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Author Topic: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure  (Read 2316 times)

markaug

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Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« on: December 30, 2018, 10:35:52 pm »

Looking for a thunderbolt 3 multi bay enclosure. Was interested in the Caldigit but the prices in Canada are insane and they don't ship to Canada either directly or via amazon. A 24Gb enclosure is 1200 on amazon US and 3800+ on the canadian site! Is the OWC the best bet at this time or are there others?

Thanks,
Mark
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D Fuller

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2018, 11:14:03 pm »

Looking for a thunderbolt 3 multi bay enclosure. Was interested in the Caldigit but the prices in Canada are insane and they don't ship to Canada either directly or via amazon. A 24Gb enclosure is 1200 on amazon US and 3800+ on the canadian site! Is the OWC the best bet at this time or are there others?

Thanks,
Mark

It depends a lot on how big a raid you're looking for.

The Areca stuff is great--very fast, very reliable. You can buy them full of drives, or empty and install your own drives, and you can format them to any kind of RAID you like. I've been running a Thunderbole 2 8-bay unit for three years now without the slightest blip.  Areca at B&H

DROBO seems to have become a lot more reliable than they were a few years ago. I have one of their 5-bay units, and it seems solid. But it hides what it's doing behind a desktop "control panel" app that masks the RAID functions. It seems to be working fine, but I like it less than the Areca.  DROBO 5-bay at B&H

I have no experience with OWC RAID enclosures, but I'd expect them to be quite good, based on my other experiences with their stuff.

My 2 cents.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2019, 10:59:44 pm by D Fuller »
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BobShaw

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2018, 06:28:11 pm »

Looking for a thunderbolt 3 multi bay enclosure. Was interested in the Caldigit but the prices in Canada are insane and they don't ship to Canada either directly or via amazon. A 24Gb enclosure is 1200 on amazon US and 3800+ on the canadian site! Is the OWC the best bet at this time or are there others?
Firstly, I assume you mean 24TB?

I have three Drobo now of various vintage. I once swore that I would never get another one, but now I regard them as the only practical and generally the cheapest solution. I have no idea on CAN pricing, but your $ is about the same as ours and a Thunderbolt 3 5 bay Drobo is nowhere near that price. The huge advantage of Drobo is that you can grow the system by just inserting bigger drives even when live. Most RAID system require you to start again and throw away drives.

Like any storage system, you need a backup system of twice the size. I use another Drobo plus several external drives.
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Morris Taub

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2019, 04:46:10 am »

I have no idea if this/these would be right for you, I don't use raid, I set my hard drives up jbod, with two enclosures, and one copies to another with carbon copy cloner. I'm not sure if Akitio has raid available.

In July 2017 I bought two akitio thunder 2 (thunderbolt 2) quad enclosures. 4x4tb drives in each and they have worked flawlessly since. I think you could install 6 or 8tb drives into each sleeve. The drive sleeves also work with ssd drives, nothing extra to buy.

My first enclosure attached to my macbook pro, the second, daisy chained to the first.

mcbroomf

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #4 on: January 01, 2019, 06:15:38 am »

I have the Akitio Thunder 3 Quad X (bought the enclosure and added my own drives).  Using it as JBOD since spring or so.  No issues.
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Joe Towner

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2019, 12:35:16 pm »

Hey Mark, so let's start with what you're going to be using the storage for.  TB3 stuff is great, but there's a premium associated with the faster TB3 port.  The best TB3 JBOD/SoftRAID setup I think is the OWC ThunderBay6 - 6 drive slots + 1 NVMe slot gives you a lot of options.

Getting into units that do RAID of some sort, that opens the can of what price/performance are you looking for.  It also leaves open the debate about drive density - I wouldn't buy or build a unit that doesn't use 6-8 TB drives.  The USB3.1 aka USB-C products have plenty of bandwidth unless you're filling it with SSDs - and if you're doing SSDs go all in on the smaller ThunderBlade or 4M2.
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faberryman

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #6 on: January 01, 2019, 12:44:11 pm »

How much drive space do you actually need?
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BobShaw

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2019, 05:10:48 pm »

The other question of course is do you actually have a Thunderbolt 3 computer? Most aren't.
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markaug

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #8 on: January 01, 2019, 05:20:21 pm »

Thanks for all the replies. I am looking for options to reduce the number of drives and power supplies. Will use a mix of RAID and JBOD to keep things in order. Library on separate drives,(perhaps in RAID 0) and Live Work also much the same as library. Then to have misc. documents, PS scratch, etc.... on something else, and of course multiple backups. Am working from macbook pro as primary machine and need to add a dock,(any users of new the OWC and/or Caldigit T3?), and a few other accessories to make it usable. Think I might've been further ahead with adding a desktop to my old mbp.

