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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID; 6x1TB $1,499, 6x2TB $1,999

wish you could just buy the enclosure and install your own drives...

Yes. Although these systems are not quite as outrageously priced as I'd expected for a product with SAS performance, that's clearly targeted at the pro video market. I was expecting something more like CalDigit HDPro2 pricing, e.g. ~$600/TB, and these are ~$250/TB.

I wonder if it's possible to upgrade with generic drives in the future or if they've locked the whole system down.
 
I wonder if it's possible to upgrade with generic drives in the future or if they've locked the whole system down.

There's a reference on the Promise site to a "Pegasus HDD/SSD compatibility list" and a note that Pegasus can use SATA 6G HDD and SSDs. I can't find the compatibility list so I'll give them a call later. I'm also interested to see if a RAID set can span devices (Promise says you can daisy-chain six of the Pegasus units).
 
Assuming they're bundling higher-end drives, there's maybe $700 worth of them in the R6, so you're effectively paying $800 for a 6-bay Thunderbolt RAID enclosure. That doesn't strike me as being a crazy price for such a thing, which sort of implies a storage vendor is, for a change, not marking the included drives up 50% for no good reason.
 
Assuming they're bundling higher-end drives, there's maybe $700 worth of them in the R6, so you're effectively paying $800 for a 6-bay Thunderbolt RAID enclosure. That doesn't strike me as being a crazy price for such a thing, which sort of implies a storage vendor is, for a change, not marking the included drives up 50% for no good reason.

Chris, lots of good reasons. When I was involved with building and selling storage arrays we would mark up the drives by 50% to cover our costs for drive testing, configuration, procurement, shipping, warehousing and [if necessary] RMA processing. It was also a good way to make some extra money. ;-)
 
Assuming they're bundling higher-end drives, there's maybe $700 worth of them in the R6, so you're effectively paying $800 for a 6-bay Thunderbolt RAID enclosure. That doesn't strike me as being a crazy price for such a thing, which sort of implies a storage vendor is, for a change, not marking the included drives up 50% for no good reason.

True, but it's more a matter of wanting to know and control the drives that are in it than trying to save a few bucks.
 
If it's a RAID-5 it's supposed to make the data safe when one drive fails, but if that happens, can you install a new good drive to replace the dead one? Or do you need to pay alot of money to apple to do such a basic thing?
Also, what is the effective speed of it? Thunderbolt capabilities are one thing but true speed with the drives limitations etc. is where it counts.
 
There's a reference on the Promise site to a "Pegasus HDD/SSD compatibility list" and a note that Pegasus can use SATA 6G HDD and SSDs. I can't find the compatibility list so I'll give them a call later. I'm also interested to see if a RAID set can span devices (Promise says you can daisy-chain six of the Pegasus units).

I just got done with a Live Support representative asking about the compatibility list referenced in the FAQ. He said the list will be posted shortly once finalized.
 
If it's a RAID-5 it's supposed to make the data safe when one drive fails, but if that happens, can you install a new good drive to replace the dead one? Or do you need to pay alot of money to apple to do such a basic thing?
Also, what is the effective speed of it? Thunderbolt capabilities are one thing but true speed with the drives limitations etc. is where it counts.


Promise is claiming 800MB/s with the 6-bay unit and 500MB/s with the 4-bay unit. That sounds like they're probably using 6Gb/s technology. I'm looking forward to seeing some real-world figures.

The promise (sorry...) of a drive compatibility list strongly indicates the drives will be user-replaceable.
 
I just got done with a Live Support representative asking about the compatibility list referenced in the FAQ. He said the list will be posted shortly once finalized.


I'm glad you got an answer. By the time I called it was after hours. I hope to hear back tomorrow.
 
12 TB Thunderbolt Raid Array

12 TB Thunderbolt Raid Array

I tested a pre-release version set up raid zero of the 12TB unit and was seeing just over 600 MBs but there were other devices attached, pre-release unit etc. so the production unit should do better. I've got a release version of the same 12TB unit showing up tomorrow. Unfortunately it doesn't ship with Thunderbolt cables, and the cables don't show up until the end of next week. <sigh>

I'll post findings as soon as I have all the pieces in place.

I'll also let you know about drive replacement. However I'd expect it will work as it does with every other major raid vendor. If there is a drive failure and it's under warranty, you contact them, they send out a replacement and you mail in the problematic drive and if you don't they bill you.

If it's not under warranty it doesn't matter, drive replacement is easy, do what you want.

If you expect that you're going to replace drives on your own and also expect warranty service, I predict you are going to be disappointed.

Cheers,

Steve
 
As far as replacing a faulty drive in a RAID set goes: make sure you've got a spare drive around at all times. When one disk in a RAID 5 volume breaks, the data is still there, but there's no safety whatsoever. If during that time a second drive breaks you've lost everything.

So you need to replace the malfunctioning drive ASAP. I wouldn't want to have to send it in for RMA and wait for the return shipment. So just get a spare replacement disk to keep in stock.
 
If it's a RAID-5 it's supposed to make the data safe when one drive fails, but if that happens, can you install a new good drive to replace the dead one? Or do you need to pay alot of money to apple to do such a basic thing?
Also, what is the effective speed of it? Thunderbolt capabilities are one thing but true speed with the drives limitations etc. is where it counts.

It's not an Apple product so I doubt you have to go through Apple to get new drives.
 
They promise to this document on their website for the Pegasus, so I guess that's the compatibility list you're looking for:

http://www.swissfilmmakers.com/hosted/promise.pdf

Ordered the 12TB today, looking forward to real-world-testing... I think the price is ok, was expecting more.

Yes, that is the type of list we are waiting for, but the list for which you provided the link pertains to a different product, the SmartStor NS4600, rather than the Pegasus RAID Storage with Thunderbolt.
 
Promise is claiming 800MB/s with the 6-bay unit and 500MB/s with the 4-bay unit. That sounds like they're probably using 6Gb/s technology. I'm looking forward to seeing some real-world figures.

The promise (sorry...) of a drive compatibility list strongly indicates the drives will be user-replaceable.

They better, there's no reason to do a RAID5 if you can't replace a faulty drive as soon as it's dead. I will not send in my RAID to some place where they fix it, no way.

I like how they market it with the Thunderbolt speeds of 10Gbit/s, there's hardly any drive around working at that speed.
HDD speeds compared to I/O speeds is the most misunderstood thing about computers and storage. Especially when I see a single external disk being marketed with SATA3 6Gbit/s, that's just hilarious and stupid.
 
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