RAID 1 Thunderbolt 1 vs Thunderbolt 3

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RAID 1 Thunderbolt 1 vs Thunderbolt 3

Hello there,

I've got a Thunderbolt G-Tech G-Raid drive that I use for video editing and VFX with my iMac. It's an old unit that supports only Thunderbolt 1. It's got 2 Hard drives inside, 4Tb each, and I've got them setup as a RAID 1 pair, for security.

I was wondering how big would be the difference of using a similar setup with Thunderbolt 3 now that I bought a 2017 iMac.

I was thinking of the same setup: a single enclosure with 2 hard drives, Thunderbolt 3 and RAID1.

What if instead I would use RAID0?

What if I used SSD drives instead of traditional hard drives? Would you recommend the upgrade considering my G-Tech is working fine now?

Thanks!

iMac with Retina 5K display, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Feb 27, 2018 1:57 AM

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Answer 1

Rudegar

Level 10

170,730 points

Feb 27, 2018 3:59 AM in response to Carlos Rayita

the inc in interface speed will of cause only help if the hd can keep up

average ssd reading suitable speed for a ok price seem to be around 500MB/sec / writing usually a bit lower but not dramatically

thunderbolt 1 is 10Gb/sec

thunderbolt 3 is 40Gb/sec

to make Gb to GB we device by 8 so

tb1 1.25GB/sec

and

tb3 5GB/sec

so 2 ssd disks of 500MB/sec would not of cause reach 1GB/sec but not too far off

to reach the tb3 limit you would need 10 SSD disks in raid0

I would not advice such a big raid0 setup

the other perk of raid0 over 1 is you get double the amount of storage

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Answer 2

Feb 27, 2018 11:00 PM in response to Carlos Rayita

I think if you put SSDs in a RAID0 you might just travel back in time.

Kind of like putting Instant Coffee in a microwave.

With a RAID0 if one drive fails, all data is lost, instantly. So, get another one to keep it backed up. But you knew that already.

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RAID 1 Thunderbolt 1 vs Thunderbolt 3

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