Thunderbolt Pegasus R4 Experience?

So far, my experience has been far less than gratifying. Under deadline, we had a power outage- and another about 20 seconds later. The Pegasus now believes it houses 4 dead drives, which the Promise site swears up and down is easily fixed by going to the terminal and using telnet to access the IP address of the Thunderbolt raid.

Except it doesn't have an IP address.

Their KB says the IP address info is in the manual. I've looked at the one on my desk and the one online- not a peep about IP addresses or telnet. Get info? Can't. Promise Utility? No mention of an IP address.

I tried online support. 9-5:30, M-F, PST. Online support? Nonexistent. My project? Due at 8am tomorrow.

Up until this I've been pretty patient with the Pegasus problems (staticy music playback while reading/writing, a bit of a problem when doing video to put it extremely mildly); temperature errors after updating the software (there is no temperature problem- just a RAID cabinet that's touchy).

I'm a fix-it-yourself guy. Give me good instructions and I won't bug you- but the inability to do anything with the terrible documentation, coupled with a *very* touchy RAID case, and the stress of explaining to my client why he has to go to HIS boss empty-handed in the morning has me regretting ever making this purchase.

So to answer the OP- The performance is breathtakingly stellar, but the tech support/ knowledgebase issues alone ensure that I'll never buy another Promise product, sadly.

Ironic name for this company because the only thing they 'promise' is to obfuscate and hope thier customers just go away. The unit arrived in what I thought was working order until initial set up was on 24+ hours... I called Apple who was great but suspected the drive, not my new MBP Retina...So they gave me Promise's number and I had an hour long call with "Joe" (US person). He said it was faulty drive but before they could exchange had to send my system file.... 2 exchanges later with an Indian person- they said 'they see no prob, can I explain what the prob was"... HUH!?? You are kidding right? I am still waiting on my third response after FIVE days..NOTHING. GREAT NEWS was that Apple took the drive back no questions asked. THANK YOU APPLE. Buyer beware!!

fyi, I posted this TWICE on apple.com review and they have NOT published it! That is even more disstressing than this drive/company!!

To all running or thinking about buying a promise R6/R4 --

I have been keeping a close eye on this thread in case my system went down....

So far I have had great success.

My set-up is as follows.

Mac Mini 2 Ghz i7 16gb ram, thunderbolt running 10.7.4 Server -

Three R6 daisy-chained usung apple thunderbolt cables

Two Seagate 3TB Firewre drives making nightily backups from two of the R6s

No Monitor

UPS hooed up to all units with auto shutoff via USB

Apple Airport WIFI through-out the home

It runs 24/7 and serves 3 people in my home office.

I work in native photoshop files via CAT5e and have never had an eject....

I am in the US and use AT&T for cell phones via iphone...

My producer works right near the server and he has Verizon on a non-smartphone.

Hope this helps...

Joe

TERRIBLE!

I was buying an R4 4tb and a thunderbolt cable from apple on mid july.

Its ok for 10 days, amazing speed, i use them for final cut pro x.

After 10 days i dont see on desktop the promise icon, i call apple care ...

apple care send me new cable, i try et voilà....promise icon on desktop, all ok!!

this morning i dont see promise icon on desktop....PANIC.

i try with tin-alu paper on cable, but nothing to do....

i believe there is a issue with imac, software and thunderbolt cable...

.....

Imac 27 3.4ghz i7, 16gb ram, ati 6970 2gb, 256 hdd ssd + 2tb, Promise Pegasus R4

Just wanted to chime in to say I bought one of these for my iMac late last year and have had practically zero issues. It was hands down my favorite purchase of the year. Well, that and my cat 🙂.

The worst thing that happened was I accidentally kicked the thunderbolt cable and ripped it out of the back of the iMac mid edit (FCPX). I shut down FCPX, plugged the cable back in and reopened - like it never happened.

The only other thing was that for a while I had my home folder on the thunderbolt drive and that caused issues recording when using Logic (a delay of a few seconds before the recording began). I moved everything back. No Trouble.

I had a similar experience with my R6, but I have a happy ending! About a week and half after loading it up and using it with great results, I also got the dreaded orange light (and those terrible chirps/beeps on start-up). I knew it was sick, so after some investigation on my own, I finally figured out that a drive had died. The drive's light was still blue, so it wasn't "intuitively obvious to the most casual observer." I went online to the support page of Promise, filled out the appropriate form to start a ticket, taking the time to generate and upload the appropriate log files. Fortunately, my system does a complete back-up every night, so I just slowed down a bit, but didn't miss a beat.

After they got the files, they said "you have a dead drive, here's an RMA and a mailing label, send it to us, we'll take care of it." In fact, they sent me the replacement drive before I even sent them my dead one. I popped it in, let it spin up and properly join into the array, and all has been right with the world for the past six months since then. I love how quiet it is, how it just serves up my files when I need them, and super fast with Thunderbolt.

