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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 :)

anyone try runing 3 or 4tb drives in a promise r6 yet?

For what its worth I pulled the factory drives out of one of my R4s when they crashed and replace them with 3TB seagate barracudas.

Worked fine for a while, but then I had an instance where promise utility said all was well, but I got a "The disk you inserted is not readable" message upon boot.

Reformat and initialise twice and all is well again. Have lost faith in it being a super safe storage of data.

Im planning to move back to Sata storage via either the Lacie or ATTO.
 
You buy a RAID 5 drive to secure your storage and then try to muck with the drive parameters, with the possibility of failure? That doesn't make sense to me. But I'm admittedly paranoid about data. Seems sensible to buy two of these and chain em up. I'd like to see more, better Thunderbolt storage options, too, but I definitely don't want to take chances with the data along the way.
 
Meryem Ersoz said:
You buy a RAID 5 drive to secure your storage and then try to muck with the drive parameters, with the possibility of failure? That doesn't make sense to me. But I'm admittedly paranoid about data. Seems sensible to buy two of these and chain em up. I'd like to see more, better Thunderbolt storage options, too, but I definitely don't want to take chances with the data along the way.
Click to expand...

Only reason I jumped from the standard 2TB drives was because I had a crash where the unit reported 2 of them to be "dead". Worth noting that I was running raid 5 at the time but seeing as 2 drives out of the 4 bays crashed at the same time, I'm taking the storage hit versus safety and running Raid 10.
 
Yesterday, I took out the 4 x 2TB hard drives and replaced them with 4 x 512 GB SSD drives formatted with RAID 0 ... as soon as SSDs come down in price and go up in size this is the way to go ... testing with the AJA Disk Whack app I got Write speed of 574 MB/s and Read speed of 714 MB/s ... compared to 580 and 539 with the spinning disks.

Anyone tried 6 x SSDs in the 6bay Promise enclosure?

Neil
 
Andrew clemson said:
Only reason I jumped from the standard 2TB drives was because I had a crash where the unit reported 2 of them to be "dead". Worth noting that I was running raid 5 at the time but seeing as 2 drives out of the 4 bays crashed at the same time, I'm taking the storage hit versus safety and running Raid 10.
Click to expand...

That happens more often than not in these types of arrays. Sometimes it's a power irregularity or other fault with the unit that can damage multiple drives in the same incident. Or there are times when a drive may fail and create a power spike or something else of its own that can take an adjacent HDD out as well.

As always, maintain a reliable backup of some kind. Don't ever trust RAID-5 to be an adequate means of preserving your data. It's too bad that so many RAID solution providers market it as being such a thing.
 
Yeah Ive kind of lost faith in the units as a long term storage solution.

At least for me to use in the field. Same or similar problem as happened to the other guys I know locally working with them. Supposedly there is a terminal workaround which can force your drives back online, but wouldn't want to use that for anything other than recovery to a second drive really.

Really hoping that OWCs jupiter miniSAS will be what I'm looking for.

What would you say is the safest low cost portable system? Remember Im in and out of 4x4s and in the heat most of the time.... ;)
 
Andrew clemson said:
Yeah Ive kind of lost faith in the units as a long term storage solution.
Click to expand...

There isn't one single hard-drive or RAID type storage system that I would trust for long term storage or archival purposes. For field use, the Promise Pegasus are a non-starter, they are not built for it. They're made for the desktop and that's it. If they were going to be on a cart, I would at least want shock-mounted drives and PCBs. Very few systems have that sort of thing.... I end up building my own RAID boxes for that reason alone most of the time.

Supposedly there is a terminal workaround which can force your drives back online, but wouldn't want to use that for anything other than recovery to a second drive really.
Click to expand...

Yes. And recovery is when you would want to use it. These units are pretty smart and when drives are locked out they usually have a good reason. Sometimes it can be caused by external issues, but you should test the drive fully outside the unit before putting it back and bringing it online.

