Hard Drive Arrays

[David Eichler]

I am looking for a hard drive array or arrays for jbod external data storage (image files) and am seeking some product recommendations or direction to any websites with good advice about this hardware. On a Mac. I am planning on using standard magnetic hard disc drives, not SSD, so not sure I need Thunderbolt ports, since it is my understanding that only SSDs can really take advantage of the speed of the Thunderbolt bus. Thinking of 4 to 8 bay arrays.

BTW, I typically use WD Black drives for this purpose. So, just looking for boxes without drives.

[Craig Lamson]

I love my Synology 1812+ NAS.

Lots more flexibility than a simple drive array.

YMMV

[Schewe]

BTW, I typically use WD Black drives for this purpose. So, just looking for boxes without drives.

I would recommend http://www.macgurus.com. I had two of their 6 drive arrays which is my main system. The guys are really easy to deal with and have helped me a lot over the years. Burley and MacGurus combined forces a few years ago and their products have improved and the merger...

[PeterAit]

I am looking for a hard drive array or arrays for jbod external data storage (image files) and am seeking some product recommendations or direction to any websites with good advice about this hardware. On a Mac. I am planning on using standard magnetic hard disc drives, not SSD, so not sure I need Thunderbolt ports, since it is my understanding that only SSDs can really take advantage of the speed of the Thunderbolt bus. Thinking of 4 to 8 bay arrays.

BTW, I typically use WD Black drives for this purpose. So, just looking for boxes without drives.

I bought a Buffalo Terastation 4-drive array 15 years ago. It has sat under a table ever since, on continuously, and worked without a single glitch or problem all that time. FWIW, when I bought it I had to buy drives with it, which was more expensive than buying my own bare drives and putting them in myself. It was explained to me that Buffalo tests every hard drive to make sure they Buffalo's specs. Perhaps this is one reason the unit has been so reliable and long-lived.

[Joe Towner]

Hey David,

Which Mac do you own, as it can effect what options you want to take - if your Mac doesn't have internal USB3, Thunderbolt is the way to go.

I recommend looking at http://macsales.com aka Other World Computing, as their list of products is strong, and the offer up diskless options as well.  Generally speaking, Thunderbolt can be an advantage especially when dealing with larger arrays as even spinning disks can be constrained by USB3, once you get enough of them together.  There is a price premium with Thunderbolt, and you can see it by comparing their Thunderbay product line with their Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 (USB3), but it's worth it when dealing with large amounts of data.  You can also daisy chain Thunderbolt arrays together, where with USB3 you have to use hubs.

-Joe

[Manoli]

On a Mac. I am planning on using standard magnetic hard disc drives, not SSD, so not sure I need Thunderbolt ports, since it is my understanding that only SSDs can really take advantage of the speed of the Thunderbolt bus.

If you're on a mac, it'd be 'unwise' not to take advantage of Thunderbolt. Suggest reading this link to understand the 'why'.
http://www.macgurus.com/storageoptions

You can also daisy chain Thunderbolt arrays together, where with USB3 you have to use hubs.

I wouldn't even begin to think about using hubs with USB3 for data throughput. If you want to know the reason why, suggest running either AJA or BlackMagic speed tests and the reason will soon be apparent !

[David Eichler]

Thanks for the responses so far. I was aware of OWC and their Thunder Bay boxes are ones I have been curious about so far. Also, they seem to deal in a wider range of products than MacGurus. Not that I can't buy from different sources, but it is more convenient for this kind of thing if I can buy from one source, providing the service is sufficient.

I have a late 2012 Mac Mini and a mid 2014 Macbook Pro Retina, both with internal SSDs. Both have have Thunderbolt and USB 3 buses, although currently using the Thunderbolt port as a Display Port connector for my editing monitor.

Re. Thunderbolt, yes, I should probably just go with that regardless, since I may want to use SSDs in the box at some point, even if not for mass storage at this point (due to cost and not really needing very fast access for archives).

[David Eichler]

I love my Synology 1812+ NAS.

