Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

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mhschmieder
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Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

One of the biggest issues I had to deal with this weekend in deciding whether to get a new computer or to chance my old one working after however long it takes to receive a video card replacement, was what to do about hard drives, as I have about 10 TB of data in total.

At first, I was excited to see several brands that make enclosures for internal SATA drives, thinking I could avoid the cost of new drives by reusing the old ones from my 2010 MacPro. But then I noticed they all have wall warts, and I would need at least three and probably four (due to Time Machine). The only multi-drive solutions are 2.5" (vs. 3.5") only, or uber-expensive NAS-based solutions.

Then I saw that G-Tech has quite a few external drives with good quality and performance ratings, for almost any connection strategy you would need. So it seemed more ergonomic to buy their 10 TB USB3 drive and just get one external bay for the SATA drives to use while transferring data. These G-Tech drives are rated at 245 MB/s, and I bought two of them as I can partition the other one for Time Machine and Master Data and use the first one to combine all of my sample library drives. There wasn't much savings in buying a smaller one, and they had lower performance.

I almost made a mistake until I saw the USB3 drives, as the Thunderbolt drives looked the fastest, but then I was told they aren't compatible with the new iMacs as those need USB-c aka Thunderbolt 3, which is super-slow (a step back!). That's when I noticed the USB3 drives. I didn't realize USB3 is so fast -- possibly faster than the older internal SATA of 2010 MacPro's, as it turns out.

For internal drives, I think others have recently talked about the new Fusion Drives, which appeal to me as application read/write to scratch memory can happen on traditional drive topology without diminishing the life of the SSD part, which is highly sensitive to a maximum number of rewrites. I don't know if this is Apple-Specific technology and whether it is available in external drives as well.

The docking station that I bought is from Kingpin (it's called True Dock) and it can accept up to SATA 3, as well as SSD, in 2.5" or 3.5" size. So it seems a handy bridging device. Not the best solution for long-term use of internal SATA and SSD's though, as it is exposed to the air.

The 10 TB USB3 drives from G-Tech are only $400 each, which is significantly less than internal SATA's from Hitachi or Toshiba, and especially than SSD's. As I don't have a smart phone, I couldn't comparison-shop or do research on-line while going through this stressful computer drama this weekend, but Fry's has such a broad selection that I think I got a good overview of what's available and possible these days, even under the time duress of arriving an hour before they closed.

Perhaps someone else has done the research and know the exact performance relationship of all of the current available solutions, both internal and external. But it's also nice to know the bridging solutions, as I doubt I'm the only one who will have to go from a MacPro to an iMac this year due to the lack of appeal of the trash can (no internal drives) and the "long in the tooth" nature of both the trash can and the low-bang-for-buck Mac Mini.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mikehalloran »

There are some applications including Pro Tools that don't play well with Fusion drives. Having a spinner, they raise the internal temperature of an iMac. No thanks.

USB 3 is nearly as fast as SATA III (faster than SATA II). In both cases, platter speed is your limit, not the buss. I use docks that expose the drives instead of enclosures — no fans. Yea, there are external power supplies but no fans and you can change a drive by lifting one out and setting the other in.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

Thanks, Mike. Hope I didn't make a mistake getting a Fusion Drive based computer, but the timing of my crash couldn't have been worse as I have no backup computers/phones for internet access if my MacPro goes down.

And of course small businesses are shut from SAT afternoon until WED morning, and the big box retailers don't carry parts for Macs and usually aren't very mac-knowledgeable either (with the exception of Geek Squad specific employees at Best Buy; Fry's is good for peripherals and accessories so I split my buy between those two stores).

No one carries the trash can anyway. Even the older-by-now Mac Mini uses Fusion Drives.

Anyway, it's good to know that the docking solution is the best way to go for the old internal SATA drives during the transition period, and the relative benefits of today's external and "hosted internal" drive solutions, as I had to ramp up rather quickly on the last seven years of technological change since I didn't pay all that much attention while living in MacPro 2010 land due to waiting on a non-trash-can replacement to arrive eventually.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

Well, I goofed big time, due to my lack of easy access to comprehensive information after my MacPro died and having to make decisions just based on a few phone calls and what I could learn at big box retailers over the weekend.

I don't tend to memorize that many specs, once I've settled on choices, so was caught off-guard at just how big a step down it still is, to go from a MacPro to an iMac, in terms of storage drive speeds.

Although the G-Tech 10 TB USB3 drives that I bought, were the fastest available for drives designed as external drives, the paltry 245 MB/s is many magnitudes below the 3 GB/s and 6 GB/s of my internal SATA drives from my MacPro (not to mention the SSD PCIe card that I used as my system drive).

Given that it is also a bad idea to put Time Machine on the same hard drive -- even on a different partition -- I wasted time cloning my main data drive to a partition on my second 10 TB USB 3 drive.

I am now re-cloning all of my data to my 4 TB HGST Deskstar SATA drive, as the TrueDock external host for SATA and SSD can go up to 5 GB/s.

I figure that getting more memory will help my library use more than whatever performance loss I'm about to suffer from going from 6 GB/s (3 GB/s for my Vienna Instruments stuff that was on a separate, smaller drive), to 245 MB/s via the USB3 external drive.

The other 10 TB external drive will be reformatted for just one partition, dedicated exclusively to Time Machine and thus giving me even more back history available when there's a problem that a snapshot-in-time direct-copy backup drive can't handle. I of course exclude my library drive from TM backup as I have a library backup drive and most can be re-downloaded if necessary.