Really hoping that OWCs jupiter miniSAS will be what I'm looking for.
Click to expand...

I looked them over at NAB and I can't say that I saw anything about them to set them apart from 99% of the other RAID products on the market. For the most part, everything out there is using the same simplistic rack designs, same onboard host controllers from Symbios, ATTO or LSI... Most running an embedded Linux for a Javascript / HTTP (typically Apache) management interface. Some don't even have that. There really isn't a whole lot out there that jumps out as being unique. Which really surprises me because the market is so over-saturated with hundreds of companies all providing the same exact thing. Makes no sense, IMO. So many of these companies come and go. The ones that stick around are those who get directly sponsored or promoted, even partially owned, by the big hard drive companies and the ones who provide good enough advertising and customer service to keep people coming back. Maxx Digital is a good example of that. Their customer service is great.

What would you say is the safest low cost portable system? Remember Im in and out of 4x4s and in the heat most of the time.... ;)
Click to expand...

I would look for something that's built to operate on 6 or 8 2.5" HDDs and install 512GB SSDs in there. I don't know what prices are like in Dubai or other areas you frequent, but the bigger/faster SSDs are dropping in price like crazy here lately. Or build your own... I'm dreaming up a solution along those lines as we speak. Haven't decided if I'm going to prototype it or not, but I'm thinking of building an SSD-based RAID system that fits in a Pelicase along with a REDMAG SSD reader and the whole thing connects via a single Thunderbolt cable. The big hang-up with it is power. But I think I have it worked out where it can power itself from common battery types and I'm liking the 20V lithium packs used by common power tools like the ones from Milwaukee and DeWalt. Rugged, cheap, available everywhere.

OTOH, if you're shooting all RED, as I am these days, I don't bother with offloading and transfers and all that in the field anymore. Just not worth the hassle, the extra equipment, etc.. I just carry around enough REDMAG SSDs to survive the journey and then offload when shooting is done for the day and I'm back at the office/studio or base camp or whatever. On that note, those 512GB REDMAGs can't get here soon enough! But I'll rock 7 x 256GB SSDs per EPIC for each day of shooting and that's usually more than enough unless I shoot lots of high speed. ...Which does happen as most of my corporate clients have figured out the whole 5K high-speed thing now and realize the advantages for pulling stills or retiming shots. Once again, where are those 512GB REDMAGs??? Arrrgh!

For that approach -- shoot all day, offload later, I still use a RED Station reader along with a Macbook Pro to spot-check footage or to check certain things here and there. But I trust the SSDs for storing the data more than I trust a field offload to other media. Anything I can do to NOT wipe media in the field is a blessing.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
That happens more often than not in these types of arrays. Sometimes it's a power irregularity or other fault with the unit that can damage multiple drives in the same incident. Or there are times when a drive may fail and create a power spike or something else of its own that can take an adjacent HDD out as well.

As always, maintain a reliable backup of some kind. Don't ever trust RAID-5 to be an adequate means of preserving your data. It's too bad that so many RAID solution providers market it as being such a thing.
Click to expand...

How about an honest opinion from you about their greediness... Why would they up the price when it should be lover by now?
 
Paul Ellington said:
How about an honest opinion from you about their greediness... Why would they up the price when it should be lover by now?
Click to expand...

Don't know what to say there, Paul... Thought I threw out my input earlier in this thread... All HDD makers and storage integrators are raping customers on pricing right now. Still using flooding that happened over a year ago as a weak-ass excuse. Yes, prices should be lower, but they're not. Prices are still high across the board, across the industry.