Lots more flexibility than a simple drive array.

YMMV

NAS capability seems nice, but my budget is limited, and I need to make sure I have the basics covered well. At present I use two computers, a desktop and a laptop. Most editing I do on the desktop. However, for some work, I sue the laptop for basic editing and then transfer rendered Tiffs to the desktop system for final processing. Perhaps centralized access would be a little quicker, but not doing so much volume that it is worth it to me to spend a lot for this convenience, and I do not at present need centralized access to a large image library from multiple computers, though centralized access to, say, the past 6-12 months work might be nice. However, are there other things I need to consider with regard to working with two computers for editing?

[Manoli]

NAS capability seems nice, but my budget is limited, and I need to make sure I have the basics covered well. At present I use two computers, a desktop and a laptop. Most editing I do on the desktop. However, for some work, I sue the laptop for basic editing and then transfer rendered Tiffs to the desktop system for final processing [...] However, are there other things I need to consider with regard to working with two computers for editing?

David - I see this as somewhat linked in to your question over RAW converters. So, just a few, IMO, comments.

First, I'd rethink your hard drive setup carefully. With El Capitan, Apple have indicated, much as they did with the built-in DVD drive, that the era of the hard-drive RAID is passing. Support is stripped from their Disk Utility and it's only available via the command line - i.e legacy stuff. With 2TB SSD's now available and offering 400/500MB/s transfer speeds - we're probably already at capacities that will cover any individual on-line storage needs. There's definitely a reliability benefit ( not 100%, but as good as IMO) - Samsung SSD's are guaranteed for 5 years , their PRO line 10, MTBF: 2 million hours and 300 terabytes written (TBW).

It's a lot of extra cash, I know, but in the long run perhaps not so much. Furthermore - there's a big 'plus' when it comes to switching between 2 machines as you are.  So, if possible, the way I see it is : apps and OS on the built-in SSD , your current files, WIP etc on a separate Thunderbolt connected SSD(s) and archive storage plus backup on RAID or NAS. Experience tells me , that the two most important speed criteria are : available RAM and read/write throughput - much more so, than the processor.

Secondly, moving files between computers depends on how you use Capture One. If you use sessions, which I do, it's simple to just transfer the session directory onto your main drive. All your edits etc are stored within the folder - so nothing to worry about. C1 catalogs I don't know much anything about. Lightroom - well, how long is a piece of string ? But my gut reaction would be to use a new and separate catalog on your laptop and then import that into your main Lr catalog when you're finished and back at your main editing machine.

Just my 2cents.

Edit:
One practical/transportable half-way house solution I'm looking at is a 2-disk LaCie Thunderbolt housing ( http://www.lacie.com/gb/en/products/raid/) setup as JBOD, with one SSD and a hard disk in the other slot. The HD can either be a clone with recovery/bootable partition or set as a TimeMachine volume. Off site and NAS archival backup - 'to be decided'.  Your choice.

And yup, I do much prefer the quality of LaCie to OWC. LaCie had a bad reputation in the past, mainly due to non-standard external power supplies that were almost guaranteed to fail sooner rather than later. Now they're industry standard, reliable (in my experience) and no longer an issue. LaCie is a division of Seagate , I think, but that's clouded by the WD merger (who-owns-who) which I've also lost track of ..

Edit (2):
And one other, slightly unconventional but interesting Thunderbolt2/USB3 option:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-DriveDock.html

[Peter McLennan]

Any NAS recommendation or advice for us Window users? I'm about to go NAS.

[degrub]

Here is a good reference with a full basket of benchmarks

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/nas/view

The higher transfer rates are usually for teamed nics + switch/rtr ports that support + teamed pc nics
Intel nics are very fast.

[Peter McLennan]

Thanks degrub. SmallNetBuilder is excellent.

[bjanes]

Any NAS recommendation or advice for us Window users? I'm about to go NAS.

