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Storage solution and workflow

Right now I have 6 external hard drives of various brands. Four of them are FW800 equipped and the older two only have FW400.


All these are connected to a Nitro® FW800 8 port hub (I daisy chain the FW400 drives when needed)


All drives mentioned above have one thing in common. They're all either SATA II or III inside of FW enclosures.


I'm getting tired of all the mess with the cables plus all the space it takes on my desk. I am wondering if anyone can share or recommend a neater setup. For about 2 years now I have been searching for some sort of multiple bay external enclosure that would allow me to mount and unmount individual hard drives BUT without having to unmount the other mounted drives. I believe this is called a JBOD setup with a hot swap feature.


About a year ago I bought the DataTale RC-M4QJ and loved it's hot swapping feature with the minimalistic Hard Drive handles but I was disappointed by it's performance as I benchmarked it using int the AJA System Test app and on average, it performed ~25 to 35% slower than my other single HDD enclosures. So back it went for a refund.


I'm hoping someone can share their setup which achieves the same goal here. I will soon be purchasing a new MacBook Pro (as soon as Apple brings them to market) so if you know of a thunderbolt enclosure that can allow what I need to do, please let me know.


My dream enclosure would probably be a thunderbolt one which can handle RAID and JBOD and allow individual mount/unmount without screws or expensive brackets.


Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Posted on Jul 7, 2014 8:26 AM

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10 replies

Jul 7, 2014 10:46 AM in response to Xavierp

I've had pretty good results with the MacGurus burly 5 bay enclosure, HOWEVER, hotswapping has always been somewhat problematic. I suspect this is as much of an issue with the sonnet esata card in my macpro.


http://www.macgurus.com/store/Item/BurlyPortMultiEncl


What compute are you using? Macpro's allow for adding an esata card. Older IMac's probably not (although I seem to remember there was some sort of hack possible. New Imac's, etc use thunderbolt.

Jul 7, 2014 11:05 AM in response to Xavierp

I also have a couple of Burly multi bay enclosures. They are rock solid and can be configured as you wish. The ones I have use sleds for the drives, which also serve as cases for the drives when unmounted and in storage.


While it is possible to do hot swapping of drives, my own policy is to always shut off power to the enclosure when changing drives. I get a little antsy about the tiny pins on the drive sata connector, and having voltage arc across to them while physically mounting the drive and they near the receiving connector.


For a Thunderbolt solution, check out CalDigit - they make really good stuff - and OWC.


MtD

Jul 7, 2014 11:12 AM in response to Meg The Dog

I recently read someplace that the sata connectors on a hard drive have a limited life so connecting and disconnecting may not be the best idea and the burly enclosures with sleds just connect to the connectors on the drive so every time you change drives in the enclosure, you may be limiting their life. HOWEVER, I've had this enclosure for at least 5 years and must have about 15 sleds and I've only had one drive fail and don't think it had anything to do with the connectors.


Has anyone else heard this bubbameister (yes that's the technical term)?

Jul 7, 2014 11:32 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

I handle a lot of SD and HD video files so I'll take as much storage space as possible. I don't however buy the newest largest drive that just hit the market, I usually wait a while until all major manufacturers have a similar capacity product and I can make comparisons. I also suspect that in a couple of years I might be handling 4k as well which I assume will definitely require RAID power. For now and the immediate future I think Thunderbolt technology will serve me well.

Jul 7, 2014 11:34 AM in response to Michael Grenadier

I have never heard that, but it does make a certain kind of sense.


The connectors were probably originally designed to support convenient installation / removal / replacement of drives over the life of the supporting hardware - and how many times would that be?

Clearly a different kind of connector would have been designed if it was going to be stressed 100 times a day.


Having said that, I have never had a problem with the enclosures, drive connectors or sleds (other that a noisy fan on the receiving tray), but I swap the drives by the project - so may be only swapping, say 2 to 10 times a week. And I use my possibly overboard method of turning off the enclosure during the swap.


MtD

Jul 7, 2014 11:43 AM in response to Michael Grenadier

Hi Michael, as I mentioned in my original post, I will be buying a MacBook Pro as soon as Apple hurries up and puts them on the Market... (I travel a lot so I need to be mobile) PLUS the new Mac Pros only have USB 3 and Thunderbolt. So I guess a hot swappable Thunderbolt or USB 3 enclosure would be nice to find.


Anyone else care to chime in?

Jul 7, 2014 12:02 PM in response to Xavierp

I've been very happy with my macguru enclosure (unlike firmtek which I cannot recommend in any circumstances), but I did have a slightly unsettling experience. After 5 years or so, my enclosure stopped being dependable. Drives would randomly drop off the desktop. I emailed macgurus and they said that the powersupply needed to be replaced. I called them and they said I should be able to do it myself without any issues. Not anywhere near as simple as they said. I was able to do it, but not the calmest afternoon of my life. That said, whenever I've had any issues they've been very responsive including getting me an older software driver for the sonnet esata card which was no longer available directly from sonnet when sonnet had released an update that was incompatible with my OS.

Storage solution and workflow

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