As for what happened to you, there really is no explanation other than the obvious... You got screwed. I've had vendors try and pull that sort of crap on me before... Sometimes I can talk to the right person and get them to honor their price, sometimes not. Sometimes I can tell them where to stick it and go somewhere else, other times I have to suck it up and buy it anyway. What they did was slimy and constitutes poor business practice and customer relations. If they invoiced you at a certain price and you paid that price, it became a binding sales contract the instant money was transferred. Technically they broke the law (here in the USA) if they came back and told you that it was going to cost more. But what are you going to do? I guess you could always have your lawyer send them a nasty letter, which costs you $$$ and they will probably shrug it off and still refuse to sell you the item at the original price. You could take them to court for $$$ and time... That's life... And greedy people, or those who are just assholes when it comes to money or dealing with their customers, are everywhere.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Don't know what to say there, Paul... Thought I threw out my input earlier in this thread... All HDD makers and storage integrators are raping customers on pricing right now. Still using flooding that happened over a year ago as a weak-ass excuse. Yes, prices should be lower, but they're not. Prices are still high across the board, across the industry.

As for what happened to you, there really is no explanation other than the obvious... You got screwed. I've had vendors try and pull that sort of crap on me before... Sometimes I can talk to the right person and get them to honor their price, sometimes not. Sometimes I can tell them where to stick it and go somewhere else, other times I have to suck it up and buy it anyway. What they did was slimy and constitutes poor business practice and customer relations. If they invoiced you at a certain price and you paid that price, it became a binding sales contract the instant money was transferred. Technically they broke the law (here in the USA) if they came back and told you that it was going to cost more. But what are you going to do? I guess you could always have your lawyer send them a nasty letter, which costs you $$$ and they will probably shrug it off and still refuse to sell you the item at the original price. You could take them to court for $$$ and time... That's life... And greedy people, or those who are just assholes when it comes to money or dealing with their customers, are everywhere.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the response, no lawyer needed. I need to find a better storage solution just on general principle.
 
Jeff, would you care to elaborate on how you build shock-mounted RAIDs? I think that sounds like a great idea, but don't see any pre-built ones on google. There are, of course, foam-surrounded rack cases, but it sounds like you go the extra step for the drives themselves? I've read about potential problems when people use strong rubber bands instead of screws to mount 3.5" drives... something about the high RPMs causing extra movement... I forgot the details.
 
Two different interfaces for two different purposes. Systems with thunderbolt don't have 6G SAS and vice versa. Thunderbolt offers the ability to connect devices beyond storage, such as video processors and other I/O modules. Thunderbolt can be used to provide 1 or 2 6G SAS / SATA channels, but falls short of larger SAS RAID hosts with many channels.

Or let's put it this way... If you're considering a Pegasus RAID,then you're shopping for an iMac or MacBook pro and 6G SAS/SATA isn't a viable option anyway. The exception to that is if you're trying to plan for a future system purchase. And that's kinda pointless, IMO. If you're shopping for a RAID for a new thunderbolt-equipped PC with the ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards that have thunderbolt on them now, I would say drop in a good SAS/SATA RAID card and save your thunderbolt ports for other things.
 
Jeff, thanks for your time. I'm PC based, so do you know if the Pegasus would work with a PC? I'd also have to upgrade my motherboard so that it works with Thunderbolt.
 
The Pegasus hardware will work with any thunderbolt equipped system, Mac or pc doesn't matter. However, the management utilities for the Thunderbolt RAID are Mac only at the moment.

Personally, I wouldn't upgrade a motherboard just to get thunderbolt. You would do better with a good RAID card like an ATTO R680 and a pair of G-Speed ES Pro units. You can get 18 TB of RAID-5 storage running at 900MB/s with 3TB drives in those.
 