What I'm saying in a long-winded fashion is that Promise kept their end of the bargain and I'm a happy owner, no complaints. Hope you can pursue a similar outcome with them. ~Peace... ~pam

I have a dead R4 (Orange light). The Promise online support people have been responsive but had me try a whole load of tests before agreeing to replace the chassis. Because I have a 'day job' I've been working each evening to test. After Promise called me and we went through the symptoms they agreed to the RMA. Now waiting for a replacement.

Actually, I think they've been good in terms of responsiveness. The problem is, as others have said, that when you consolidate all your active data onto a supposedly high-availability RAID device, the loss of the drive means you have a lot of work to do to find backups and workarounds.

I'd be interested to know the serial number ranges that are working well, and those with problems.

My serial is SFL01B121845.

I wish to add a story and a discovery in the hopes that it might help some of you, though many of you may already be familiar with the details and the outcome.

I purchased a Promise Pegasus R4 RAID Thunderbolt unit, but my new Mac with Lion (and SSD) just couldn't see the Pegasus unit at all. No disc eject messages, mind you -- I never got that far. The drive simply was nowhere to be seen by the computer.

Promise tech support has always been responsive in their followups. But their suggestions still did not bring the Pegasus R4 unit to my desktop.

I tried all combinations of Thunderbolt ports, rebooting, etc., but nothing made any difference.

I went to my local Apple dealer with the Thunderbolt cable, and they obliged me by issuing me a replacement.

But that did not bring the Promise Pegasus R4 unit to my desktop.

I went back to the Apple center with the Pegasus R4, plugged it in to one of their Macs, and it immediately mounted on their desktop!

Now I thought there was a problem with the Thunderbolt ports on my Mac.

So I went home, and then returned with my new Mac to fix the Thunderbolt ports -- *AND* I brought the Promise Pegasus R4 unit with me -- hooked them together, booted up my Mac with the Promise Pegasus R4 unit attached -- and the Pegasus drive quickly appeared as it should!

So I went back home, and thinking that the environment might be playing a role, I turned off all wireless technology in the house (telephones, wireless router, computers with AirPlay and Bluetooth, etc.), and booted the Mac and Pegasus R4 unit.

That still did not bring the Pegasus R4 unit to my desktop.

Using aluminum foil, I wrapped both connector ends of my Thunderbolt cable, shielding the plug ends.

Eureka! The Pegasus R4 unit mounted successfully!

For several hours now, the drive has been mounted with no problems, even after resuming all wireless technology in the house. The Promise Pegasus R4 unit is steadily present on my desktop.

The bottom line is this (as some of you are aware): Thunderbolt cables are susceptible to local RF (radio frequency) interference.

Somewhere in my neighborhood a device is emitting an RF frequency that disrupts my Thunderbolt cable.

The reason that Thunderbolt cables are so expensive is that it has a microelectronics transceiver embedded in each of its ends. Thunderbolt cables are much more than filaments of wires soldered to a small plug on each end!

Apparently these transceivers can be jammed in the "right" (or wrong!) RF field. GSM900 phones are known to emit a frequency that can cause Thunderbolt problems. No doubt there are other nefarious emitters, too.

Wrapping or shielding the cable wiring is not the answer. You MUST shield the CONNECTOR ENDS! This is the key.

Until this can be better addressed by the cable manufacturers, the user may need to resort to aluminum foil wrapped around the Thunderbolt cable CONNECTOR ENDS (the plugs) to solve their problem (if the issue is indeed due to RF interference).

I feel sorry for Promise that they have to endure disheartened and justifiably angry users who may have connection problems with a Promise Pegasus RAID unit if the problem may be related to a specific weakness with Thunderbolt cables.

In my case, perhaps the RF field is strong enough to prevent *ANY* Thunderbolt connection to the Pegasus R4 unit. In other situations expressed by users here, perhaps the RF field strength is weak enough that connections can still be made, but strong enough to cause random disconnects and jammings, leading to the dreaded "disc ejected improperly" message.

Also, for those that have had a good connection for a while, then suddenly the "disc ejected improperly" message starts regularly occurring, perhaps a new RF-emitting device has become active in your vicinity.

Important notes:

1.) I have only experienced the Apple brand Thunderbolt cable, so I do not know if other manufacturers' Thunderbolt cables have this jamming susceptibility.

2.) I am in Asia, and the RF fields here are no doubt different than in the U.S.A.

3.) As with all issues, YMMV, but this little (and very cheap!) shielding trick has thus far solved my problem.

Message was edited by: JeffreyReadyJedi

Added carriage return between paragraphs for better spacing and readability.

Message was edited by: JeffreyReadyJedi

[sigh] Newbie poster removed one too many carriage returns between paragraphs.

Jeffry: Same thing happened to me with the foil on the connector ends, but after a few weeks (even with foil over the connector ends) it disconnects again. I have had so many false positives with my R4, I have learned that you need to wait a full week before making any judgements. Believe me, I had so many situations like yours, finally thinking "oh, it's working!"

