External storage systems Questions????

[TruestPain]

Looking for the best performance external hard-drive, prefferabley ones that run at 7200 RPM's or more and that are compatible for a Mac mini OS X Server, i7 2.66 ghz quadcore processor, 8gb RAM, 2 x 2 TB-HDD.


Now I know i already have enough system hard-drive space and a spare with in the machine itself, however both drives run at 5200 RPM's and I do not want to record onto the system drive itself nor the spare, i will be using that for other use.

Looking for external equipment that will run at 7200 RPM's or more, compatible for the system that I currently am waiting on arrival for.

[TruestPain]

I also have questions about the differences between the FireWire (400/800), Thunderbolt and SDD's ?

[TruestPain]

Also... a point in the right direction for the least noisy externals OR enclosed storage devices.

[TruestPain]

bump

[Craig F]

these are a good choice http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firew...W800_FW400_USB

[TruestPain]

Copy. Thank you sir.

[TruestPain]

Would a fanless external drive or a fanless anything be safe?

Perhaps that would overheat quicker under long strenuous sessions?

[TimothyJohn]

Originally Posted by TruestPain

Looking for the best performance external hard-drive, prefferabley ones that run at 7200 RPM's or more and that are compatible for a Mac mini OS X Server, i7 2.66 ghz quadcore processor, 8gb RAM, 2 x 2 TB-HDD.


Now I know i already have enough system hard-drive space and a spare with in the machine itself, however both drives run at 5200 RPM's and I do not want to record onto the system drive itself nor the spare, i will be using that for other use.

Looking for external equipment that will run at 7200 RPM's or more, compatible for the system that I currently am waiting on arrival for.

I think you mean 5400 rpm. The suggestion above for OWC drives is good, if you don't need it to be bus powered. I have a laptop, so bus power is important to me. Make sure, if it's a 7200rpm disk, that the cache, or buffer is at least 8mb. But it would be better if it was 16-32mb.

You asked about thunderbolt. You can get the thunderbolt to firewire adapter for about $30. It does pass bus power. I tested it with both my Glyph drives. Interesting, the read speed is a hair faster, but the write speed is a hair slower.

I did acquire a laCie rugged 256gb thunderbolt ssd. I haven't tested it with Pro Tools yet, but have tested it as a scratch drive for video using Adobe Premiere Elements 11. Outstanding portable bus powered solution. Nothing else comes close in terms of price/performance/reliability. In addition, Pro tools is now compatible with ssd's as scratch drives as far as I know. I'm anticipating great performance considering the incredible speed and bandwidth. I'm getting write speeds of >310mps and read speeds of >375mps.

In terms of fanless, the above ssd is fanless, as are the OWC bus powered drives. They get hot to the touch, but that is their method of heat dissipation. Nothing unsafe about it. Glyph also makes a Portagig, but the buffer size (8mb) is smaller than say the OWC 1.0 tb mercury elite pro mini, (32mb).

Tim

[TruestPain]

Thanks Tim. i appreciate the information.. I'm going to look into it a bit further...


Very much appreciate on the information provided here.

[John_Toolbox]

Originally Posted by TruestPain

I also have questions about the differences between the FireWire (400/800), Thunderbolt and SDD's ?

Speed is the primary difference. Note that everything gets advertised differently, Megabytes(MB) or Megabits(Mb) can easily be confused so I'm listing everything here in MB.

There are two speeds you need to be aware of:

1. Actual speed capability of the drive itself(Read Speed and Write Speed)

For spinning disks, obviously A 7200 RPM drive will be faster than a 5400RPM, etc. A bigger cache is also always better.

For SSDs, there are no moving parts, so the comparison is strictly how fast they are, the type of flash memory they use, the controller, etc. You realy need to read the specs of SSDs before buying, the performance between various makes and models can be very different. Annandtech has some great articles that will explain what to look for when buying an SSD.

2. Theoretical speed limit of the bus you are using:

FW400 = 50MB/s
USB 2.0 = 60MB/s*
FW800 = 100MB/s
Gigagbit Ethernet = 125MB/s
SATA II(3.0Gb/s) = 375MB/s
USB 3.0 = 625MB/s
SATA III(6.0Gb/s) = 750MB/s
Thunderbolt = 1250MB/s

Basically, there will always be a bottleneck. Also be aware that these theoretical numbers are not necessarily what you'll get in a real world scenario. A good example of this is USB 2.0, which is very inconsistent when doing file transfers. Even though FW400 is "theoretically" slower than USB 2.0, it's more consistent and reliable, and therefore better for recording audio than USB 2.0.

Example 1: Put a 500MB/s SSD into a FW800 SATA II case. The SATA II connection bottlenecks the SSD to 375MB/s, and the FW800 connection bottlnecks everything to 100MB/s.

Example 2: Put a 7200 RPM 1TB Drive in a SATA III Thunderbolt case. Lets say the 7200 RPM drive can read and write at 75 MB/s. In this example, you are wasting your money on the thunderbolt case, a cheaper FW800 case would probably be more than the drive would ever handle.