HDX in a TB chassis on a current MacBookPro - ?

[MixerGuy]

Hi all

I'm curious to know

what is considered to be the best Thunderbolt chassis for HDX cards? for one or two cards)

Is anyone here running HDX or HDX-2 in a chassis - thunderbolt to a MacBookPro?

any downsides?

how is fan noise on the chassis?

how stable is it?

Way back in TDM land a chassis tended to make the rig "crashy" ... was wondering if that was still the case.

The laptop would be for mobile use without hardware inserts... just for simple overdubbing with a Duet... then for mixing back at the studio with quite a few hardware inserts..... HDX or HDX-2.

would be a 2018 MacBookPro - FWIIW.

asking for a pal.

thanks.

[Dan IceWood]

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/e...ress3dtb3.html

Solid AS F**k I carry one in my backpack - have a desktop + rack mount version - rack mount can be pulled from the chassis and still function - just without the added cooling provide by the chassis.

[MixerGuy]

pardon my ignorance - I'm used to Avid HDio cards attached directly to my HDX cards. (2) in my cheese grater.

So....
could I run a mac Book Pro (2013, that has Thunderbolt 2) with say an Apogee Ensemble Mk2 Thunderbolt, add a Sonnet Chassis (thunderbolt) and run HDX2 in the chassis... and basically have a very powerful rig all via Thunderbolt?

[Jay Levin]

The PE6R4 configuration was not "crashy" at all. In fact, the chassis layer was basically invisible to the Mac Pro on an OS level. It was just like having a ton of slots in the Mac itself, super-stable.

[MixerGuy]

Originally Posted by Jay Levin

The PE6R4 configuration was not "crashy" at all. In fact, the chassis layer was basically invisible to the Mac Pro on an OS level. It was just like having a ton of slots in the Mac itself, super-stable.

Glad you had good experiences with it. I saw some users have problems that they 100% narrowed down to the chassis...

[Jay Levin]

Originally Posted by MixerGuy

Glad you had good experiences with it. I saw some users have problems that they 100% narrowed down to the chassis...

Not to quibble, but I think it's highly likely that they had a chassis prior to the PE6R4.

I'm sure there have been "crashy" chassis, just not that one.

JSL

[jsvalmont]

I have 2 HDX cards in a Magma 3T TB2 chassis using an Apple TB2-3 converter cable and it’s rock solid. Used with both a 2017 MacBook Pro and iMac Pro. It’s definitely not quiet though so you will need a solution for that. It should also be noted that TB2 chassis may actually be the way to go, depending on your needs, since the longest TB2 cables are longer than the TB3 cables (for the purpose of putting the chassis in a machine room). TB2 even has these extra long and super expensive cables (Corning) but I tried these and their lifespan is not very long as I went through 2 of them and both went bad. The warranty on them is a pathetic one year so they pretty much seem to know that they don’t expect them to last long for whatever reason.

[mattrixx]

Yes, I can vouch for those Corning TB2 Optical cables. They are amazing, however, for some reason (I'm am suspecting heat in the modules at each end) they fail after a couple of years... aand, they're really expensive.
My most recent one has lasted the longest and I think due to making sure I took the protective (dark blue) plastic off of the modules at each end (much like what you would see on the screen of a new LCD remote out something). On my first optical cables, I did not notice it was even there. Hence the suspect of heat!