USB-3, FW-800 or ThunderBolt for RAID-1?

[noirdesir]

It's unfortunate that FW800 was dropped so early by Apple because my experience is that they still don't have their implementation of USB3 nearly as solid, even as late to the party as they brought it. I use USB3 plenty for storage but FW800 is always in line and gets the call for when it has to be bulletproof. Never had a hiccup in FW800 or 400 for that matter.

Thunderbolt is great for sending to many different devices through the same path. It works. But for storage, going directly into an enclosure it makes either no sense or little sense.

USB2 I personally don't have the patience for, especially coming out of a Mac. I used to think, jokingly, that in the old days Apple would make their USB2 ports underperform on purpose so that FW seemed even more of a necessity. The fact that I still can't base a reliable workflow that includes timed backups around USB makes me think it's not such a crazy thought.

I have some FW devices that routinely hang the Finder, where routinely means maybe 15% of the time I use them (I use them for one weekly backup, so I see this once every six weeks or so). They are part of a six device chain, with a 'bridge' from FW800 to FW400 between the first two and the other devices. They don't hang the Finder right away but at some point the Finder might stop reacting to commands (they also hang Disk Utility, ie, when I try to start DU while the Finder is already unresponsive, DU becomes unresponsive right after startup as well).

I had zero problems with my sole USB 3 device (on a 2012 MBP) but then it's only a 'one-device-chain' and the drive enclosure is fairly new (a Voyage USB 3/eSATA/FW800 dock used with multiple bare drives).

And I had the occasional problems with FW drives all along the last 10+ years with drives not mounting or hanging the Finder. But that might have nothing to do with FW, as I've used only FW drives only very occasionally plugging in one of the drives via USB 2 when I couldn't put it onto the FW chain because the chain wasn't providing enough power (I'm looking at you Voyager FW800 dock) and I've long since lost track of the power supplies of these 2.5" external drives.

One more note, I never sleep my Mac with any drives connected as the backup drives get only connected for backups and TM uses a TC.

 

[afterburn]

Thunderbolt is great for sending to many different devices through the same path. It works. But for storage, going directly into an enclosure it makes either no sense or little sense.

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The refusal of people to see the merits of TB continues to surprise me. It's the fastest, most flexible and most versatile peripheral connection available to date. All with just a single cable into your computer.

 

[johnbandry]

Thunderbolt is great for sending to many different devices through the same path. It works. But for storage, going directly into an enclosure it makes either no sense or little sense.

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The bit where the interface is faster than the disk, so the bandwidth goes to waste but the drives still cost a fortune.

TB is good for RAID DAS and for daisy chaining.

 

[Schroedingers_cat]

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

For many, the part where you have to write the check

In the interest of full disclosure, I have two external TB enclosures, but they are configured for RAID 0 to get the speed up. For people who don't elect to maximize transfer speed it's possible they may decide that for their application, cost considerations outweigh TB's advantages.

For me, TB is my preferred solution, but other's situations may cause them to decide otherwise.

--
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"

 

[Jacques Cornell]

Yes 3TB or larger. I also mean to say that this is an offline archive of my images, as such a single 4TB drive would not provide any security. where a two 4TB drive in a Mirrored RAID-1 Array, would last lest provide an instant backup if one of the two drives fail. I also plan on adding online back up, and a second RAID-1 off site in the future.

RAID 1 (mirrored copy) is a bad choice for redundancy. First of all, if the enclosure croaks, you'll have to put the drive mechanisms in another enclosure to recover the files - if they can be recovered at all. Second, a mirrored copy is vulnerable to user error: accidentally delete a file, and it's immediately removed from your "backup". Backing up daily from one independent drive to another seems the safest way to go. If the archive goes belly up, all you lose is work saved within the past 24 hours. I use RAID 0 drives for speed and capacity, not redundancy. I have a super-fast LaCie 2big 4TB Thunderbolt RAID 0 for my archive and a fast LaCie 2big 4TB USB 3 RAID 0 to back it up. Now that single 4TB drives are available, I also have a single LaCie "Porsche Design" 4TB USB 3 drive as an off-site backup. Backups run daily. When I've downloaded a job or completed post-production, I promptly run the backup manually as well.

If you don't need the speed of RAID 0 or capacity over 6TB, a pair or trio of single drives backed up daily will serve you as well as or better than a RAID 1, and will provide greater flexibility at lower cost.

FWIW, my USB 3 and Thunderbolt drives have worked perfectly with my 2012 13" MBP for a couple of years now, and I upgraded to Yosemite a few months ago without so much as a hiccup.