Now, after several months of actively tackling this - having both my R4 AND my Retina macbook Pro replaced, covering connector ends with foil, buying a new TB cable....and none of this actually solving the problem: I actually think the problem is something to do with the newer thunderbolt design. As you may know, Apple's first generation of thunderbolt (for which the Pegasus was designed) are a bit different than the late 2011 (and onward) TB ports on all macs. I think it is an undocumentary hardware incompatibility.

The issue is almost similar to a static electricity change: The TB ports need to be discharged in order for the R4 to work. And even when they work, it is only a matter of time until they experience the disconnect again. At the height of my testing I was able to have the R4 stay connected for 4 days. I then "ejected" the R4 from my mac, only to experience the random disconnects on the next time I connected it. One trick I learned is hooking up my thunderbolt-to-firewire adapter (with a FW drive) to the TB port, simply turning it on and ejecting. It seems to "discharge" the port, so to speak. The R4 will usually reconnect after that has been done.

...And for what it's worth: the thunderbolt-to-firewire adapter produces rock solid results. I have a Retina Macbook Pro, which has 2 TB ports. One of them has a FW drive connected while the other port is the Pegasus. The Pegasus routinely disconnects all alongside the perfectly functioning FW drive plugged in right next to it.

I was grudgingly working with my randomly disconnecting R4 then I experienced a crash (R4 disconnect) in the middle of a render session in Avid. I rebooted the computer and got the R4 to show up again, only to discover that nearly ALL my files were corrupt. That's right: video files, project files, etc, would not open. It was one of those surreal situations that you'd think only happen in movies. Believe me - I'm a highly knowledge tech editor, and I checked and rechecked that this had actually happened. Those few files that would open had massive video glitches in them. This was a massive data error and the Promise unit was none the wiser about what had happened! Luckily I had backed up all my files, but this was the last straw.

I just bought a Sans Digital 4-Bay hardware RAID5 USB3/eSATA enclosure. It only cost me $200 and still gets nearly 200MB/sec on USB3. I will be transferring my Pegasus drives into this unit and that will be the end of it. It's not quite as speedy but at least it is rock solid. The end!

Hey, agent42b.

Thanks for the response!

Your discharge explanation and the thunderbolt-to-firewire adapter tip are worth a lot of "Likes" to me, but I can only give you one. 😁

You're right -- maybe this is a false positive. Now I am little worried, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and see how long this aluminum shielding bandaid on the connector ends lasts. 😕

Cheers!

Jeffry: and btw, the thunderbolt-to-FW adapter does not need any shielding to work perfectly. So, even if the shielding helps (I think it does, to an extent) it is unique only to the Pegasus.

Please report back. If you have anything of a similar experience to mine, your R4 will work very well until you need to eject the drive, or turn off/on the computer.

As further evidence of a power issue, I can usually get the R4 working for 6-8 hours before the first disconnect. After that the disconnects become increasing in severety. It's like a breaker being hit: once it's hit, that's all she wrote.

I had a related issue when I used my 27 inch pre-Thunderbolt iMac as an external monitor to my 17 inch MacBook Pro.

All too often, I'd end up with screen flickers on the external. In fact, the Dell monitor I had before it also flickered.

As an iOS developer, I have many devices with WiFi and bluetooth on, right in front of the monitor, connected by cables to my MacBook and near the Thunderbolt cable. Also, my phone would rest up right next to the monitor.

Now, I've replaced my iMac with an Applt TB display and the MacBook's TB cable goes straight to Apple's TB display, then off the back of that, around to the back to a GRaid, which sits under my MacBook on a stand.

I've gone through resetting the SMB, using different cables, etc, etc…

There is definitely something sub par about the TB cable and mini display port cables and electromagnetic interference when compared to Firewire cables.

To date, with this system and the new display, I've had no disconnect or flicker issues. Maybe the TB monitor amps the signal going over the cables, I don't know.

In any case, I have also seen problems related to signal interference over the TB cables.

And FYI, I'm in the US.

FYI, I've got an 8 TB GRAID connected to my MacBook Pro with an OWC SSD and it gets pretty decent speeds.

I get about 350 GB/s transfer rate when copying from my OWC SSD to the GRAID.

http://i.imgur.com/xhWdK.png

I'm considering getting an external TB to PCIe enclosure and putting an ultra fast SSD PCIE card or two inside.

One great test that might give a good answer to what you propose could be solved by gun hobbiests.

One thing my grandfather used to do was to melt lead and make his own bullets. Lead's a great blocker of errant electrons and easily formed into many shapes. I propose making a lead shield/jacket for the ends of the TB cables, apply them to both ends, run for 2 weeks and see what happens.

If lead can block x-rays, I'm sure it will block less energetic RF interference.

Should be fairly easy and cheap to do.

Either that or source your own depleted uranium. Whichever's easier.

Just FYI -- I still have foil wrapped around both ends of my R4. I've had 2 disconnects since this morning already. If it really is just interferencing, that much be some pretty strong interference, no?

EDIT: make that 3 disconnects. Just happened again.