Recommendation for Thunderbolt hard drive?

[reichman]

I'm hoping that a Thunderbolt drive will outperform the Firewire 800 drive I have connected to my new laptop. I have a session that chokes on that drive using Firewire 800, but performs perfectly on eSATA on my Mac Pro (same hard drive).

Anyone with firsthand experience of Thunderbolt outperforming Firewire?

Thanks in advance.

[Craig F]

no direct experience yet but have to ask what is the actual drive in the case that is connected via the FW800. if it's a 5400 RPM that could be the problem

[reichman]

Good question. I have a Barracuda 7200RPM 2TB drive. I think it's one of the good ones, 64MB cache, etc.

This mechanism in my Firewire 800 enclosure performs well, except for the most demanding sessions. The same mechanism in my eSATA enclosure performs better, and doesn't choke on the session in question.

So eSATA is better than Firewire. We all know that. But there are only a few Thunderbolt drives out there now, and the reports on Amazon's reviews are mixed.

[Craig F]

OWC has a few http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/

I'd think there is a shop or two in NY that services the pro market like Melrose Mac does here in LA.
That may have some models in house and a test rig

[Guy McDude]

Are the smaller bus powered TBolt drives:
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/buffalo+thunderbolt
"legal" for a PT 10 MBox Pro 3 rig?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Guy McDude

Are the smaller bus powered TBolt drives:
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/buffalo+thunderbolt
"legal" for a PT 10 MBox Pro 3 rig?

Not the ones with 5400 rpm drives in them. You have to look at the detailed specs.

Darryl

[reichman]

It's a new world out there with Pro Tools 10's lax drive requirements. My guess is that with PT10 and not-very-demanding sessions, 5400rpm drives might be fine.

I purchased the Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt 7200rpm drive and am testing it now. So far, it performs as fast as SATA on my Mac Pro, but the great thing is that I'm getting SATA speeds on my laptop! Very happy so far.

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test clocked it at 170/180 MB sec read/write.

There are LOTS of factors that affect drive performance, including how full the drive is, but even with all things considered, the GoFlex solution looks pretty good right now.

[Guy McDude]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Not the ones with 5400 rpm drives in them. You have to look at the detailed specs.

Darryl

Thanks, butI thought the sessions were loaded into ram anyway, no?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Guy McDude

Thanks, butI thought the sessions were loaded into ram anyway, no?

With what versions of Pro Tools? Most Mbox 3 Pro Tools users don't have any timeline cache option, that is a HD or CPTK only feature.

And no, not even with disk caching in Pro Tools 10 HD/CPTK can you avoid all problems with slow disks. And at which point does saving $50 or $100 or so on a disk drive and risking having problems with Pro Tools starts to be justified? Be safe and follow the minimum system requirements.

At this time I personally would not buy a boot, sample or audio drive that was not an SSD. Folks with huge sample libraries might want a cheaper per GB spinning disk. Spinning disk for me has been relegated to backup/archive devices only.

Darryl

[Craig F]

Originally Posted by Guy McDude

Thanks, butI thought the sessions were loaded into ram anyway, no?

not as much as you might think