So I am looking to buy external storage to store my photos and music as they are eating up too much space on my iMac.
rkauffman87 on here stated that many on these boards like the OWC Mercury Elite Pro.
I was not familar with OWC and as I started looking around their site it started to cause my head to spin with all the options.
Can someone explain the difference between the Mercury Elite Pro and OWC Thunderbay?
It sounds like this external drive will be to store important & unique data. If this is the case, then you will also need to have a backup plan in place for your external drive in addition to the main system drive on your Mac. Also RAID is not a backup so don't get the Thunderbay drive over the Mercury Elite thinking the RAID is better because it provides a "backup" since it includes multiple drives. It may be possible to configure the Thunderbay unit so that it stores your data with half the drives and the other half of the drives is grouped together for your actual backup drives. This is not ideal if it is your only backup since if this enclosure fails, then you lose access to both your large amount of data (photos & music) and your backups.
If you have multiple computers, then instead of directly attached storage you may want to consider a network storage option (NAS) such as the ones provided by Synology.
Yes, things start getting complex when dealing with larger amounts of data. Take your time to read up & learn about the options and terminology. Now is the time to figure out the best option for the next five years or so and how your needs may change or grow over that time.
Yes, it will be used to store personal, important data.
I currently back up my Mac using TM and have 2 WD My Books which I use (in case one fails).
I am leaning toward an OWC 4.0TB Mercury Elite Pro Desktop Storage Solution, 7200RPM eSATA/FW800/FW400/USB3. Currently my photos/music are taking up approx. 500 GB on my Mac so I figure the 4.0TB should last me a while.
An OWC Mercury Elite Pro OWC Mercury Elite Pro is a single drive and that can be used for whatever your needs are for additional storage.
A Thunderbay OWC Thunderbay is either 4 or 8 drives in one enclosure. They can be set up as Just A Bunch of Disks (JBOD) or in a RAID array. If you are not familiar with these terms, then please use Google to research them.
Perhaps if we knew how you intend to use the drive(s) then we can help narrow down the search to alternatives that best suit your needs. Everyone's needs are different. Personally I use both the Mercury Elite Pro's (2 of them) for backup External Hard Disk's. I also have a Thunderbay 4 in a Thunderbolt 3 configuration with 48TB of total storage and is setup in RAID 5. I use the TBay 4 for storing my large libraries of Music, Movies and Photos.
You can also call OWC (phone number is on their website) www.macsales.com and they can help you find what you need.
Why not ask OWC sales directly. They may have input other than what could be provided here, as well as new products becoming available.
OWC Mercury Elite Pro vs OWC Thunderbay
