CalDigit T4 – “out of stock”

[Bob Zelin]

while I don’t have an honest answer for you, when I see this –

https://www.amazon.com/Thunderbolt-Type-Professional-DisplayPort-Charging/dp/B07946CJR4

I would guess that when it says “Currently unavailable.

We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.”

I am guessing the product is end of life.

I was shocked to recently see that when searching for Promise Thunderbolt 3 RAID, it too says “currently unavailable” or “discontinued” almost everywhere.

the world is changing.

Bob Zelin

edit – I just saw this, because it raised my curiousity –

if you simply go to http://www.promise.com,

on the front of their website, they feature the Promise PegasusPro R8. Go to the B&H site, and search for this item, and it says “no longer available”. So what does that tell you ?

[Bob Cole]

update: on both the CalDigit site and at B&H, most of the T4 configurations are now available. Back in December, when I contacted CalDigit, they said it was simply a problem in their supply chain. I’ve read that there have been quite a few disruptions of this sort, in many industries. So who knows? That might have been the truth.

Meanwhile, Bob Z., do you have any insight as to whether CalDigit is still a good option? I’ve been very impressed, over quite a few years, by their tech support.

Bob C

[Matt Dunne]

I don’t know if you’ve had luck purchasing the t4 but I’d like to give you my recent experience with the company. I had previously loved caldigit, customer service was excellent, I liked the design and reliability of their products until a few months ago. The t4 I had purchased about a year ago was no longer being supported on updated versions of osx. The driver that you need in order to operate the device would constantly just say updating. I contacted their support staff numerous times and they were even surprised that it had worked at all on my imac running Big Sur. They said they could possibly update the software but were focusing on future products. Such a shame really. You need to buy their proprietary drives, and use their proprietary software in order to use the raid. Literally can’t use off the shelf drives, they HAVE to come from caldigit. Luckily I had an old macbook air where I could copy the data off and a backup on backblaze so nothing was lost but sinking $2k into a raid only to have the company stop supporting it just under a year later is really disheartening for a professional setup. I would advise you to stay away.

[Bob Cole]

Hi Matt,

I really feel bad for you. That is absolutely miserable behavior and has altered my opinion of CalDigit. I was getting ready to buy their TS4 connection box but (1) it is listed as “temporarily out of stock” on B&H; and (2) their non-support of their (very nice) T4 RAID indicates they don’t care enough about their customers.

Thanks for sharing your experience, sad as it is.

Bob C

[Bob Zelin]

Hello Bob – why won’t you simply purchase a new Mac Studio and new storage. Exactly what is your money for that you earn ?

Bob Zelin

[Bob Cole]

Hello back Bob. I’m very curious as to how you read CalDigit’s non-support of Matt Dunne’s purchase. In this thread, on Dec. 10 2020, you noted, “the world is changing” and asked, regarding non-availability of top-notch, market-leading RAIDs, “what does that tell you?”

I respect your opinion enough to grovel a bit and ask you directly, “What does that tell YOU?” Is the future all about SSDs? Are RAIDs of spinning HDs obsolete? My only issue with replacing a RAID with an SSD is that I will have to be a lot more purposeful about backing up my SSD; my RAID-5 was its own insurance policy, to some extent.

BTW: Mid-summer, I bit the bullet, bought the cheaper, M1 Max Mac Studio (on refurb!) and a SanDisk 2TB SSD. The new system is chewing through my HD footage on Resolve, with only rare and minor hiccups, on clips with multiple layers, keying, simple Fusion effects, and CC. I’m still using my CalDigit T4 with my old MacBook Pro (2014), but not for video editing.

Thanks!

Bob C