What if your trying to hook up a raid 5 to a mbp. basically i got a scarlet and im using an old system with slow storage. so i'm thinking either a fast usb3 raid 5 or an r6. do you think i could buy the 6tb drive r6 and run 3tb drives in it now that they are selling an 18tb one on apple and bhphoto? cuz i could totally afford the 6tb r6 and just replace it with 3tb drives down the road, but only if its really faster then say the owc rack mount, or the stardom 4 bay usb3 raid also sold on macsales.com. if 4-6 drives doesn't saturate a usb3 as a raid 5 i have no reason to pay more for thunderbolt. plus i haven't bought the mac yet, been saving up and just dying to spring on a faster system with faster storage...i want a laptop for mobility but i'd like a raid so i can edit from the thing too when not mobile with some degree of safety from drive failure but still speedy, so not interested in raid 1 options for my mac
 
The Pegasus units are much faster than anything you're going to get over USB3. I have two of them and they have been mostly reliable. I did have one of the 2TB drives die in an R6 unit just recently. Promise support was very responsive and got a new one shipped right out. Once the warranty is up on the unit and another drive bites the dust, I'll pull all of them and replace with something bigger/better.

They are selling 3TB drives as options now. I would recommend getting the unit with 3TB drives if that is your plan. The way the units are priced, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to buy a lower capacity unit and replace drives. That voids the warranty anyway. I believe they are testing 4TB drives to add as an option early next year.

The Pegasus R6's work great on the MBP's with Thunderbolt, retina and older. I have one I use with my MBP systems and another that lives on an iMac. The one on the iMac sees a lot of use as it's the primary computer at home and the family beats on it for everything. That's the one that had the failed drive. We keep regular backups so no worries, but none of the data was lost in the drive replacement and rebuild process.

I've never used the Stardom RAID you're talking about, but have used a couple similar USB3 units. They're just fine, but I'm much happier with the Pegasus R6 units. For a 4-drive RAID instead of 6-drives, USB3 would suffice OK. The R6 on Thunderbolt runs at much faster rates than USB3 can handle.

Personally, I'm not a fan of USB3. Other than general convenience and decently fast stream rates, if the devices play nice together, it's a really crappy standard. Actually, it downright sucks ass. There's a good reason that Intel, the original creators of USB, fought hard to not support and include USB3 in their products. A good eSATA or SAS setup will trounce USB3 any day for storage performance. Even if only using a single 6Gbps channel. Thunderbolt has strict compliance standards for compatibility and certification. A bit over double the top speed compared to USB3 and 1/10th the latency with even less overhead. It's a huge improvement, but also more expensive with far fewer options to pick from.
 
I was really amped on the Drobo 5D when I saw that coming out. Cuz I have no clue what my needs are, so the thought of an expandable system worked well for me. But it doesn't seem to do Raid 5, which is what I'd like to run for both speed and having the illusion of at least some level of protection. I am on a gig that provides my gear since March, but once it ends I want to be ready to move on, so I kitted out a Scarlet and am about ready to get some faster storage and a mac that isn't completely a door stop. Thanks for the advice, looks like I am gonna go for the R6 if nothing better comes to market soon... I'd love it if they'd sell the empty R6 units like they once said they were gonna...


Update:

According to someone at macsales.com the 5D can do Raid 5. So now am wondering if it gets the same speeds, worse, or better then the R6 (as a raid 5 vs raid 5). because i like that it comes empty, that works well for me since i can slowly add to it

update X 2

According to Drobo themselves the R6 is my better bet for 4k, quite refreshing honesty out of them! Great service, informative, sad to see my money won't go to them!

So I am going to spring for the R6 when it comes to editing. Still am interested in saving money if I can buy it with 1tb drives and later on do a swap out to 3tb drives. Hoping to figure out if that is possible before I invest without knowing if I can up my capacity later on, or if the firmware is buggy with dif brands/etc. Those 18tb R6 drives look sick, but I can have the same thing and 6 spare drives for like the same price or less if I get the cheap R6 and just swap, I don't even need that kind of capacity yet, but down the road I will so that is why I want speedy expandability for a MBP semi mobile set up. I don't even care about the warranty I really just wanna know if the R6 has hardware/software/firmware limitations that will screw me at some point should I not expand it just so to their satisfaction.
 
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