You've given me a lot to think about. Funds are a definite issue at this point, was thinking of going with a 4 bay and a drive sled for bare drives to use for offsite backups. Will read over the replies again and do some more pondering. Hope to get it right the first time!!!

Thanks for all the replies they are appreciated.


Mark
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markaug

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #9 on: January 01, 2019, 05:22:05 pm »

Just trying to get it right and keep it financially manageable. Tough to do I know, but I'm trying!!


Mark
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #10 on: January 01, 2019, 05:42:16 pm »

Damn, I keep clicking on this thread reading it as:

"Which of the three exposures of multi(ple) lightnings over a bay"

 :-[ ;D

BobShaw

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #11 on: January 04, 2019, 04:12:15 pm »

Just trying to get it right and keep it financially manageable. Tough to do I know, but I'm trying!!
That was one of the reasons I went with Drobo. Also you mentioned getting a dock. Any form of hub will probably dramatically slow it down. It is best to plug large storage straight in to a dedicated port.
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poojagite

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #12 on: January 09, 2019, 06:46:01 am »

In today’s world, things are a bit different. Much of the Thunderbolt 3hardware shipping today is no longer “Windows only”, which is a great thing for recent MacBook Pro and Mid-2017 iMac hardware with Thunderbolt 3 I/O capabilities.

Akitio’s Thunder3 Quad Mini is one such example of Thunderbolt 3-enabled hardware made with the Mac in mind. This four-bay enclosure comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports in a small aluminum enclosure that supports passive cooling for noiseless operation. In other words, it’s a quiet enclosure that’s perfect for RAID 0 SSD setups for maximum speed. Have a look at our hands-on video walkthrough for more details.

 
Inside the box
Akitio Thunder 3 Quad Mini all-aluminum Space Gray enclosure
Thunderbolt 3 cable
AC power adapter
Setup guide
Specs
2x Thunderbolt 3 USB-C interfaces
Daisy chain another Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1 Gen 2 device (supports up to 6 TB3 devices in chain)
Supports up to four 2.5-inch HDDs or SSDs
USB Power Delivery of 15W
Dedicated Display Port (1.2) for additional monitor connectivity (4K @ 60Hz)
Removable trays for easy access
Fan for active cooling
Fan switch for 0dB passive cooling
« Last Edit: January 10, 2019, 11:03:15 pm by poojagite »
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Christopher

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Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #13 on: January 09, 2019, 05:42:56 pm »

But what’s the benefit in using it with SSDs except perhaps going with big SSDs. Otherwise in terms of performance a m2 SSD is so much faster   


Im currently running a Synology and a FreeNAS server over 10GBe. Both reach a nice speed and work as second live storage and backup. (The freeNAS has 60TB usable space as has the Synology as backup.)





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Christopher Hauser
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mkihne

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2019, 12:43:18 pm »

Sounds like you are not intending a large raid array so offered suggestions are among numerous options available to you for low level raid, jbod, etc.

I echo a post above recommending Areca drive bays if and when larger, faster, redundant storage is a consideration. Buy the size you want, drives you want(spinners or SSD) and set up with the hardware based raid of choice.

I have an 8 bay unit with 4tb WD SE drives 32tb in raid 10 tb2 running without issue for five years or so and a newer 8 bay TB3 with newer WD Gold 4tb drives nearly three years without issue, also hardware raid 10.

If I were to upgrade today I might increase drive capacity and fewer bays and for sure raid 10. I would avoid raid 5 and 6 with drives 6tb or larger in raid configuration. Of course this implies a large catalog and maximizing access efficiency.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2019, 12:47:07 pm by mkihne »
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Peter McLennan

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #15 on: February 19, 2019, 09:11:12 pm »

Following a recent near-death experience with data, I bought one of these.  No proprietary data formats, hardware RAID 1.  $120 USD. Bring your own drives.  Mine has 2X8TB WD Reds. Not Thunderbolt, though. USB 3 only.  I see close to 100 MB/sec consistently reading and writing to this box.  Quiet, too.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0731KFT6H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Rajan Parrikar

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Re: Which multi bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure
« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2019, 06:04:58 am »

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