1 configuration. On the new iMac, I'm thinking I will need an external RAID for larger storage. On macsales.com I see several choices with TB2 interfaces, but nothing yet with TB3. Is it worthwhile waiting for newer products with TB3? Are any such products on the horizon?

Thanks!

TB2 is 10GB/s, TB3 is 40GB/s. Right now the fastest SSD is 3GB/s. If you are using spinning hard drives then there won't be any advantage for TB3 vs TB2.

 

[BeechFlyer]

Thanks, guys.

Beyond speed, I am wondering if TB3 is more future-proof than the older interfaces - i.e. will I still be able to connect a TB2 storage system to my next computer in five years?

I have zero hands-on experience with Thunderbolt; maybe I'm worried for no good reason. That's why I am checking here, and I appreciate everyone's feedback.

 

[dborod]

I'm in a similar situation: ordered a 2017 iMac and want an external RAID storage of some kind. I have done a ton of research on this in the past week.

I think getting a box with a TB3 interface is the way to go at this point as this is way that Apple is going. As time goes by, more and more peripherals will be shipped with the TB3 interface, and the TB2 will become more obscure. Buying a TB2 RAID box at this point just means that you'll have to use dongles. The overall transfer speeds won't matter, but you will have to worry about which devices are "before" or "after" the TB2 or TB3 devices on the daisy chain. Yuck.

OWC isn't shipping a TB3 box yet, but I'm sure they will in the near future.

CalDigit doesn't seem to have Tb# box yet either.

G Technology has a goofy-looking web site, and their 4-disk box seemed overly expensive.

Lacie has TB3 stuff, but not a 4-disk RAID 5 box.

Drobo just announced a new box today with TB3. It is cheaper than the 5D and the 5Dt. It's supposed to be faster than the 5D and 5Dt, but probably won't be as fast as some of the other options. The 4-disk RAID 5 boxes seem to get up to about 550MB/second, so depending on your needs, it may be fast enough.

The Akitio and the OWC boxes use software for RAID 5, whereas the Drobo and the Promise Pegasus3 use hardware.

I almost purchased the 4-disk Promise Pegasus as Apple is selling it for a very competitive price up here in Canada.

I ended up buying the new Drobo today as it's TB3, I already have a Drobo at home, and I don't need super-fast transfers, just speedier-than-normal and several TB in size.

Anyway, this is just my opinion...

 

[Chancha]

The new Drobo 5D3 seems like a pretty sound investment, maybe a bit expensive for now especially without drives, but you get a lot of flexibility in drive configs including SSDs. Also the mSATA SSD bay is an interesting feature that may help performance considerably.

I also agree on TB3 being more of a future-proof than immediate need as far as HDD goes. Even 4+disks arrays are getting like 500MB/s, much less than the TB3 ceiling, but as a starting point of a TB3 chain it leaves enough headroom for displays and interfaces etc. I would only consider TB2 RAIDs at this moment if I am on very tight budget, but then why not go USB3 for just slight performance hit in exchange for much lower price.

 

[Trebuin]

The new Drobo 5D3 seems like a pretty sound investment, maybe a bit expensive for now especially without drives, but you get a lot of flexibility in drive configs including SSDs. Also the mSATA SSD bay is an interesting feature that may help performance considerably.

I also agree on TB3 being more of a future-proof than immediate need as far as HDD goes. Even 4+disks arrays are getting like 500MB/s, much less than the TB3 ceiling, but as a starting point of a TB3 chain it leaves enough headroom for displays and interfaces etc. I would only consider TB2 RAIDs at this moment if I am on very tight budget, but then why not go USB3 for just slight performance hit in exchange for much lower price.

I've tested my Drobo against both the TB connection & USB 3; I found the TB is far faster. My guess is the TB hardware on the Drobo is less limiting than the usb 3.0 on the Drobo. If my theory is correct, this applies only to the Drobo & another NAS or raid could perform significantly different than the Drobo when testing the same two interfaces.

 

[b06tmm]

Check out the Promise Pegasus3 Series. I have the R6 12TB (TB1) that I got with my mid-2011 BTO iMac and it's still running strong.

 

[BeechFlyer]

The Drobo 5D3 looks very nice (though not cheap). I think I'll go with that.

Thanks again, everyone.

 

[theitsage]

AKiTiO has a few options for Thunderbolt 3 RAID storage. The Thunder3 Quad Mini starts at $329.99 can fit 4x 2.5" drives. Even though Intel marketing materials state 40 Gb/s for Thunderbolt 3, its actual max bandwidth is closer to 28 Gb/s. Therefore if you were going for RAID 0 of 4x SATA III SSD at 6 Gb/s each, 20-24 Gb/s for external storage speed is not bad at all.

