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ThunderBolt External Storage

S

SeanEE89

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 15, 2008
116
0
VA, United States
Other then the new Drobo units coming out are their any other external storage solutions that utilize thunderbolt technology that I could use with a Mac Mini Server.

I'm gonna wait a while and see if the Mac Mini gets an update this fall or winter, and I'm trying to see what options their are for external storage that makes use of thunderbolts ports as well.
 
Price wise, the WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo is the best, IMHO. It's not as fast as some of the more expensive solutions, but still better than almost every non-TB drives, and the hard drives are user replacable without any screws.
 
Poki said:
Price wise, the WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo is the best, IMHO. It's not as fast as some of the more expensive solutions, but still better than almost every non-TB drives, and the hard drives are user replacable without any screws.
Click to expand...

Just looked it up, and saw it's comparison to the competition and I'm not let down at all. It's performance is still very respectable, and I've always had great luck with WD.

It also beats out the Drobo when it comes to price. :)
 
Glad you like it. It's going to be the drive I'll buy when I have some money left.
 
Not thunderbolt but if you end up waiting and go with a new mini that includes USB 3.0 i would recommend the new MiniStacks from OWC, the price is pretty good when you consider the connectivity, much cheaper then a thunderbolt setup and when you need more storage just buy another one.

The main reason i went with them honestly is that they simply look awesome with a mini setup, just stack them all together.

http://www.newertech.com/products/ministack.php
 
bounou said:
Not thunderbolt but if you end up waiting and go with a new mini that includes USB 3.0 i would recommend the new MiniStacks from OWC, the price is pretty good when you consider the connectivity, much cheaper then a thunderbolt setup and when you need more storage just buy another one.

The main reason i went with them honestly is that they simply look awesome with a mini setup, just stack them all together.

http://www.newertech.com/products/ministack.php
Click to expand...

Yeah, they look good, but they are wayyy overpriced. For the 230 price point for the 2 TB model, I can get two USB 3.0 2 TB drives from WD or just about any other manufacturer.

The 4 TB version costs as much as the 4 TB WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo, which is much faster, has user servicable drives and also looks quite nice. The thing is, a single USB 3.0 drive simply won't cut it for pro(sumer) usage, so that's not an option.
 
Poki said:
Yeah, they look good, but they are wayyy overpriced. For the 230 price point for the 2 TB model, I can get two USB 3.0 2 TB drives from WD or just about any other manufacturer.

The 4 TB version costs as much as the 4 TB WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo, which is much faster, has user servicable drives and also looks quite nice. The thing is, a single USB 3.0 drive simply won't cut it for pro(sumer) usage, so that's not an option.
Click to expand...

Much faster i am not so sure, i mean if you daisy chain multiple thunderbolt devices maybe but how much faster is thunderbolt going to be compared to USB 3.0?

I know the theoretical speed difference but unless you are putting SSD's in raid 0 in your Thunderbolt Duo is it really going to be that much faster?

I agree that you are paying a premium for them, i would just get the 90$ enclosure and buy the drives yourself, can get 2 TB for under 200$ easy and 3TB for not much more then that.

in their defence when you buy the drive it comes with a 3 year warranty and 48 hour replacement service which although not something i would pay for is pretty nice.

I wanted to get something that would do fast transfers and would connect to a mini i am planning to buy to act as a media server.

USB 3.0 on these will more then enough (currently using them with FW 800 and it's ok), the form factor allows me to just stack them one on top of the other saving me desk space and honestly the difference make is i thought they looked cool :)
 
bounou said:
Much faster i am not so sure, i mean if you daisy chain multiple thunderbolt devices maybe but how much faster is thunderbolt going to be compared to USB 3.0?

I know the theoretical speed difference but unless you are putting SSD's in raid 0 in your Thunderbolt Duo is it really going to be that much faster?

I agree that you are paying a premium for them, i would just get the 90$ enclosure and buy the drives yourself, can get 2 TB for under 200$ easy and 3TB for not much more then that.

in their defence when you buy the drive it comes with a 3 year warranty and 48 hour replacement service which although not something i would pay for is pretty nice.

I wanted to get something that would do fast transfers and would connect to a mini i am planning to buy to act as a media server.

USB 3.0 on these will more then enough (currently using them with FW 800 and it's ok), the form factor allows me to just stack them one on top of the other saving me desk space and honestly the difference make is i thought they looked cool :)
Click to expand...

You forget something pretty substantial: The WD TB drive is a RAID, so if the connector is not the limit, it should be at least twice as fast as your solution - for the same price.
 
Poki said:
You forget something pretty substantial: The WD TB drive is a RAID, so if the connector is not the limit, it should be at least twice as fast as your solution - for the same price.
Click to expand...

Assuming you are ok with raid 0, i got two enclosures and 3 drives, a main drive, a backup and a third drive that i keep at the office in case of fire or something. Safety is important, i do not want to lose the data.

Raid 0 is nice and when i go over 2 TB i am probably going to get a third enclosure with a 4 TB drive to act as backup and put these two in raid 0.

Don't get me wrong the WD TB is very nice and before these were announced i was really considering it.

The price was the determining factor, the cheapest i could get it for was 650$ CAD and the ministack cost about 450$ for the same amount of storage and i like them better, if both would of been the same price i probably would of gone with the TB duo but this works for my needs.
 
