Q: Where are the thunderbolt HDD enclosures and other peripherals ?

Hi

sbywalt wrote:

 

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as if those of us with iMacs, who want to use an eSATA RAID Level 0 array (previously connected to a Mac G5 via a four-port SATA PCIx card, and containing a four-drive software-based RAID), and who want to connect the array to a Mac via something faster than USB 2.0 or Firewire 800, have two choices:

 

(1) buy a hardware-based RAID; or

(2) buy a Mac Pro and connect the array the same way it was connected to the G5.

 

Am I correct?  I hope not, but your excellent explanation makes me fear that I am.

Apparently this device has eSATA connections via TB

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo15thunderboltdock.html

CCT

Gen - your help is much appreciated. It appears you and I have a similar problem. I've an older MacPro (not that old but its suddenly a bit of a slug) that I would like to retire with 6TB of storage in SATA drives. My idea was to simply invest in a new retina MacBook Pro and put the SATA drives from the MacPro in a thunderboldt enclosure. The 500MB SSD in my MacBook Pro is simply not large enough to hold my music, photos and enough extra for a workign video library.

That went out the window so now I'm basically using a single OWC Voyager SATA swappable drive controller to access the data when needed. The goal was to use external storage for Video Editing (hundreds of hours of video to edit from the past). Based on all of this thread - it seems my best and expensive bet is to continue what I'm doing but purchase an external Thunderboldt drive for working storage in video editing - moving chunks of video to it as I edit. Today I'm doing it with an external USB 3.0 (I had for backup) drive but its still a bit too slow and tends to sleep on me.

well, for this reason 2011 produced laptop don't have an USB 3 port. yeah patience; even no affordable thunderbolt/usb 3 cable or dock yet (zendock?). I wish I could use usb 3 external harddrive... yeah! even firewire became obsolete in 2013.

Updating:

Due to the lack (and still very much lacking) availability of external Thunderbolt enclosures without drives, @1.5yrs ago finally settlted on a Sans Digital 5-bay USB3 enclosure, sutffing it with 20TB and it worked great for a long time.

Lately, it started to choke Looking at logs and such, apparently the USB3 connection is no longer sufficient for current tasks (think likely due to changes in how various apps access their data, which is on the drive).

So, finally caved and picked up the LaCie 5big 20TB Thunderbolt... have to say it's a really great piece of kit. ***** it only comes WITH drives, but man benchmarking shows a +4x increase in data throughout, on average. It just screams and believe am once again future-proofed (for a while )

So yeah, if you have the means, here's noe person saying LaCie 5big Thunderbolt is a great Thunderbolt HDD and best of all, it is available right now!

Finally! >2 diskless Thunderbolt enclsoures supporting JBOD!

Models for 16 & 24 3.5" drives :

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_NA333TB_overview.htm

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_NA381TB_overview.htm

Ok, they're rack-mounted enclosures but at least they exist!

Hello Folks. 

I too have the same issue with a lack of dskless enclosures and insanely pricey enclosures with disks.  So you can imagine my pleasure at finding this.

Enclosure Thunderbolt to mSATA with 12V wall power $91.25 from http://www.memorydepot.com/42509.htm.

And Enclosure Thunderbolt to 2.5 SATA drive (HDD/SSD)15mm with Wall power - $82.50 from

http://www.memorydepot.com/42490.htm

The former would prove useful for my upgrade of a 32GB msata boot drive in my proposed hybrid system (HP Spectre Touchsmart 15t) and the latter for heneral external use until the CalDigit T1 and/or T2 become available.

Comments?

okayson

Why is necessary a 12V power for this?

It is not necessary to use the 12 volt power.  But depending what you are doing, your thunderbolt port might not provide sufficient power, so... you get exteral power source.  If your thunderbolt does not provide sufficient power, you will get lower performance, but it will still be very goog.

I am not defending or attacking the product, just saying that finally, someone made a reasonably priced thunderbolt enclosure.