For RAID 1 configuration, large capacity 3.5" drives would be a better option. The AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad ($429.99) can house 4x 3.5" drives. WD 6TB/8TB Helium drives run at 200 MB/s would be my recommendation.

 

[Taz Mangus]

For RAID 1 configuration, large capacity 3.5" drives would be a better option. The AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad ($429.99) can house 4x 3.5" drives. WD 6TB/8TB Helium drives run at 200 MB/s would be my recommendation.

It appears that according to the specs the Akitio does not support Mac OS, only windows. The Amazon link also states Windows only.

 

[danielwsmithee]

It appears that according to the specs the Akitio does not support Mac OS, only windows. The Amazon link also states Windows only.

That is really weird. I l always thought the OWC offerings were just repackaged Akitio offerings, and OWC hadn't picked up the TB3 products yet.

The TB3 Quad Mini does list Mac as a supported, so I don't see why the 2.5" version would be supported but the 3.5" would not.
https://www.akitio.com/portable-storage/akitio-thunder3-quad-mini

I personally would go with TB3 Quad Mini anyways and just use SATA SSDs. I use 3.5" HDs in a NAS that is tucked away in the basement. I'd prefer anything directly attached to be an SSD. 3.5" HDs have been relegated to backups duties.

 

[Taz Mangus]

AKiTiO has a few options for Thunderbolt 3 RAID storage. The Thunder3 Quad Mini starts at $329.99 can fit 4x 2.5" drives. Even though Intel marketing materials state 40 Gb/s for Thunderbolt 3, its actual max bandwidth is closer to 28 Gb/s. Therefore if you were going for RAID 0 of 4x SATA III SSD at 6 Gb/s each, 20-24 Gb/s for external storage speed is not bad at all.

In order to get anywhere near the performance you indicate you would need to be using M.2 PCIe not SATA III: http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-m2-pcie-ssds-raid0-performance_161753/3

 

[theitsage]

It could be incompatibility with the USB-C controller. In older Mac OS versions, there was no compatibility issues. 10.12.2 brought a restriction on TI82 USB-C controller that some Thunderbolt 3 devices might have. It's probably best to check with AKiTiO to confirm which controller these boxes have.

In order to get anywhere near the performance you indicate you would need to be using M.2 PCIe not SATA III: http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-m2-pcie-ssds-raid0-performance_161753/3

Max throughput depends on the Intel Thunderbolt firmware. It's very likely the firmware is capped at 16 Gb/s to reserve bandwidth for daisy-chain on the second TB3 port and DisplayPort passthrough.

 

[danielwsmithee]

In order to get anywhere near the performance you indicate you would need to be using M.2 PCIe not SATA III: http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-m2-pcie-ssds-raid0-performance_161753/3

I Thunder3 quad mini is benchmarked using SSDs here.

The performance is only slightly better than the advertised performance of the OWC ThunderBay 4 mini @ 1346 MB/s. The main advantage is that it wouldn't require TB3 to TB2 adapter and thus support daisy chaining another TB3 device.

Also the Akitio Thunder3 Quad Mini adds a display port output, which could be a nice feature if you want to use it like a docking station for a MBP for example.

 

[Taz Mangus]

<deleted>

 

[chicagofan00]

The Drobo 5D3 looks very nice (though not cheap). I think I'll go with that.

Thanks again, everyone.

Have you received and setup your 5D3 yet? I just ordered one and curious to know how you like it so far. Also would like to know what hard drives you've put in it and what kind of read/write speeds you've seen.

 

[BeechFlyer]

Have you received and setup your 5D3 yet? I just ordered one and curious to know how you like it so far. Also would like to know what hard drives you've put in it and what kind of read/write speeds you've seen.

I haven't ordered it yet. I just received the iMac yesterday - man, the SSD is fast! - and I'm just starting to get things organized on the new system, and transfer stuff over from the old. It'll probably be a week or two before I am ready for the drobo. Once i have it, I'll post a report here.

 

[danielwsmithee]

I haven't ordered it yet. I just received the iMac yesterday - man, the SSD is fast! - and I'm just starting to get things organized on the new system, and transfer stuff over from the old. It'll probably be a week or two before I am ready for the drobo. Once i have it, I'll post a report here.

Are you going to order a mSata SSD accelerator for it? Would be interesting to see how much that improves performance. I know a lot of people are using SATA SSDs in JBOD enclosures configured for Fusion.

 

[dborod]

I received my Drobo 5D3 yesterday. I'm in Canada, so I bought it through B&H, along with 5 x 4 TB WD RED drives.

One of the drives died after about an hour of use. I shipped it back for a replacement yesterday, but I also went out and bought another one.

