Thunderbolt Pegasus R4 Experience?

We got our RMA replacement unit last week and configured it (RAID5 + hot spare), with the latest firmware & current Promise Utility. It's been solid since then, no issues whatsoever. And fast, fast FAST. It's what we were hoping for when we ordered it.

The initial Pegasus R6 was a dud, but I have to commend Promise for doing everything they could to rectify the situation and make things right for us.

I placed my order last night. I hope the unit I receive has the new chassis or what ever Promise did to fix the problem, versus one that has been sitting on B&H Photo's shelve. Thanks for the info!!!

My R4 is Still Rock Solid since September when I bought it.. never a problem. I love the new FW upgrade.. my only remaining wish on the wish list is that the R4 would sleep. It doesn't seem to.

Has anyone managed to get the R4 running the latest FW to sleep?

(FYI I boot off my R4 and have it formatted as RAID 1E)

My R6 has run perfectly since December when I wrapped the Thunderbolt cable in tin foil ! However Promise have been in touch and are swapping out the chassis today, which will solve the intereference issue.

Will inserting my 6 drives in the replacement unit make it start up as before, or will I have to start afresh once I insert the drives ? Everything is backed up anyway but I could do without the down time of moving 8 TD of data around !

Thanks

Tony

I have been watching this thread as I had the same problem with my european band cellphone causing the Pegasus R6 to disconnect when I brought the phone close to it.

I have just raised a support case with Promise and am looking forward to their response.

The issue is simple to reproduce, and the drive always disconnects within seconds of my phone being brought close to the unit. I live far from the closest cell tower, with I imagine causes my phone to transmit at a higher power.

Observing the tinfoil around the cable theory - that didn't work for me. I wrapped the entire cable in three layers of heavy duty tinfoil and the Pegasus still disconnected when I brought the phone close to the unit itself.

After I removed the tinfoil, I held my phone while on a call, physically touching the thunderbolt cable where it joins the thunderbolt display or the Macbook Pro, and was unable to make it disconnect. The problem for me seems to be entirely when the phone is brought in proximity with the Pegasus R6 chassis (50cm usually, but up to 1m at times).

Just a couple of thoughts:

We keep coming back to the mobile phone interference theory over and over.

Has anyone tried to force the Mobile phone to WCDMA rather than GSM? This will make a big difference as modulation schemes and power levels are much different. Power is lower in WCDMA.

Also I thought for those using tin foil around the cables that it maybe a good idea to ensure that the tin foil is well grounded.

Anyway it seems like Promise have a HW fix for the issues so hopefully you'll get a replacement unit soon.

Because the tinfoil seems to work for some people, it's possible that the RF signal from the phone is entering the drive as common-mode interference via the cables (the Thunderbolt cable and/or the power cable). If that's the case, a better solution may be the use of snap-on ferrites such as these: http://leadertechinc.com/bisectedround.shtml placed right next to the cable as it enters the unit. (Sorry, don't have an EU source handly, although surely there are many.)

Hello,

I would like to add an experience here with an new imac i7 3,4 GHz and a brand new Promise Pegasus R6 12 Tb.

I use it for free lance video editing with FCPX and FCP 7. It worked fine until today.

I started updating a website via Yummy FTP while editing, and it is the first time it happens, the Pegasus disconnected. After reconnecting again, it did it again.
I checked the Thunderbolt cable is in the right place.

Today I was in my local Apple store and they had a G-Tech 4tb Thunderbolt Drive on the shelve $699.00. My new R6 is in route to my home (UPS shows out for delievery), I should receive it today before 4pm. I hope this was a good decision.

I just spoke to the Promise customer support person. They told me that sleep was in fact implemented in this last firmware update. Apparently what you need to look for is the activity light which is the bottom of the two blue lights on each drive should go dark

Now I need to go home from work and look at my blue lights! :-)

I had the same problem - R4 didn't go to sleep. I have installed the latest firmware, doublechecked the Energy Saving options - you must check the option Power down harddrives when possible. When the iMac goes to sleep, Promise will indicate it by dimming two thunderbolt indicators on the left side (when they are still on, iMac is not sleeping so you need to doublecheck Energy saving options and running programs). The best way how to test it is pressing Cmd+Option+Eject key (immediate sleep) - then it should dim immediately, sometimes it "rings the bell", sometimes not.

After 20 minutes of sleeping (don't ask me why so long!) all harddrives in R4 stop spinning but the fan is still on. I was complaining to Promise Support and they replied that the fans will stop in the next firmware update - so I'm still hoping to have a total silence when all goes to sleep.

Hi Guys, Hi @levindenboer1975

I'm approaching to Buy the Pegasus R4/R6 wirh the new Imac 27 in top configuration.

(all new hardware as you can see)

So I have a couple of questions:

Since the firmware update is out from many days I like to know if all people that installed it solved various disconnecting issues (or other issues) and finally they get a rock solid raid machine as it should be since day one

from a product of this price.

I have seen also many issues caused by drives failure, I think that Hitachi are not the best on market but sure they are cheapest....strange that Promise will ONLY support them.

Based on your experience which is the best combination of RAID configuration and why you suggest it.

I use it for video editing and photo editing with a 122.000+ images loaded on db in lightroom.

RAID 0 Is not considered as acceptable for me, usually I have three copies of my data, so I need at least a minimal protection of data from Pegasus

I have read about raid 1E that give 50% of space vs 66% for raid 5 and seems to that raid 1E is best in performance and reliability than raid 5 (and raid 10) at cost of more space unusable.

thank you for anyone that will reply to this post and help me to decide to order the Pegasus R4/R6

Hi,

I have the R4 and am very happy with it. I'm using it as my startup drive and have it configured as RAID 1E. So far I've had no issues with it as such but have made the following observations:

- The R4 does not seem to go to sleep as adverized, but the disks do seem to go quiet but I recon thats just because nothing is happening and they're not reallu 'asleep'

- When using it as your startup drive expect your boot time to be considerably increased. This is not really an issue for me though.

I dont know what promise used the hitachi drives?.. I agree with you that they are not the best drives. I'm thnking that when they start to go and its out of warranty that I'll replace the 1TB Hitachi drives with 2TB WD drives then when all 4 have been replaced just reformat my R4 to take advantage of the increased space.

The thing that I like about 1E is that I wont have any down time (in theory). I come in, see a red light. remove the offending drive and send it away if its under warranty and keep going.

Does anybody know if in case of a chassis change, can one just put the hard drives from the old chassis to the new one, to the same numbers slots without loosing the meida on the drives? As the parity data is stored on the drives it should work woithout loosing the media, I think, but I wonder if anybody had a real experience with it.

Hey I run my promise Pegasus R6 off my Macbook pro i7 15inch running Os 10.6.8

Ive been having the same disconnect issue with my R6- It seems to have just started after months of solid ,stable use. I spoke with Promise and the sent me a new case.. Swapped out the drives and turned it on.. Everything was working and I continued on with my life.. 2 weeks later the same thing begins to happen on the new R6-

Some things ive noticed.

-Thunderbolt cable does get pretty hot

-R6 is sometimes recognized in System Profiler but still wont mount

-My sanity slowly slipping away

-Patience being tested a bit as well

The tech at Promise sent my problem up the chain of command stating that this is the first they have heard of this problem.. Which is odd because I am reading posts about it from October of 2011 ...

Anyways . My work cycle is almost halted and if we dont get a working response soon I may have to request a refund.. I am a little concerned about what this is doing to my buisness and how much this down time is costing me.. So if anyone here is thinking class action... Just saying ....

Rnm

So far thats