I'm on Windows 10 and use a Synology DS414 4 drive NAS that was recommended by an IT professional. Rather than their proprietary software, I use Goodsynch to sync with the NAS. Over the past year, this setup has worked quite well. Western Digital Red drives were recommended for NAS. At the time the sweet spot was for 3G drives.

Bill

[aaronleitz]

I have a 20TB OWC Thunderbay 4 and it works great for me. The box is solidly built and only $400 empty which is a pretty good price for a thunderbolt enclosure. I use mine as a single 15TB RAID5 volume but you could mix and match and set it up however you want. I also use the OWC Drive Dock that Manoli mentioned to backup/archive images on to bare 3.5" HDs.

[David Eichler]

Manoli, thanks. That gives me a lot to think about. Not sure I can invest in a lot of large SSDs at this point. I will probably do an external SSD setup for the Photoshop scratch, since that it is currently on the internal SSDs and I am having hard time maintaining enough free space on the internal 250GB SSDs, even with just OS and apps (and Lightroom catalogs) there, but that is probably about as much as I can invest in external SSDs right now.

Adam, thanks for the info on the Thunderbay boxes. I have been leaning more and more towards that. What is the fan noise like with those?

[aaronleitz]

I will probably do an external SSD setup for the Photoshop scratch, since that it is currently on the internal SSDs and I am having hard time maintaining enough free space on the internal 250GB SSDs, even with just OS and apps (and Lightroom catalogs) there, but that is probably about as much as I can invest in external SSDs right now.

If you wanted to do this instead of replacing your internal SSD with a larger one then you could put an SSD and three spinning HDs all in to one Thunderbay 4 enclosure. Use the SSD for scratch and whatever else and make a large-ish RAID storage array out of the 3 HDs. You can get a 500GB SSD for $150 these days.

Adam, thanks for the info on the Thunderbay boxes. I have been leaning more and more towards that. What is the fan noise like with those?

I'm assuming you meant me, Aaron? The fan is pretty quiet. When the drives read/write they are louder than the cooling fan.

[sbay]

I use mine as a single 15TB RAID5 volume but you could mix and match and set it up however you want.

Are you using SoftRaid? and have you had any issues with it?

I'm also using the OWC thunderbolt enclosure and have generally been very happy with it. Fan noise is low but still noticeable and not too objectionable -- however it's nowhere near as quiet as the old mac pro case.

[aaronleitz]

Are you using SoftRaid? and have you had any issues with it?

Yes I'm using SoftRAID. Haven't had any issues yet.

I'm also using the OWC thunderbolt enclosure and have generally been very happy with it. Fan noise is low but still noticeable and not too objectionable -- however it's nowhere near as quiet as the old mac pro case.

Is your enclosure on the floor under your desk like your MacPro tower most likely was?

[David Eichler]

If you wanted to do this instead of replacing your internal SSD with a larger one then you could put an SSD and three spinning HDs all in to one Thunderbay 4 enclosure. Use the SSD for scratch and whatever else and make a large-ish RAID storage array out of the 3 HDs. You can get a 500GB SSD for $150 these days.

I'm assuming you meant me, Aaron? The fan is pretty quiet. When the drives read/write they are louder than the cooling fan.

Yes, Aaron, not Adam. Sorry. So, ended up ordering the Thunderbay 4 Bay with the RAID software. Will put outboard ssds for current work/scratch in a separate dock or enclosure for now, since I need all of the big box for data storage. May get another Thunderbay box for large scale data backup usage.

[sbay]

Yes I'm using SoftRAID. Haven't had any issues yet.

Good to know. When I last looked, I hadn't been able to find much in the way of reviews.

Is your enclosure on the floor under your desk like your MacPro tower most likely was?

I had my mac pro in all sorts of different configurations, including raised right beside my desk (I have dog that sheds a lot so I wanted to keep it off the floor). It's possible my memory is wrong and I'm just nostalgic for the old tower case, but I remember having a hard time telling if the fans were even running on the mac pro whereas it's quite clear with the thunderbay. I will say that the thunderbay is still pretty good and way quieter than my old readynas which was intolerable in the same room.