Drobe, OWC or something else?

I am looking for a direct attached storage drive for my imac. Thunderbolt would be preferred. I have a Synology 5 bay NAS but my D tech 8TB external Thunderbolt is about to fail. I am ideally after a 4 bay unit with and match drives.

What are your thoughts on OWC vs Drobo. I had my Synology for a few years and been extremely happy with their support and SW updates. Are there any reasonably priced alternatives to drobo and OWC? Is it better to just buy the empty case and get drives from Amazon? I have been using the WD Red drives. Anyone using other drives that are better and have a decent price point. Also, Thunderbolt vs USB3? Which is better? I only use Macs with Thunderbolt 1....

Thanks

Doberman said:

I am looking for a direct attached storage drive for my imac. Thunderbolt would be preferred. I have a Synology 5 bay NAS but my D tech 8TB external Thunderbolt is about to fail. I am ideally after a 4 bay unit with and match drives.

What are your thoughts on OWC vs Drobo. I had my Synology for a few years and been extremely happy with their support and SW updates. Are there any reasonably priced alternatives to drobo and OWC? Is it better to just buy the empty case and get drives from Amazon? I have been using the WD Red drives. Anyone using other drives that are better and have a decent price point. Also, Thunderbolt vs USB3? Which is better? I only use Macs with Thunderbolt 1....

Thanks

--
Murat

Click to expand...

I have been successful with two G-Tech Tbolt units configured for RAID 0 that I have been using for several years now. They were using Hatichi drives at that time. I suspect there is a significant savings available if you purchase your drives separate.

While mine do not offer removable drives I believe they have other models you might like to investigate.

Their customer service is less than what I would prefer.

--
http://www.nightstreets.com
-
"Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named...but a dying culture invariable exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners is more significant than a riot."
This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength. ...Friday, it is too late to save this culture--this worldwide culture... Therefore we must now prepare the monasteries for the coming Dark Age. Electronic records are too fragile..."
--Robert A. Heinlein in "Friday"

I use an OWC Mercury Elite Pro case. Very noisy IMHO.

"Reasonably priced" Thunderbolt is an oxymoron. I have that Tbolt case because of use in another scenario for video and some other stuff; if I was buying for myself it would be USB 3 since I'm using JBOD. IMHO Tbolt for storage really only makes sense when using a RAID for speed, and unless you've got big 4k video needs or something specialized I just don't see the point of it over USB 3. There are SO many more alternatives for USB 3 (it's kinda like one of those "if I had to ask" I probably don't need it moments.

But what kind of file transfers are you doing? Without a use case it's hard to recommend one over the other.

I agree. My 2 years old G drive 8TB failed without any warning couple years ago, I was not impressed with their support at all. So I am trying to not go that G tech route again. I may try to replace the failing drive in my 8TB and use it as a backup to whatever new system I get .

60% of my data is in a Lightroom catalog with 100K photos. Some larger Raw from cameras like D800 and Sony A7Rii. I do minimal video editing. I store about 2TB of mainly personal stuff shot over the years.

Do you think USB on a Raid will be fast enough for Lightroom and mainly photos? Which system do you use and recommend?

Doberman said:

60% of my data is in a Lightroom catalog with 100K photos. Some larger Raw from cameras like D800 and Sony A7Rii. I do minimal video editing. I store about 2TB of mainly personal stuff shot over the years.

Do you think USB on a Raid will be fast enough for Lightroom and mainly photos? Which system do you use and recommend?

Click to expand...

Sure. It should be more than fast enough.

Keep the catalog and previews on the SSD, and probably most recent images as they get copied off a card, and move the others to a USB 3 drive. Without a RAID. I don't see the need in this case. It won't make Lr faster. It won't make ingesting photos faster. It could make moving say a month worth of photos faster, but so what? that's something that goes on in the background anyway. Why add the complication of a RAID?

This topic was covered in a recent thread with particular emphasis on whether a RAID is suitable for backing up data. The short answer: RAID is not suitable. I recommended an excellent book that covers everything you need to know about protecting your data.

Creating A RAID Setup

I have one of this, been working pretty well for about 2 years

RAID 5 , 4-bay, pretty inexpensive and working really well and solid.

emily0204 said:

http://www.caldigit.com/T4/

I have one of this, been working pretty well for about 2 years

RAID 5 , 4-bay, pretty inexpensive and working really well and solid.

Click to expand...

RAID 5

RAID 5 consists of block-level striping with distributed parity. Unlike RAID 4, parity information is distributed among the drives, requiring all drives but one to be present to operate. Upon failure of a single drive, subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that no data is lost. RAID 5 requires at least three disks. RAID 5 is seriously affected by the general trends regarding array rebuild time and the chance of drive failure during rebuild. Rebuilding an array requires reading all data from all disks, opening a chance for a second drive failure and the loss of the entire array. In August 2012, Dell posted an advisory against the use of RAID 5 in any configuration on Dell EqualLogic arrays and RAID 50 with "Class 2 7200 RPM drives of 1 TB and higher capacity" for business-critical data.

