MacMini RAIS and DAS > Fibre Channel vs. Thunderbolt

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MacMini RAIS and DAS > Fibre Channel vs. Thunderbolt

Researching rack mounted thunderbolt storage / expansion solutions in a mac mini RAIS type scenario, we stumbled across the following article > http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/623-12-thunderbolt-performance-5big.htm l#!

Which raises a couple of intruging questions...

1. thunderbolt might still be more expensive than fibrechannel - presumably one reason why none of the established storage manufacturers have created a serious rack mounted thunderbolt chassis yet;

2. redundancy > the article points out that most modern CPU's can function as RAID controller(s), e.g. a MBPro Core i7 keeping computation for their RAID 0 test below 2% on average - thus no external RAID card or designated built-in controller is required... really the question is if a MacMini can handle overheads associated with a RAID5 or 6 setup;

3. some have raised that the thunderbolt plug is not secured like e.g. the FC plug, thus could be prone to accidental disconnections...;

…we are sure there is much more to it and would love to hear other people's thoughts on why fibre channel still seems to be to default option so far?

Mac mini, OS X Server

Posted on Dec 2, 2013 6:35 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 3, 2013 2:15 AM in response to macinteract

With software you are limited to RAID0, RAID1, and RAID10, if you use an external hardware RAID solution oyu can also use RAID5, RAID6 and other types.

With Thunderbolt yes you can add high-performance and usually cheaper DAS storage than an equivalent SAN system.

However with Thunderbolt it is DAS meaning it cannot be shared directly with other servers in a SAN configuration.

It's horses for courses. If you only need to connect it to a single server i.e. DAS then Thunderbolt is an excellent solution and I use it myself (the Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID boxes), if you need to do a SAN for clustering etc. then you need to go Fibre-Channel.

Promise now also have Thunderbolt2 versions of their Pegasus RAID and SANLink devices. At the moment only the new MacBook Pro Retina Display and the new Mac Pro supports them. Unfortunately the Mac mini is still only capable of Thunderbolt1.

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Answer 2

macinteract Author

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Dec 3, 2013 5:23 AM in response to John Lockwood

What is your experience with the Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID boxes - there are some not so good reviews around.

Also in what scenario do you use yours, i.e. how many users connect and what file sizes are being pushed around?

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Answer 3

Dec 3, 2013 6:11 AM in response to macinteract

Yes I have seen the same comments although I have not had any problems and the comments I have seen about the Drobo Thunderbolt have been even worse.

I am using one for a general AFP server, and one for network home directories (over AFP). An average of about 30 users. File sizes are general office files so usually not too big.

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