If you're looking for a speed boost and using Lightroom, Aperture, or other app that uses a catalog or library file, putting that file on an SSD really helps. My two Aperture libraries comprising about 150,000 images total take up about 200GB on a 512GB SSD, along with OS and apps. The master image files are "referenced" - stored on the LaCies, not in the library files.

As for your original question, I'd rule out Firewire - it's dead. For an "offline archive", you don't need a lot of speed, so I recommend USB 3 drives. Yes, they'll be a bit pokey running at USB 2 speed until you get a Mac with USB 3, but Thunderbolt's pricey and no faster than USB 3 with a single HD mechanism.

 

[vdubreeze]

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The part that says context is everything.

The refusal of people to see the merits of TB continues to surprise me. It's the fastest, most flexible and most versatile peripheral connection available to date. All with just a single cable into your computer.

Doesn't describe me. It's most worth creating a Thunderbolt workflow if you're using several devices, and it earns its keep even better if you can benefit from running several different peripherals from it via a dock. But if you are starting from scratch and solely wish to archive to 3 gigs of storage without other bells and whistles to me it's an expensive way to get not much benefit.. Unless you invest in a blisteringly fast rig, which wasn't the OP's case, one may as well take the money saved and putting it towards more storage. Even if he needs to get a Tbolt dock to benefit from USB3 with his 2011 MBP I'd still say to go with a USB3 archiving rig given how the needs were described.

 

[afterburn]

Thunderbolt is great for sending to many different devices through the same path. It works. But for storage, going directly into an enclosure it makes either no sense or little sense.

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The bit where the interface is faster than the disk, so the bandwidth goes to waste but the drives still cost a fortune.

TB is good for RAID DAS and for daisy chaining.

 

[afterburn]

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The part that says context is everything.

The refusal of people to see the merits of TB continues to surprise me. It's the fastest, most flexible and most versatile peripheral connection available to date. All with just a single cable into your computer.

Doesn't describe me. It's most worth creating a Thunderbolt workflow if you're using several devices, and it earns its keep even better if you can benefit from running several different peripherals from it via a dock. But if you are starting from scratch and solely wish to archive to 3 gigs of storage without other bells and whistles to me it's an expensive way to get not much benefit.. Unless you invest in a blisteringly fast rig, which wasn't the OP's case, one may as well take the money saved and putting it towards more storage. Even if he needs to get a Tbolt dock to benefit from USB3 with his 2011 MBP I'd still say to go with a USB3 archiving rig given how the needs were described.

Given that USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple, I would not invest in USB3 peripherals if I could avoid it. Even stupid USB sticks don't work 100% reliable on a MBP, and Apple don't seem to give a crap. Also, if later you need more storage, it is a pain since most Apple laptop don't have more than 2 ports, not to mention that if you have to copy from USB to USB it is slooooow and CPU intensive.

Yes, it can be expensive. But it is also the most reliable and most future proof solution on Apple.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The part that says context is everything.

The refusal of people to see the merits of TB continues to surprise me. It's the fastest, most flexible and most versatile peripheral connection available to date. All with just a single cable into your computer.

Doesn't describe me. It's most worth creating a Thunderbolt workflow if you're using several devices, and it earns its keep even better if you can benefit from running several different peripherals from it via a dock. But if you are starting from scratch and solely wish to archive to 3 gigs of storage without other bells and whistles to me it's an expensive way to get not much benefit.. Unless you invest in a blisteringly fast rig, which wasn't the OP's case, one may as well take the money saved and putting it towards more storage. Even if he needs to get a Tbolt dock to benefit from USB3 with his 2011 MBP I'd still say to go with a USB3 archiving rig given how the needs were described.

Given that USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple, I would not invest in USB3 peripherals if I could avoid it. Even stupid USB sticks don't work 100% reliable on a MBP, and Apple don't seem to give a crap. Also, if later you need more storage, it is a pain since most Apple laptop don't have more than 2 ports, not to mention that if you have to copy from USB to USB it is slooooow and CPU intensive.

Yes, it can be expensive. But it is also the most reliable and most future proof solution on Apple.

 

[afterburn]

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The part that says context is everything.

The refusal of people to see the merits of TB continues to surprise me. It's the fastest, most flexible and most versatile peripheral connection available to date. All with just a single cable into your computer.

Doesn't describe me. It's most worth creating a Thunderbolt workflow if you're using several devices, and it earns its keep even better if you can benefit from running several different peripherals from it via a dock. But if you are starting from scratch and solely wish to archive to 3 gigs of storage without other bells and whistles to me it's an expensive way to get not much benefit.. Unless you invest in a blisteringly fast rig, which wasn't the OP's case, one may as well take the money saved and putting it towards more storage. Even if he needs to get a Tbolt dock to benefit from USB3 with his 2011 MBP I'd still say to go with a USB3 archiving rig given how the needs were described.

Given that USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple, I would not invest in USB3 peripherals if I could avoid it. Even stupid USB sticks don't work 100% reliable on a MBP, and Apple don't seem to give a crap. Also, if later you need more storage, it is a pain since most Apple laptop don't have more than 2 ports, not to mention that if you have to copy from USB to USB it is slooooow and CPU intensive.

Yes, it can be expensive. But it is also the most reliable and most future proof solution on Apple.

--
Gijs from The Netherlands
Nikon D800

I have had great reliability and speed with USB3 externals and memory sticks with two rMBPs.

Just posting to counter the impression that "USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple".

I envy you. I cannot copy 1G of data to or from USB3 drives without having at least 3 tries due to "disk being unexpectedly ejected". That is, if I can at all, because if it is a single large file you are pretty much SOL as you can't resume only overwrite. It appears to be a little better with externally powered drives. USB2 generally works, but that's slooooow.

--
Gijs from The Netherlands
Nikon D800

 

[rb0321]

Given that USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple, I would not invest in USB3 peripherals if I could avoid it. Even stupid USB sticks don't work 100% reliable on a MBP, and Apple don't seem to give a crap. Also, if later you need more storage, it is a pain since most Apple laptop don't have more than 2 ports, not to mention that if you have to copy from USB to USB it is slooooow and CPU intensive.

Yes, it can be expensive. But it is also the most reliable and most future proof solution on Apple.

 

[noirdesir]

I envy you. I cannot copy 1G of data to or from USB3 drives without having at least 3 tries due to "disk being unexpectedly ejected". That is, if I can at all, because if it is a single large file you are pretty much SOL as you can't resume only overwrite. It appears to be a little better with externally powered drives. USB2 generally works, but that's slooooow.

And you seriously believe that this is anywhere near standard behaviour of USB 3 on Macs?

 

[johnbandry]

Thunderbolt is great for sending to many different devices through the same path. It works. But for storage, going directly into an enclosure it makes either no sense or little sense.

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The bit where the interface is faster than the disk, so the bandwidth goes to waste but the drives still cost a fortune.

TB is good for RAID DAS and for daisy chaining.

 

[johnbandry]

<snip>

Given that USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple, I would not invest in USB3 peripherals if I could avoid it. Even stupid USB sticks don't work 100% reliable on a MBP, and Apple don't seem to give a crap. Also, if later you need more storage, it is a pain since most Apple laptop don't have more than 2 ports, not to mention that if you have to copy from USB to USB it is slooooow and CPU intensive.

Yes, it can be expensive. But it is also the most reliable and most future proof solution on Apple.

--
Gijs from The Netherlands
Nikon D800

I have had great reliability and speed with USB3 externals and memory sticks with two rMBPs.

Just posting to counter the impression that "USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple".

I envy you. I cannot copy 1G of data to or from USB3 drives without having at least 3 tries due to "disk being unexpectedly ejected". That is, if I can at all, because if it is a single large file you are pretty much SOL as you can't resume only overwrite. It appears to be a little better with externally powered drives. USB2 generally works, but that's slooooow.

Some people have problems with some USB3 devices, but it's far from a "complete and total nightmare".

I run USB3 drives (LaCie, Porsche Design, Western Digital) on four different Macs (iMac, Mini, MBP) and the only 'problem' I see is that the drives are sometimes dismounted when a MBP sleeps (lid closed), causing a "not properly dismounted" message when it wakes and remounts them. Not a big issue at all. I regularly copy multi-GB (video) files between them with no problem. They are fast and cheap and, so far, reliable.

Maybe your problem lies with the particular drives/housings you have chosen.

--
John Bandry

 

[Andy Hewitt]

I have had great reliability and speed with USB3 externals and memory sticks with two rMBPs.

Just posting to counter the impression that "USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple".

It's all down to the perception and experience of the user. In my case I can only agree that USB3 is a complete nightmare, not one of my drives stays mounted for long, and one becomes readable, but not writeable after a period of time, and another got corrupted so badly I had to reformat and start again with my Time Machine backup.

I agree that there are devices out there that must work OK, but for some of us finding the combination of hardware that works OK is expensive and frustrating at the least, and has potential for lost data.

In the end, I switched to a connection method that is reliable, albeit a little slower, but is nonetheless a working solution.

Of course there have been issues with a lot of hardware available over the years, such as the need to buy FireWire drives with an 'Oxford' chipset, or PCI cards with a VIA chipset (or was it the NEC chipset?), otherwise things didn't work. However, some protocols are better or worse than others - it's clear from reading articles around the web etc. that USB3 is probably the most problematic at the moment. FW is probably the most reliable, and IMHO would be the safest bet for anyone wanting reliable data storage at a reasonable cost (as long as you can find the hardware of course).

That is only talking generally of course, and as I always add, YMMV applies to anything. If USB3 works OK for you, then that's great, but it doesn't help anyone to pretend that a problem does't exist, just because your own system works OK (likewise, it's not necessarily the case that a major problem exists just because your system is failing).

 

[Mike Boreham]

I have had great reliability and speed with USB3 externals and memory sticks with two rMBPs.

Just posting to counter the impression that "USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple".

It's all down to the perception and experience of the user. In my case I can only agree that USB3 is a complete nightmare, not one of my drives stays mounted for long, and one becomes readable, but not writeable after a period of time, and another got corrupted so badly I had to reformat and start again with my Time Machine backup.

I agree that there are devices out there that must work OK, but for some of us finding the combination of hardware that works OK is expensive and frustrating at the least, and has potential for lost data.

In the end, I switched to a connection method that is reliable, albeit a little slower, but is nonetheless a working solution.

Of course there have been issues with a lot of hardware available over the years, such as the need to buy FireWire drives with an 'Oxford' chipset, or PCI cards with a VIA chipset (or was it the NEC chipset?), otherwise things didn't work. However, some protocols are better or worse than others - it's clear from reading articles around the web etc. that USB3 is probably the most problematic at the moment. FW is probably the most reliable, and IMHO would be the safest bet for anyone wanting reliable data storage at a reasonable cost (as long as you can find the hardware of course).

That is only talking generally of course, and as I always add, YMMV applies to anything. If USB3 works OK for you, then that's great, but it doesn't help anyone to pretend that a problem does't exist, just because your own system works OK (likewise, it's not necessarily the case that a major problem exists just because your system is failing).

 

[Jacques Cornell]

Which part of blistering fast, as in as fast or faster than the fastest internal flash storage, very low latency, daisy chaining and reliability does not make sense for external storage enclosures?

The part that says context is everything.

The refusal of people to see the merits of TB continues to surprise me. It's the fastest, most flexible and most versatile peripheral connection available to date. All with just a single cable into your computer.

Doesn't describe me. It's most worth creating a Thunderbolt workflow if you're using several devices, and it earns its keep even better if you can benefit from running several different peripherals from it via a dock. But if you are starting from scratch and solely wish to archive to 3 gigs of storage without other bells and whistles to me it's an expensive way to get not much benefit.. Unless you invest in a blisteringly fast rig, which wasn't the OP's case, one may as well take the money saved and putting it towards more storage. Even if he needs to get a Tbolt dock to benefit from USB3 with his 2011 MBP I'd still say to go with a USB3 archiving rig given how the needs were described.

Given that USB3 is a complete and total nightmare on Apple...

On what do you base this conclusion? Seems a gross generalization. I know a lot of photogs who use Macs and USB 3 drives and haven't heard a peep about any problems. Maybe you just got a rare lemon with a bad USB controller. Have you taken it to Apple for diagnostics?

 

[afterburn]

I envy you. I cannot copy 1G of data to or from USB3 drives without having at least 3 tries due to "disk being unexpectedly ejected". That is, if I can at all, because if it is a single large file you are pretty much SOL as you can't resume only overwrite. It appears to be a little better with externally powered drives. USB2 generally works, but that's slooooow.

And you seriously believe that this is anywhere near standard behaviour of USB 3 on Macs?

I wouldn't go as far as calling it standard, but it is certainly common enough for me to not want to bother with it anymore.

 

[Mike Boreham]

I envy you. I cannot copy 1G of data to or from USB3 drives without having at least 3 tries due to "disk being unexpectedly ejected". That is, if I can at all, because if it is a single large file you are pretty much SOL as you can't resume only overwrite. It appears to be a little better with externally powered drives. USB2 generally works, but that's slooooow.

And you seriously believe that this is anywhere near standard behaviour of USB 3 on Macs?

I wouldn't go as far as calling it standard, but it is certainly common enough for me to not want to bother with it anymore.

 

[Andy Hewitt]

I certainly didn't intend to imply (and don't think I did) that there isn't a USB3 problem for some people.

No, it wasn't aimed at you, or anyone specific, but there is a tendency for 'people' to sound that way.

Unlike the post I was replying to, I am always very careful not to extrapolate my own experience into sweeping generalisations, either good or bad.

Nor was I, indeed I was only countering the opposite implication. Somewhere in between there is middle ground, which I alluded to, but as is also often done, much of what someone says get's ignored or misinterpreted.