More RAID Info

I use a Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt array (6-bay) with 6 x 1Tb drives in RAID 5 (gives me 5TB usable). This array is direct-attached to my work station and is absolutely screaming fast - and has been working non-stop for over 2 years. Even though it uses spinning drives, it functions faster than most SSDs. I use this for pretty much all the data storage for my desktop workstation, including my entire Lightroom catalog and images. RAID 5 is not the most safe theoretically (see the prior post), but I backup my critical data two ways: (1) to my network. My Mac Mini Server has a Drobo 5D Thunderbolt array with 3 x 4TB drives (gives me about 8 TB usable). The Drobo is not nearly as fast, but is very flexible... it holds 5 drives, so I can add capacity at any time in the future. (2) I use 2TB seagate portable drives to backup my Lightroom Catalog and Images (and some other critical date). About once a month, I swap out the portable to my Safe Deposit box at the bank.

In summary, I would suggest this:

• Thunderbolt direct attached storage for working data. RAID preferred for fastest possible performance.
• Slower storage for backups. This could be a NAS or Server, or could even just be a couple of portable drives. Keep in mind that you can now get 4 Tb portables!
• Try to get one backup off site. Could be as simple as keeping one portable drive at a relative's house that you swap out occasionally.

JerryriggedTECH said:

I use a Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt array (6-bay) with 6 x 1Tb drives in RAID 5 (gives me 5TB usable). This array is direct-attached to my work station and is absolutely screaming fast - and has been working non-stop for over 2 years.

Click to expand...

I have a similar set-up, but with 6 x 2TB drives, configured in RAID5 with one spare drive (so 8TB usable). I've had the Promise Pegasus since it was launched (5 years ago?). It has been running continuously and it works flawlessly. I work with big files (5x4 film scans), and regularly work on files from several years ago, so having my whole archive on a fast RAID drive is very convenient. I backup nightly to an 8TB Saegate external (great value for money, though I haven't had it long, so can't report on reliability) - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Backup-Desktop-External-Drive/dp/B00SJBHPYQ - I also backup to the cloud using Backblaze.

My 6 y.o. dual bay G-Tech G-Raid Thunderbolt set up with 4TB is running good. 2 OWC RAID enclosures have failed on me (won't touch those again).

Two years ago I acquired the 4 bay Drobo Mini (Thunderbolt) when Data Robotics were running deals on them. I filled them with 4x2TB HDDs Seagate Momentus (ST2000LM003/4/6) [aka Samsung Spinpoint M9T] 2.5" instead of buying the case preloaded.

The Drobo Mini HD capacity is scalable as higher density (larger) portable drives become available. I started with the HGST 1TB Travelstar 7K1000.

They are quiet, efficient and nice to work with and Data Robotics has been keeping up with firmware & software updates. The small footprint of the Drobo Mini is a plus! I am liking how well made and thought out Data Robotics have put into the Drobo Mini. Would not hesitate to repurchase the Drobo Mini when the need for a 2nd one arises.

The Seagate Momentus / Samsung Spinpoint M9T are 9.5mm, 2.5" form factor which fits the Drobo Mini nicely [ http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_spinpoint_m9t_hard_drive_review ].

NB: Drobo Mini HD height requirements of 7mm - 9.5mm

While Toshiba has an even larger 2.5" HDD at 3TB, its 15mm form factor will not fit in the Drobo Mini.

Seagate has since come out with an even denser portable HD this year at 7mm!

Hi Murat,

M y primary storage device is a Drobo 5D. it is set up for dual dDrive Redundancy and I have 128Gb SSD installed i the sixth cob ( (located in the base of the unit) as a very fast cache for frequently accessed files. I started with a mix of 2 and 3 TB drives (WD Green and Red) and have since increased the storage to 3x4TB and 2x3TB. My Lightroom Library has nearly 300,000 images (mostly from cameras in the 22 to 50Mp range but also older cameras and very high resolution scans) I think I am in my third year with it.
i have had no problems with it. Having lived briefly in Florida's lightning belt I learned the hard way about the dangers of power surges so like my computer it is connected to the mains through a ZeroSurge (http://www.zerosurge.com) in front of a heavy duty APC surge protector + battery backup.

The data is backed up (2x) as well.

JerryriggedTECH said:

• Slower storage for backups. This could be a NAS or Server, or could even just be a couple of portable drives. Keep in mind that you can now get 4 Tb portables!
• Try to get one backup off site. Could be as simple as keeping one portable drive at a relative's house that you swap out occasionally.

Click to expand...

good tactics. Years ago, I was working in some small bank, they always have several backups. One of them was stored remotely in case fire, earthquake... remember Hurricane Katrina ....

JerryriggedTECH said:

I use a Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt array (6-bay) with 6 x 1Tb drives in RAID 5 (gives me 5TB usable).

Click to expand...

I have a Pegasus 2 R4 (four-bay), non-RAID, Thunderbolt 2 configuration populated with 4TB drives. Works with my MacPro (late 2013) great!

Thanks for the great feedback and advice. I ended up getting an OWC 4 bah raid 5. Backing up to my existing NAS. I like the idea of backing all to portable and taking it off site, which I will do.

Thanks again--

Murat

Someone commented on OWCs reliability what was the issue . Now I am having second thoughts on my decision.

My home directory on my Mac Pro is a 4TB software RAID0 volume made from two Samsung 850 EVO 2TB drives in an OWC Thunderbay Mini 4 enclosure (Thunderbolt 2). Works like a charm, nmo stability issues unlike the Promise Pegasus J4 I used before.

Keep in mind Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C is coming and is not backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 1 and 2.