As it turns out, that was very prescient, as this morning, a second drive (located in a different bay) was also dead.

Throughout all of this I've been copying 7.5 TB of data from the Drobo 5D, so the 5D3 has been very busy doing all the 'data protection stuff'. No data has been lost, but it has been very frustrating.

I also bought a 250GB Samsung mSATA, but I don't have any useful benchmark numbers yet.

 

[chicagofan00]

I haven't ordered it yet. I just received the iMac yesterday - man, the SSD is fast! - and I'm just starting to get things organized on the new system, and transfer stuff over from the old. It'll probably be a week or two before I am ready for the drobo. Once i have it, I'll post a report here.

Ah, ok. Have you decided on which drives to fill the Drobo with?

I decided to go with some WD 2TB Black drives for now. Buddy of mine has been running them in his Drobo 5D for several years now and no issues.

I also picked up a Samsung 250GB mSATA drive for the hot data cache.

I received my Drobo 5D3 yesterday. I'm in Canada, so I bought it through B&H, along with 5 x 4 TB WD RED drives.

One of the drives died after about an hour of use. I shipped it back for a replacement yesterday, but I also went out and bought another one.

As it turns out, that was very prescient, as this morning, a second drive (located in a different bay) was also dead.

Throughout all of this I've been copying 7.5 TB of data from the Drobo 5D, so the 5D3 has been very busy doing all the 'data protection stuff'. No data has been lost, but it has been very frustrating.

I also bought a 250GB Samsung mSATA, but I don't have any useful benchmark numbers yet.

Hmm, this doesn't sound too optimistic with regards to the WD drives going out. I know the WD Reds are for RAID and NAS drives but I decided to go with the WD Black as I figured the 7,200RPMs would help since I plan on storing most all my data there and accessing and editing it (photos/videos) straight from the Drobo.

 

[BeechFlyer]

I got my Drobo 5D3 yesterday. I installed three drives, 4TB each (Seagate Constellation ES.3 Enterprise), as well as an mSATA SSD from Samsung (250GB 850 Evo). I'll add more drives when I need more capacity, but for right now this is plenty of space - 7.1TB useable space (with single disk redundancy), out of which I reserved 1TB for Time Machine and the rest for data.

The (online) instructions for the Drobo are very clear and well written. Setup was a breeze; Drobo Dashboard looks like a really nice tool to setup, configure and maintain the unit and drives.

The Drobo is connected to my 2017 27" iMac through TB3, without daisy-chaining anything else. Blackmagic's speed test results with the Drobo, configured as described above, are as follows:

That's plenty fast compared with even the internal HDD of my ancient 2008 Mac Pro I've been using so far, and I would expect the numbers to go up a little more once I fill the remaining two drive bays. I'd appreciate to hear from others if they get similar results.

I have not yet done any serious editing work on the new computer, so I can't provide any real-world report yet. Having said that, for me the Drobo is more for safe (redundant), long-term, large capacity storage, not for holding the project files while working on something. For that, I went with the 2TB SSD, and boy is that thing fast - see the speed test result on the same computer for the internal SSD:

Finally, for comparison I also ran speed test on a 2-year-old external Toshiba drive, 1TB, connected with USB3. Keep in mind, this is still an improvement for me because my old Mac Pro didn't even have USB3, so it slowed that drive way down. The result suggests I could easily work with source media up to ProRes straight off of an external portable drive if needed:

Slow compared to the Drobo, yes, but not much slower than the internal SATA drive of my old Mac Pro. The only way to make edit work bearable on that computer was an internal SSD that I added (OWC Accelsior S + 1.0TB Electra 6G). That one actually worked pretty well, with write speed of greater than 400MB/s and read speeds greater than 500MB/s. But no match for the new internal SSD of the iMac.

I think I'm going to like my new setup!

 

[chicagofan00]

Awesome results! I have everything I need for the Drobo 5D3 and I'm now just waiting for the damn iMac to actually ship! Still says it's another 2-3 weeks out due o the 512GB SSD shortage...

 

[danielwsmithee]

Awesome results! I have everything I need for the Drobo 5D3 and I'm now just waiting for the damn iMac to actually ship! Still says it's another 2-3 weeks out due o the 512GB SSD shortage...

My guess is the 512GB BTO SSD option. I wonder if you'd get faster ship times with a 1TB or even 2TB SSD.

 

[BeechFlyer]

Still says it's another 2-3 weeks out due o the 512GB SSD shortage...

Sorry to hear. Mine shipped two days after I ordered, vs. a conservative "Ships: 3–5 business days" estimate from Apple when I ordered. But that was with the 2TB SSD.