Im looking to expand my storage by adding an external Thunderbolt drive.
As of now, im having my samples and libraries on one external 1TB harddrive connected via USB 2 on my iMac 2011 (does not support USB3). Its really slow when loading big libraries and etc. but I have managed to live with it over some time now.
But I think its about time to upgrade to a Thunderbolt drive to store and run my samples from as my current drive is quite full aswell.

Im looking for a minium 2 drive bay solution with options to swap the HDD when I need to.
I plan on running it in RAID 1 in the beginning and maybe switch over to RAID 0 if the speeds are much faster and when I have the money to buy another HDD to backup incase something goes wrong in RAID 0.


I have looked at the Lacie 2Big Thunderbolt drives and the Pegasus J4 and R4.
Im most interested in the Lacie because I can get the 6TB version for a good price ,but I have heard mixed experiences with fan noise. Some say its good and some say its loud.


Please share your setup or idés on how you run things. And if you have any experience with the Lacie line and Pegasus line.

 

i have been looking at the same thing i don't have thunderbolt yet but am planing on getting a new Mac Pro when they come out but for now they have HD that have firewire and thunderbolt or just thunderbolt with a thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter untill i get a thunderbolt Mac Pro i would like to see also what people thing

also looking at the new AU Apollo thunderbolt interface

 

I use Pegasus J4 with SSDs

 

Wow, hows the performance going for you and are you running it in RAID? Could you share your experience and maybe tell us a little about your setup?

 

Non-Raid. Running 4x 512GB SSDs as separate volumes. 3 are for my libraries and 1 is for recording. Then connect thundertbolt to my Macbook Pro. I got the idea from another forum. Tried it, and it works great! The SSDs read fast, the Pegasus is quiet and doesn't get hot. Could ask for more...may another one *yes* . Best money I spent this year. Never going back to traditional drives, except to make backups.

 

Sounds like a awesome setup you got there, but at the moment that will be too expensive for me.
Whats the read and write speed from the external disk your getting with the Thunderbolt?

Thanks for sharing

 

~470 MB/s Read, ~350 MB/s write

 

The problem is that my iMac doesnt support USB3. Thanks though.

 

@iSwingWood your set up sounds impressive
Something to think about.
I've got a friend, a maniac of this stuff who'll love it ;)
But for the moment it seems pretty expensive.
The box is expensive the drives are expensive too (maybe waiting a bit for more market options)
and not to be use for just for seeding torrentz!

Do you get a link for the mentioned thread? MacRumors?

 

Was in the hardware section of EastWest forum I think. You can also out 4 regular drives in it. The cost of the enclosure is priceless for a thunderbolt connection. Also check out Akitio.com for alternatives.

 

I understand, but the iMac dont have a eSATA port either. Lol.