Thunderbolt Pegasus R4 Experience?

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.

Hi Steve,

I have Hitachi HDS72302 in my R4 in RAID0 configuration. I have allways at least 3 copies of my data so I have configured this array as fast as possible - and it is really fast!

The sleep mode is working with the latest firmware. You can check it this way:

1. Open System Preferences and then select Energy saver option and then see whether the first option is checked (Put the disks to sleep mode when unused)
2. Press Cmd + Option + Eject button on the keyboard to force Mac to go to sleep (when you do it, you should see the Thunderbolt indicators on R4 go off)
3. Wait for 20 minutes - after that, you will hear harddisks spinning off
4. And after a while, you will hear only fan spinning in the Promise array (and that`s my complain to Promise - in my opinion when all disks are off there is no need to spin the fan so I expect it will stop spinning in the next firmware update)
5. When you press any key, Mac will awake from the sleep mode, Thunderbolt indicators on Promise will light on and you will hear beep sound and drives starting to spin

You should double-check the sleep mode of your Mac. The problem is that it really goes to sleep only when absolutely no activity is taken. If you for example have an e-mail client running or some web page with auto-update (like Facebook), then there is some network activity preventing Mac from going to sleep. So I recommend pressing Cmd + Option + Eject (or select Mac menu and Sleep command).

Pavel

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.

Yes, swapping the drives into a new chassis preserves the data. At least, it worked for me.

Thanks for the answer, this is what I thought and experienced with other disk arrays, I just wanted to get some real life experience with R6.

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

Hi RNMVIDEO

Try:

1- update promise utility

2- update pegasus firmware

3- try tin foil around cable and connectors, change direction of cable thunderbolt or new cable

(try also changing port on pegasus, someone suggested left port )

4- install Lion, I think it is best supported Thunderbolt, if you can with fresh install , not upgrade, you can also

exchange current drive in your system with a temporary disk , install Lion and test it to verify if it helps

to understand about software issues with snow leopard

5- ask promise for a new TB unit including hdd

6- ask for a miracle

If none of them works....sent it out of the window 😟 and get new thunderbolt western digital drives.

(more simple raid 0/1 only and much slower but maybe more stable)

Let us Know

Hi,

I've been through all of this: replacement of device, firmware upgrade, TB cable foiling... Still at least 3 disconnections a day! We use it as shared storage for our MacMini server, it looked like an ideal solution.

Here is what Promise support states in our conversation:

This device is a semi professional device not a server storage. If the device is not used turn the device off. These disks are not server drives!

This is completely crazy. Not use for server storage? Please people don't buy this.

I don't know what say again....maybe latest firmware upgrade does not solved all issues, this can explain a lot of thunderbolt R4/R6 that are available over ebay usa/europe...

Before send it out the windows do you have another mac where test it?

If issues are confirmed simply eliminate Pegasus device.

Consider the possibility to buy western digital thunderbolt external drives...

Let us know if there are any news.

UPDATE:

So Ive got to give it to Promise for being on top of this issue.. They have been fast to respod and very understanding with my dilma. I received a second R6 from promise and after unpacking it and plugging it in it beeped.. This was new.. Whenever you plug the thunderbolt cable in it makes a very distinct beeping noise.. So iam happy that something is diffrent so far.. I updated the firm ware the software and any other ware that I came across.

I am happy to say after 4 days of running non stop i have no had a disconnect and the system seems to be running faster than before...Another big thing i noticed was the ends of the Thunderbolt cables do not get anywhere close to being as warm (borderline of hot) as the did from the previous chasis i received. So far so good.. Now that the system finally seems to be secure I am going to attemt to set it up with a macmin to act as a server as ive heard many great things about using it like this....

So Promise seems to be on the ball and at least for the time being my situation has been resolved succesfully... Now i Have to return theses two R6 chasis .....

AHA! You sir, may have helped to solve my problem with flickering on my external monitor (iMac) off of the 2011 17 inch MBP.

I'm planning on trying tin foil inside some (oh ****, what do you call them?) cable protector sleeves.

Thanks for the spark to my insight.

Just got my R6 yesterday (Amazon) and hooked it up to my iMac 27" (mid 2011). Was well aware of all the problems and subsequent resolutions mentioned in this thread, so was looking forward to a good experience. My problem is different... after 30 mins of run time, the temperature threshold for the backplane sensor climbs from 89 degrees F up to 118F and even up to 123F. The healthy threshold is set at <113F, so this excessive heat trips the green to an orange warning on the utility system health monitoring.

I have shut it down when it gets above 118F because I don't want to burn anything. I have the unit sitting on a shelf, and have moved it to an open desktop space and I get the same problem. I have talked to support and they are looking at system report files now. It will probably be a case of an RMA swap, but was wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem. This is NOT a problem I had anticipated...

Have you checked for a firmware upgrade? I believe the firmware upgrade from a month ago or so increased the "healthy" threshold to 50° C (122° F). At least, it did for my unit. My unit runs at about 47-48 C (116-118 F) and has been running continually for over two months.