Fortunately, the ones I received from OWC were all very similar, as you will see: However, if one of the drives varies substantially, I know that one of the drives is not good, and I exchange it with the vendor or manufacturer. It is typical that -even among the same exact model and batch- the results will vary slightly among drives. Generally, whenever I configure any software RAID (which before now has nearly always been with Apple’s own Disk Utility software), I have traditionally liked to format each drive individually, run a disk repair (just to see if any errors appear) with Apple’s Disk Utility, and then test the speed of each drive individually with a tool like either AJA System Test or Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. JBOD is an acronym that means Just a bunch of disks. Here we will review the purpose (and my tests) with each RAID mode, in addition to JBOD ( Just a bunch of disks, which is non-RAID). This new release of SoftRAID adds RAID 4, RAID 5 and RAID 1+0 volumes. What OWC is bundling with the ThunderBay IV systems is SoftRAID version 5, which -according to the company- represents 2 years in development and 9 months of heavy testing. In order to offer more RAID options to its products, OWC has partnered with SoftRAID Inc., a company that has been in existence since 1996. RAID (and non-RAID) options with ThunderBay IV 4-bay system Since the ThunderBay IV 4-bay system has looping, you can daisy chain up to six devices plus one monitor, and (unlike many other Thunderbolt devices I have covered), includes a certified, double-shielded 1 Meter Thunderbolt cable. ![]() Looping Thunderbolt versus endpointĪs you may recall from some of my prior Thunderbolt articles and reviews, some Thunderbolt devices are endpoint, meaning they can’t be looped (daisy chained) with other Thunderbolt devices. Ahead in this article, I’ll be testing the actual speeds and actual performance with my own equipment. Not only is this more than enough for multiple layers of realtime uncompressed 1080p, mathematically it is also enough for multiple layers of true 4K (4096 x 2160) using ProRes 422 HQ. The capital B indicates that these are megabytes per second, not megabits per second. OWC states that the ThunderBay IV 4-bay 12TB Thunderbolt system offers sustained reading speeds of 894MB/s (using software RAID) and writing speeds of 863MB/s. There are electronics in the enclosure that convert the SATA ports on the removable drives to Thunderbolt on the back. There is a locking faceplate to keep the drives secure. OWC says that the enclosure protects the four internal drives while keeping them cool thanks to its “superior heat dissipation”. The ThunderBay IV has an aluminum enclosure. Which drives is OWC bundling with this unit? They are Toshiba DT01ACA300 7200 rpm 3.5 inch hard disk drives, with a SATA interface. Since the ThunderBay IV 4-bay 12TB Thunderbolt system comes with four drives, a very quick mental calculation indicates that each drive must be 3TB each, and that’s how the total capacity (when unformatted) is 12TB. modification of some iMacs to offer eSATA before Apple added Thunderbolt) here in ProVideo Coalition magazine and once interviewed the CEO in one of my podcasts. The company has been providing quality hardware products and support to the computer industry since 1988, and I have covered some of its products and services (i.e. ![]() Ahead I review the various available configuration options (JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 0+1, RAID 4, RAID 5) and compare their performance versus redundancy, logistical benefits of each one, and more.įor those unfamiliar, OWC is the short name for Other World Computing, sometimes referred to via its URL (). OWC offers other configurations too, with smaller or larger capacity, and now even some with Thunderbolt 2. Back in June, I published my first look article on the ThunderBay IV 4-bay 12TB Thunderbolt system with the palindromic price -in this configuration- of US$979, which has since been lowered to US$959.
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