Does a quiet FW800 disk array exist?
November 15, 2010 5:57 PM Subscribe
What are your recommendations for a quiet, reliable, FW800 RAID array for home use?
I am looking for a quiet and reliable two- or four-bay RAID array that will store 4 TB (2 TB in mirrored RAID) or more, that runs reasonably quiet and supports FireWire 800.
What recommendations do you have for such an array? I looked at the LaCie 2big Quadra 4 TB, but some users report they are loud and unreliable.
I'm not looking for a NAS, but a disk array I can hook up directly to a Mac over FireWire 800, with its own RAID controller.
(Ideally you will have personal experience with this array, and are not pointing to Google search results. Thanks in advance.)
I am looking for a quiet and reliable two- or four-bay RAID array that will store 4 TB (2 TB in mirrored RAID) or more, that runs reasonably quiet and supports FireWire 800.
What recommendations do you have for such an array? I looked at the LaCie 2big Quadra 4 TB, but some users report they are loud and unreliable.
I'm not looking for a NAS, but a disk array I can hook up directly to a Mac over FireWire 800, with its own RAID controller.
(Ideally you will have personal experience with this array, and are not pointing to Google search results. Thanks in advance.)
We just got a ProAvio 8-disk MiniSAS array for one of our video editors, and it's decently quiet (We filled it with 5 WD RE4 2TB drives). They have a 4-disk firewire version with a built-in RAID controller too...
Drobo also seems to get a lot of press. A traditional RAID setup may be more reliable.
posted by schmod at 8:20 PM on November 15, 2010
Drobo also seems to get a lot of press. A traditional RAID setup may be more reliable.
posted by schmod at 8:20 PM on November 15, 2010
Oh, also keep in mind that you need to make sure you buy drives that play nicely in a RAID configuration. There are a handful of consumer-grade drives today that are known to not do this. Most of the drive manufacturers will gladly sell you a RAID-friendly drive for slightly more money per disk.
posted by schmod at 8:23 PM on November 15, 2010
posted by schmod at 8:23 PM on November 15, 2010
A Drobo FW 800 RAID array (4 tb total?) has been sitting on my labmate's desk connected to his Macbook pro for at least two years. No problems, seems quiet enough.
posted by rockindata at 9:50 PM on November 15, 2010
posted by rockindata at 9:50 PM on November 15, 2010
I have two FireWire 800 OWC Mercury Pro Qx2 arrays. Each has four-2TB drives in it, and one mirrors the other, total usable space 6TB. I can survive up to 5 out of 8 hard drive failures without losing data. I used Western Digital Green Power drives in them, with no problems. But I had another iteration where I used different drives (same capacity). The array seemed to accept the unmatched drives just fine.
You can use them in Raid 0, 1, 5, 10. They come driveless for $299 each. Quiet fan operation, and they are built very solidly. These things are heavy. Highly recommended from santaliqueur.
posted by santaliqueur at 10:09 PM on November 15, 2010
You can use them in Raid 0, 1, 5, 10. They come driveless for $299 each. Quiet fan operation, and they are built very solidly. These things are heavy. Highly recommended from santaliqueur.
posted by santaliqueur at 10:09 PM on November 15, 2010
I just ordered this: Western Digital My Book Studio II - 4TB (2 x 2 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/800/eSATA Desktop External Hard WDH2Q40000N from Amazon. You can read the reviews.
I already have had 4 of these, which I originally bought in April 2009, and have run continuously, 24/7-365: Western Digital My Book Studio II - 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N also bought through Amazon.
So, I've run the 2TB ones in RAID1 configuration for about 18 months now. I use them as music servers. They've been performing flawlessly. Never had a single problem with them. I've had them hooked up to a G4 (PPC) mini as well as to my late 2009 27" i7 iMac. I've had them daisy chained, and I've also had them run through a FW hub, (FW400 on the PPC and FW800 on the iMac) as well as through a USB hub. Absolutely reliable. They've been through several abrupt power outages (I live in a 1928 building with wiring that old), and have come through without any issues. It's been about 18 months, and as I mentioned, they're pretty much run 24/7-365.
They are very quiet and also power-efficient (WD Green Drives).
That said, I've only used them as media servers. I have not used them for any video editing or music production purposes. I know some people use them that way (read the reviews), but considering these are 5400 RPM drives, I cannot imagine they are suited to such tasks. Another issue: they tend to go to sleep fairly soon, if you're not using them, and it can take 10+ seconds to spin back up. But they are perfectly silent, and run cool.
I know that older versions of the My Books had issues with FW and OSX, but I've never experienced them, and I speculate that WD probably solved whatever the issues were. Note, that the version I linked to is specified as formatted for Macs from the factory, and compatible with TimeMachine.
Bottom line, I've ordered the 4TB versions, and based on my experience with the 2TB ones, I think it'll work out fine.
posted by VikingSword at 10:41 PM on November 15, 2010
I already have had 4 of these, which I originally bought in April 2009, and have run continuously, 24/7-365: Western Digital My Book Studio II - 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 400/800/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive WDH2Q20000N also bought through Amazon.
So, I've run the 2TB ones in RAID1 configuration for about 18 months now. I use them as music servers. They've been performing flawlessly. Never had a single problem with them. I've had them hooked up to a G4 (PPC) mini as well as to my late 2009 27" i7 iMac. I've had them daisy chained, and I've also had them run through a FW hub, (FW400 on the PPC and FW800 on the iMac) as well as through a USB hub. Absolutely reliable. They've been through several abrupt power outages (I live in a 1928 building with wiring that old), and have come through without any issues. It's been about 18 months, and as I mentioned, they're pretty much run 24/7-365.
They are very quiet and also power-efficient (WD Green Drives).
That said, I've only used them as media servers. I have not used them for any video editing or music production purposes. I know some people use them that way (read the reviews), but considering these are 5400 RPM drives, I cannot imagine they are suited to such tasks. Another issue: they tend to go to sleep fairly soon, if you're not using them, and it can take 10+ seconds to spin back up. But they are perfectly silent, and run cool.
I know that older versions of the My Books had issues with FW and OSX, but I've never experienced them, and I speculate that WD probably solved whatever the issues were. Note, that the version I linked to is specified as formatted for Macs from the factory, and compatible with TimeMachine.
Bottom line, I've ordered the 4TB versions, and based on my experience with the 2TB ones, I think it'll work out fine.
posted by VikingSword at 10:41 PM on November 15, 2010
The Drobo's have a deserved excellent reputation, and come in USB/firewire 800 versions as well as the more commonly known NAS version.
Here's a 4 disk one with 4TB of (WD 1TB green) drives included; they also come drive-free if you want to use your own drives.
They also use a self-healing modification of RAID they call BeyondRaid - it's kinda harder to describe, but it's substantially more flexible in terms of storage management than RAID 1 or 5.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:36 AM on November 16, 2010
Here's a 4 disk one with 4TB of (WD 1TB green) drives included; they also come drive-free if you want to use your own drives.
They also use a self-healing modification of RAID they call BeyondRaid - it's kinda harder to describe, but it's substantially more flexible in terms of storage management than RAID 1 or 5.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:36 AM on November 16, 2010
Oh, the drobo spec is 20.9dB to 24.2 dB which is pretty accurate; the fan is whisper quiet in normal operation, and usually quieter than the PC it's plugged into.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:43 AM on November 16, 2010
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:43 AM on November 16, 2010
FWIW, I have taken possession of the 4TB My Book. I configured it to RAID1 (using supplied software) and I used SuperDuper to copy music files from one of my 2TB My Books onto the 4TB one. I have it hooked up to my iMac through FW800. Runs very quietly. It's been running for 24 hours so far, no problem - I've played music off of it, restarted the computer etc., and so far so good. Of course, it's only been 24 hours :).
posted by VikingSword at 10:41 AM on November 19, 2010
posted by VikingSword at 10:41 AM on November 19, 2010
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posted by Wild_Eep at 6:48 PM on November 15, 2010