JBOD enclosure with USB 3.0

[dimme]

I have a 2012 mac mini running el captain and server. I have 4 hard drive hooked up to it via usb, two direct to the mini and two on a usb 3 hub. All drives are in usb 3 enclosures. The server does file sharing for two macs, runs plex, iTunes, time machine and bittorrent. I am happy with the throughput, but I would like to consolidate all the drives into one case. If I purchased a 4 bay usb 3 JBOD enclosure will my disk access speed be similar? I assume it would be like going through a usb hub so those two drives would be the same but I wonder about the two that are connected directly to the mac. Any suggestion for a enclosure?
Thanks

 

[cruisin]

If it is JBOD, then the speed should be about the same as one drive directly connected, as you don't get any striping benefits or any raid overhead. You should REALLY consider some sort of backup system if this is your only copy. The whole JBOD array becomes garbage if one drive dies, so 4 drive JBOD array is essentially one drive that has a 4x higher chance of failure.

This is just JBOD so any enclosure should work. I like Sinology but they might have more features then you need.

What about just buying a large external drive? You can easily get up to 8 TB in an external drive, and this is much simpler than an enclosure and multiple drives (and safer).

 

[dimme]

If it is JBOD, then the speed should be about the same as one drive directly connected, as you don't get any striping benefits or any raid overhead. You should REALLY consider some sort of backup system if this is your only copy. The whole JBOD array becomes garbage if one drive dies, so 4 drive JBOD array is essentially one drive that has a 4x higher chance of failure.

This is just JBOD so any enclosure should work. I like Sinology but they might have more features then you need.

What about just buying a large external drive? You can easily get up to 8 TB in an external drive, and this is much simpler than an enclosure and multiple drives (and safer).

What I was looking for and I may be wrong in how JBOD cases work is to consolidate 2 - 3TB drives and 2-2TB drives in one case. right now I have each drive separate in 4 cases. In the case of the 3 TB drives one is a backup of the other and is updated every night with super duper. The other two drives are time machine backups. So I was hoping the drives would be independent in the bod case. If they are not then that is a non starter for me.

 

[cruisin]

I misunderstood you a bit when you said consolidate. One type of JBOD will combine into one giant "drive" for convenience and some enclosures do what you want and this is also called JBOD, apparently just to be confusing. I thought you wanted the first one as I rarely hear about people wanting the second option. My mistake.

I think most if not all enclosures should work. I cannot really recommend a JBOD enclosure as I never needed one, but this one could work based on the questions near the bottom:
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-..._cp_147_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1MGXRNGDSES8BA1R4V1R

The two drive backup sounds like a two drive RAID 1 system, that keeps two drives synchronized. Your SuperDuper idea works but it keeps things up to 24 hours out of sync (which can be a limitation depending on what you use it for).

 

[jameskachan]

Buy a OWC Thunderbay 2 ( 4 Bay - JBOD - NOT the RAID)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...d_computing_owctb2ivkit0gb_thunderbay_iv.html

A bit more money than some USB 3 bays, WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY better performance from the TB - solid. OSX just doesnt like USB powered drives when you start having a bunch of them. Unmounts on sleep, weird stuff. I am a photo and graphics professional, I deal with a lot of data management for myself and others.

The Thunderbay is great. I love mine and have recommended it to many pros.

 

[Gav2k]

however you set it up the drives are all being pushed through one USB port. Your current setup is faster.

On the mini each pair or USB ports share bandwidth.

As above going with a tb2 enclosure would offer you the best performance.