I am a photographer who has done some video in the past, and may again. I live in a house with two other Mac users, and usually have a main and small Mac myself, so read 4 CPUs, multiple other Apple gear.My 2013 New Mac Pro is dying, so I replaced it with a MacBookPro 16" 2021 (maxed out except only 4TB internal).
My backup has always been a kludge.
With the MacPro, I used a Pegasus 2 R6 (6 drives which must be the same size, preferably the same make). It worked fine for 7-8 years. The problem is that it does not support M1s running Monterey; in fact, Pegasus no longer supports this model at all. When I checked the company site a month ago, it was unclear if the new units support M1s and Monterey now. As to the Pegasus, it was very fast which was necessary as all I kept on my internal drive was applications. It was only DAS. I didn't really need more than 6-8 TB of the 16TB capacity. Disk switching, when necessary. was not a problem.
I backed the Pegasus up to an OWC Thunderbay 4 (Thunderbolt 2) running a three mirror set of drives with SoftRaid. One secondary drive could be removed and transported off property and switched back every few weeks. I also backed the pegasus up to a Drobo 5N located in my basement.
The Drobo worked fine over the years, but no longer supports my equipment. I have had no luck finding a newer one. The company was small when I bought the unit, and has since been acquired, but I'm not sure if anything is or will be available. I'm not sure that my cat5e cable will support 10GB ethernet.
The OWC units work OK with SoftRAID and I have subsequently acquired a new one which runs Thunderbolt 3. Note: I am trying it RAID5, but the internal SSD on my MacBook is so much faster, that the primary use for the OWC enclosure(s) will now be for storing video files I rarely use, and for keeping older photo files. I will also give one to my wife, who is using an older TB2 iMac with a spinning internal drive. I'll set her up with a RAID5 for her photo editing, then back that up to a mirrored set. Testing with Blackmagic Disk Speed test, I get read/write speeds of about 500/600 MBs.
I hope the long explanation was a help to anyone curious about OWC enclosures, SoftRaid, Pegasus enclosures. I am not as knowledgeable as I used to be, but I've screwed around with these drives so if I can help, please ask.
Perhaps now, someone can help me with a couple of questions:
1) I've never used off site storage. Would it be better to back everything up to a NAS (several users) then up to the cloud?
2) My home cables and switches are limited to 1GB if I network. Would I be better off locating a NAS locally (ethernet or TB in my office?
3) Maybe I should ask this one elsewhere but, I bought a two four drive sets of Seagate Ironwolf ProNAS drives for use in OWC enclosures. One tech support person told me that NAS drives should not be used in OWC enclosures. I'm trying to decide whether to return these drives unopened, or if this one tech person was wrong. Thoughts?
My backup has always been a kludge.
With the MacPro, I used a Pegasus 2 R6 (6 drives which must be the same size, preferably the same make). It worked fine for 7-8 years. The problem is that it does not support M1s running Monterey; in fact, Pegasus no longer supports this model at all. When I checked the company site a month ago, it was unclear if the new units support M1s and Monterey now. As to the Pegasus, it was very fast which was necessary as all I kept on my internal drive was applications. It was only DAS. I didn't really need more than 6-8 TB of the 16TB capacity. Disk switching, when necessary. was not a problem.
I backed the Pegasus up to an OWC Thunderbay 4 (Thunderbolt 2) running a three mirror set of drives with SoftRaid. One secondary drive could be removed and transported off property and switched back every few weeks. I also backed the pegasus up to a Drobo 5N located in my basement.
The Drobo worked fine over the years, but no longer supports my equipment. I have had no luck finding a newer one. The company was small when I bought the unit, and has since been acquired, but I'm not sure if anything is or will be available. I'm not sure that my cat5e cable will support 10GB ethernet.
The OWC units work OK with SoftRAID and I have subsequently acquired a new one which runs Thunderbolt 3. Note: I am trying it RAID5, but the internal SSD on my MacBook is so much faster, that the primary use for the OWC enclosure(s) will now be for storing video files I rarely use, and for keeping older photo files. I will also give one to my wife, who is using an older TB2 iMac with a spinning internal drive. I'll set her up with a RAID5 for her photo editing, then back that up to a mirrored set. Testing with Blackmagic Disk Speed test, I get read/write speeds of about 500/600 MBs.
I hope the long explanation was a help to anyone curious about OWC enclosures, SoftRaid, Pegasus enclosures. I am not as knowledgeable as I used to be, but I've screwed around with these drives so if I can help, please ask.
Perhaps now, someone can help me with a couple of questions:
1) I've never used off site storage. Would it be better to back everything up to a NAS (several users) then up to the cloud?
2) My home cables and switches are limited to 1GB if I network. Would I be better off locating a NAS locally (ethernet or TB in my office?
3) Maybe I should ask this one elsewhere but, I bought a two four drive sets of Seagate Ironwolf ProNAS drives for use in OWC enclosures. One tech support person told me that NAS drives should not be used in OWC enclosures. I'm trying to decide whether to return these drives unopened, or if this one tech person was wrong. Thoughts?
Last edited by a moderator:
