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External RAIDs for iMac
Looking for best external RAID for my 2015 iMac 27 for video editing. Suggestions?
THX
Ken Bennett
Video Adventures
Capturing Your Life’s Adventures! -
6 Replies
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Thunderbay 4 – https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/ThunderBay-4-RAID5
Promise Technology Pegasus: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1013099&gclid=CLrJ1cC5_8oCFZE0aQodoqcPCQ&is=REG&ap=y&m=Y&Q=&A=details
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Shane Ross] “Thunderbay 4 …Promise Technology Pegasus”
I feel it’s important to note the main difference between these two boxes: The Thunderbay 4 is a Software RAID which is not recommended for RAID 5 although it works, but it works slower because your Mac is doing all the work of maintaining the RAID. This also means it’s not multi-platform (PC+Mac) if that’s important to you. The Promise Technology Pegasus is a Hardware RAID that takes all of the RAID tasks away from your Mac and performs them in hardware. If you are considering RAID 5, I would strongly recommend a hardware RAID.
I have a CineRAID CR-H458 which is a hardware RAID via USB 3.0 or eSATA. You just pop in 4 NAS class drives and flick the switches on the back to configure the RAID level and plug it into your Mac or PC. Couldn’t be easier to set up and I do switch it between my Mac and PC and it works fine on both. Something you can’t do with a software RAID. I have 4 x 3TB WD Red NAS drives in mine for a 9TB RAID 5.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com -
We use the Promise Pegasus this way with our iMacs. Works great, very few issues. It has on occasion dropped off the desktop and required a reboot, after being left on away all weekend with nothing going on. But all the footage remains okay.
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I recently deployed this with a late 2013 3.5Ghz iMac 27″:
Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt RAID.
I installed 2 discs: 4.0TB Toshiba MD01ACA Series.
Striped RAID 0 for speed, so there’s 8Tb of fast disc space.
Total price before shipping was $535.With this iMac I’d gotten the largest internal SSD (1TB), but it still wasn’t enough room.
I have the SSD set up with 4 partitions: 2 boot partitions (Mavericks and ElCapitan), scratch drive, and a 500Gb work-space partition which is not large enough for some projects.The Mercury is not perfectly quiet, but seems stable when used with the thunderbolt interface.
Blackmagic disc speed test says:
WRITE: 327 MB/sec
READ: 352 MB/sec
Not as good as the internal SSD (write:705MB/s, read: 714 MB/s)… but not bad.
I’m sure you could get some discs that would improve the I/O somewhat.
OWC claims it can get speeds up to 421/442, so about 30% faster than mine. -
Is the CineRAID quiet?
Ken Bennett
Video Adventures
Capturing Your Life’s Adventures! -
[Ken Bennett] “Is the CineRAID quiet?”
Yes, extremely quiet. This was one of my biggest criteria because I had an AMS Venus T5 which holds 5 disks and performs RAID 5 in hardware but when you turn it on it sounds like a jet engine even with the fan set to the low setting. I couldn’t believe how loud it was. I had to turn it off when I wasn’t using it for video work, that’s how annoying it was so don’t get the AMS Venus T5. They are good but they are LOUD.
The CineRAID, by comparison. is whisper quiet. I cannot hear it sitting on my desk next to my 2010 Mac Pro. That is to say, that the fans in the Mac Pro are louder than the CineRAID (and the Mac Pro is quiet) so you can turn the CineRAID on with the Mac Pro already on and notice absolutely no difference in sound levels. You have to look at the lights to see if it’s on. I wouldn’t worry about noise levels with the CineRAID. I’ve been very happy with it.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com
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