Are you not pleased or do you prefer to pay $500.00 plus for a thunderbolt enclosure?

okayson

So i waited, waited and waited for the CalDigit T1, T2 or T3. So the T3 ships on jan 6, 2014 and pre-orders begin today with cheapest option being $749. I'm like yo, where is the enclosure only? So i tweet CalDigit and here's their response:

CalDigit @djnyce All of the Thunderbolt products are fully populated with HDDs. There will not be an option to buy without HDDs. 12/18/13, 4:44 AM

now that's some ********.

djnyce wrote:

 

So i waited, waited and waited for the CalDigit T1, T2 or T3. So the T3 ships on jan 6, 2014 and pre-orders begin today with cheapest option being $749. I'm like yo, where is the enclosure only? So i tweet CalDigit and here's their response:

 

CalDigit @djnyce All of the Thunderbolt products are fully populated with HDDs. There will not be an option to buy without HDDs. 12/18/13, 4:44 AM

 

now that's some ********.

I'm surprised you didn't expect this, Apple to many manufacturers means low volume high profit sales, and integrated, unmodifiable solutions. CalDigit I count among one of them, and I definitely think that given the opportunity to make it practical, they would seam weld those cases shut too... along with everyone else in the TB game. Why else would you claim to be a Mac orientated portable hard drive supplier when all Windows/PC portable hard drives work for Mac (and vice versa) seamlessly.

I mean, we still have no add in cards for TB for Windows and very few motherboards support it so uptake is going to be basically non-existant. Has been that way for some time and will stay that way until Intel are smart enough to actually lower the licensing costs to something decent.

sbywalt wrote:

 

PS  I could not figure out how to edit the above message,

Edit button, lower right corner, available for 15 minutes after posting.

jimmyc-ATL wrote:

 

Gen - your help is much appreciated. It appears you and I have a similar problem. I've an older MacPro (not that old but its suddenly a bit of a slug) that I would like to retire with 6TB of storage in SATA drives. My idea was to simply invest in a new retina MacBook Pro and put the SATA drives from the MacPro in a thunderboldt enclosure. The 500MB SSD in my MacBook Pro is simply not large enough to hold my music, photos and enough extra for a workign video library.

That went out the window so now I'm basically using a single OWC Voyager SATA swappable drive controller to access the data when needed. The goal was to use external storage for Video Editing (hundreds of hours of video to edit from the past). Based on all of this thread - it seems my best and expensive bet is to continue what I'm doing but purchase an external Thunderboldt drive for working storage in video editing - moving chunks of video to it as I edit. Today I'm doing it with an external USB 3.0 (I had for backup) drive but its still a bit too slow and tends to sleep on me.

Sorry, I completely lost this reply in my emails somewhere.

My only suggestion is to go with USB3. I have done the research and it seems intel have only just started working on a expansion solution for TB, either out of a desire to force users to upgrade other stuff to get TB (whether it's a new Mac (which they profit from) or buying one of thier new motherboards for thier PC) or simply the fact that they really need low latency to make TB work (which would seem true but we have TB to Expresscard units and nothing else).

See: http://vr-zone.com/articles/thunderbolts-great-pcie-hope/50677.html

If you know your model of HDD insdie there, and it's a WD drive, might I suggest taking it to a PC and using the Idle disable tool. I have 3 WD drives and doing that to each othem has helped with stuttering and lag tremendously at the small cost of a little power usage

See here: http://gbatemp.net/threads/people-with-westerndigital-hdd-sleep-problem.318273/

Casemon, are you using the enclosure as JBOD?

"Sans Digital TowerRAID TR5UT+B - 5 Bay USB 3.0/eSATA Hardware RAID 5 Tower with 6G PCIe 2.0 HBA (Black)"

@CurtD

I no longer use this enclosure (see my post above about switching to LaCie Big5 20TB Thunderbolt) but when I did, yes it was in JBOD configuration (for Mac ZFS array).

Happy new year everyone!

Small update, seems like there is finally a diskless Thunderbolt enclosure out, though still very pricey for a 4-bay diskless enclosure:

DataTale Smart 4-bay Thunderbolt RAID

Review:

http://www.storagereview.com/datatale_smart_4bay_thunderbolt_raid_review

Diskless is $600 @ Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/DataTale-RS-M4T-Thunderbolt-Storage-Enclosure/dp/B00CC0VRQ C