Sonnet or Magma

[Cliffy_Boy]

The time is coming for a new Mac Pro trashcan for HDX. The options seem to be a Sonnet Echo Express III-D or a Magma ExpressBox 3T.

Both are 1k$.

Anyone have an opinion?

[Wolfgang Eller]

I wanted to have a rack solution and Sonnet is way cheaper in old europa than Magma.
For a year now, the Sonnet Echo Express IIIR is rock solid.

[Hugh-H]

Hello
We've tried them both and have gone with the Sonnets. The Sonnet has far better heat management and runs cooler with a lower fan noise. Our evaluations were done a bit less than a year ago.

Hugh

[loud neighbor]

Sonnet. Initially had the Magma - was too noisy.

I have the Echo Express III-R and the PCIe portion of it is really quiet. I'd advise against getting the "Mobile Rack Device Mounting Kit" - that sadly is not quiet. I've got 4 SSD's in it currently but the noise from the fans on the Sonnet add on kit is significant - even with the fans turned off on the actual drive enclosure that goes into the Sonnet mounting kit.

Looking into other (quieter) TB2 options to host the SSD's. The OWC "Thunderbay IV" is quieter (I've got one of those for older spindle drives). Will probably buy a second one with 4 SSD adapters...

[Ray JB]

Originally Posted by loud neighbor

Sonnet. Initially had the Magma - was too noisy.

I have the Echo Express III-R and the PCIe portion of it is really quiet. I'd advise against getting the "Mobile Rack Device Mounting Kit" - that sadly is not quiet. I've got 4 SSD's in it currently but the noise from the fans on the Sonnet add on kit is significant - even with the fans turned off on the actual drive enclosure that goes into the Sonnet mounting kit.

Looking into other (quieter) TB2 options to host the SSD's. The OWC "Thunderbay IV" is quieter (I've got one of those for older spindle drives). Will probably buy a second one with 4 SSD adapters...

Have you thought about the Blackmagic TB2 4 bay 2.5" ssd/hard-drive dock? I've not tried one but they look quite nice. Was considering getting one of these soon.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Ray JB

Have you thought about the Blackmagic TB2 4 bay 2.5" ssd/hard-drive dock? I've not tried one but they look quite nice. Was considering getting one of these soon.

$600 for the dock plus the cost of four SATA SSDs and you still are limited to slow SATA III/6 Gbps SSD speed over that Thunderbolt connection (and no you don't want to RAID those drives, but you could round robin over them if needed), or maybe more likely split sessions and samples. The selling point of that Dock for video work is you can move around content on SSDs, that rarely happens in Audio...

Meanwhile you can get a blazing fast PCIe (not SATA) based SSD. The leading example is the Lacie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 with ~1.2 GB/sec sustained read bandwidth and over 1GB/sec sustained write bandwidth. All in a much more compact package. Bit over $1k for 1TB in that blazing fast Thunderbolt SSD. Expect more Thunderbolt drives that use PCIe (not SATA) SSD to keep appearing as SATA dies off. Yes it depends how much SSD storage you need. But you can daisy chain these, and plus whatever you have on boot/system for other stuff.

[Wolfgang Eller]

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempossdproplus.html with 2 512GB SSDs.
Incredible fast (for a SATA drive).

[nhaudio]

We're using the Sonnet Echo Express III-R in two studios. While we've had a lot of stability issues since going HDX, I don't think the PCIe chassis' are to blame. I think they've been solid. We don't use any Mobile Rack Device add-ons, though.

But I still wish Apple had re-designed the Mac Pro WITH PCIe slots. OR, I wish AVID had seen where things were going and made HDX a Thunderbolt product instead of PCIe.

[Cliffy_Boy]

Thanks all. Great info.

I was hearing problems of Sonnet on Yosemite and 11.3. Is that resolved?

[Wolfgang Eller]

What kind of problems?