Here in europe the 4 TB Ministack costs 450€, the 4 TB WD TB Duo "only" 420€, so I have no choice. ;)
 
I'm really considering Pegasus R4 or Drobo (maybe even the mini version).

My main needs are 4 bays and hardware RAID: I want to have redundancy and add speed later if it's not enough (using striped RAID or whatever it's called).

It's a bit more than I'd like to pay for but there aren't really that much more options out there. G-tech looks nice too but everything in that price range can only use 2 drives and adding second unit later bumps up the cost to R4 anyway.

Can you run RAID over Thunderbolt? For example if I bought WD Duo or G-tech and had them set up as redundant RAID and later I'd like to speed it up, can I use RAID 0 and daisychain it to the first unit?
 
okay the pegasus will do its own raid it has a built in chip. but what I like is to used mac os instead. I have the r6.


I have 2 ssds I have 4 2tb hdds.

I run the ssds jobd
I run 2 2tb hdds jobd
I run 2 2tb hdds as a raid0 = 4tb.

3 year warranty.
and is the fastest t bolt of all.

I purchased my unit with 8 1tb hdds a week before the hdd floods.

got it on sale for 1320. I sold the six hdds for 700 dollars so an empty unit cost me 630 or so. I had ssds to put in and i had some 2tb hdds to put in. I have not checked but it did have a 2tb max size limit for each hdd. i don't know if that has been increased.
 
comatory said:
I'm really considering Pegasus R4 or Drobo (maybe even the mini version).

My main needs are 4 bays and hardware RAID: I want to have redundancy and add speed later if it's not enough (using striped RAID or whatever it's called).

It's a bit more than I'd like to pay for but there aren't really that much more options out there. G-tech looks nice too but everything in that price range can only use 2 drives and adding second unit later bumps up the cost to R4 anyway.

Can you run RAID over Thunderbolt? For example if I bought WD Duo or G-tech and had them set up as redundant RAID and later I'd like to speed it up, can I use RAID 0 and daisychain it to the first unit?
Click to expand...

Drobo is not fast, not sure about the new thunderbolt machines but my expectation there as well is that if speed is what you need the Drobo will probably not be the best choice.

What you want is raid 10, 2 raid 0's in raid 1 basically. You could do that with the WD by getting 2 of them in raid 0 and then combining them in a raid 1 software raid using disk utility (never tried it but should work I think) but the Pegasus is probably better if the cost is not a problem.
 
bounou said:
Drobo is not fast, not sure about the new thunderbolt machines but my expectation there as well is that if speed is what you need the Drobo will probably not be the best choice.

What you want is raid 10, 2 raid 0's in raid 1 basically. You could do that with the WD by getting 2 of them in raid 0 and then combining them in a raid 1 software raid using disk utility (never tried it but should work I think) but the Pegasus is probably better if the cost is not a problem.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was thinking about the new Drobo's - 5D and mini, they are Thunderbolt equipped (cable included).
 
comatory said:
Yeah I was thinking about the new Drobo's - 5D and mini, they are Thunderbolt equipped (cable included).
Click to expand...

Don't think thunderbolt will make that much of a difference, i am sure they will be faster then other Drobo's but these things are not built for speed, even Drobo will tell you themselves if you ask, the beyondraid tech is not built to be fast.
 
Poki said:
Price wise, the WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo is the best, IMHO. It's not as fast as some of the more expensive solutions, but still better than almost every non-TB drives, and the hard drives are user replacable without any screws.
Click to expand...

It's WD Greens though. You have to open it up to learn this -- they are in no hurry to tell you and the box and specs don't say -- but that's what is in there. Versus the LaCie TB Raid with its Seagate Barracudas. I'd have preferred WD Blacks overall (and you can do this if cost isn't a prerogative, obviously) but I'll take the Barras over the Greens 10 times out of 10.
 
Mike Valmike said:
It's WD Greens though. You have to open it up to learn this -- they are in no hurry to tell you and the box and specs don't say -- but that's what is in there. Versus the LaCie TB Raid with its Seagate Barracudas. I'd have preferred WD Blacks overall (and you can do this if cost isn't a prerogative, obviously) but I'll take the Barras over the Greens 10 times out of 10.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say this. The WD Green Caviars belong to the most energy efficient and less noisiest drives on the market - and you profit from it especially in a RAID enclosure.
 
I have 2 of the OWC Qx2 4-Bays. Connected via FW800 at the moment, but sometime down the line I might purchase the Thunderbolt eSATA adapter from LaCie. Then I can about triple the speed of the FW800 connection. For now though, the FW800 speed suits my purposes, and the enclosures work terrific.
 
Not sure what the OP intends to do with the storage, but IMO thunderbolt/SSD has limited value for storage. It's great for booting or using as a scratch disk but for archiving/streaming music/video then NAS is far more cost effective - and that's what I use my mini for. I picked up a Synology DS1512+ with 5x3TB Hitashi Ultrastar drives configured in a RAID 5 array.That's 12TB of data available at gigabit ethernet speeds... Cost $1000 AUD but that's only because I went for the fastest SATA drives available (according to storagereview) and the Hitashis are no longer in production and hence carry a premium...
 
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