I still may have made the most practical decision for the short term though, as most of my drives are old and only 1 TB in size. So my backup strategy was getting complicated as I didn't have matching drive sizes once I kept bumping up the sizes of my main drives.

Now my main data/project drive will be less than 50% full, which should also help performance.

I don't think there's any way to use a PCIe SSD outside a computer, but there might be something else than can host the two blades, as I think the PCIe card can be bought without the blades anyway and that the blades are in a form that also works in other host topologies.

The TrueDock enclosure can also host my old 120 GB OWC Mercury SSD, but that's best as a backup strategy for a boot clone than anything else, as the SSD advantages diminish due to the USB3 limitations.

This upcoming Thunderbolt 3 dock from OWC looks interesting:

https://eshop.macsales.com/preorder/owc ... lt-3-dock/

I doubt it will help with throughput or with expanding the maximum transfer speed of hosted internal drives and SSD's, but I'll try to delve into the specs more deeply.

At least my TM-based recovery of my main system drive went swimmingly well, but I don't dare do any real work or launch DP on the new computer until I get my Time Machine backups set up properly going forward, and now that has to wait on an unfortunate second round of cloning my main project data drive.

If I hadn't already bought and formatted the second G-Tech drive, I probably would have just rushed to Fry's today (if open) and bought the one that Mike Halloran recommends for TM use.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

It turns out that OWC makes an external enclosure for single PCIe cards, for $259:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%2 ... fgod89gIhg

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/expansi ... fgodxykARA

Not sure why there are two separate product pages. There's an older version for Thunderbolt 2 that shows up on the back of my original shipping box for my Mercury Accelsior E2.

I'm going to have to give this some thought, if it is worth $259 to be able to retain my SSD for use with the iMac. Much of that will depend on how much disc space I need specifically for audio projects vs. photos, iTunes library, and downloads (which together make up the bulk of my main data drive). I can't check that during my disc clone operation, unfortunately.

Hmm, it only shows compatibility with the Late 2016 MacBook Pro's, so I wonder if that means it is NOT compatible with these brand-new 2017 iMacs, or they just haven't updated the product page?
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

I have a bit over 300 GB of audio project data, so I'd rather not make the 480 GB SSD my project drive as it could get too close to full too soon.

What makes the most sense, is to get the enclosure for the PCIe SSD and use it for Active Projects, for best performance (especially when multi-tracking drums and full bands), as this will also then force me to religiously back up after each session in order to keep the main data drive in sync.

I haven't been doing that as I haven't had the right setup to accomplish that workflow, and didn't want to keep blasting throwaway DVDr's. So I've simply had my main data drive and two rotating backup drives for latest and previous backups, along with Time Machine going back a year or more.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

Big Fail with the G-Tech USB3 drives: they turn themselves off when not in use (i.e. go to sleep)!.

My system settings are set to not allow this, but I guess external drives (it's been seven years since I've used any) have a mind of their own and can't be told otherwise?
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by daniel.sneed »

I second the idea of a dock for external HD versus enclosure.
I've used some for years now.

BTW, I fond some sort of protective rubber sleeves to store HDs not in use.
https://www.macway.com/fr/product/13944 ... smoke.html
Guess what, they are two parts, and just fit right over the HD when inserted on the dock.
With many holes to prevent heat, it seems a perfect fit.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

Cool; I've been storing mine in those covered stackable trays from newertechnology.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by Michael Canavan »

mhschmieder wrote:I almost made a mistake until I saw the USB3 drives, as the Thunderbolt drives looked the fastest, but then I was told they aren't compatible with the new iMacs as those need USB-c aka Thunderbolt 3, which is super-slow (a step back!). That's when I noticed the USB3 drives. I didn't realize USB3 is so fast -- possibly faster than the older internal SATA of 2010 MacPro's, as it turns out.
I'm curious as to why you were told this? USB-C should not be slow as it's supposed to use at least USB 3.1 speeds easily and Thunderbolt 3 is touted at 4.8GBs. It's not necessarily a new version of the protocol more a new version of the connector. At least that's what the tech geek I was listening to was explaining earlier today.

As far as external SSDs in regular old USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. I have an older Lacie Rugged mini case with an OWC SSD in it that gets roughly the same performance from USB 3 as it does Thunderbolt. Probably some mitigating factors here, but Black Magic puts it at 379mbs write 2013mbs read, compared to the internal SSD at 427mbs write and 453 read. I do know that I have gotten around 430mbs read out of an external cased USB 3.0 connected SSD, 1TB Crucial in a newer case (that died, so I can't recommend the enclosure)...
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mikehalloran »

SATA III is the speed bottleneck of an SSD as it's slower than TB and only a bit faster than USB 3.

To realize the speed potential of any version of TB requires multiple drives in certain flavors of a RAID array.

Here's a good article on the various types of TB and USB.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/usb-type-c- ... -them-all/
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mhschmieder »

Mike, thanks for explaining that, and it makes it clear why the individual USB-C drives sold at Fry's are slow.

I am amazed at how fast my internal SATA III drive is inside the Kingwin TrueDock, connecting to the computer via USB3 -- much faster than the $400 10 TB USB3 external drives that I bought from G-Tech.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by mikehalloran »

mhschmieder wrote:Mike, thanks for explaining that, and it makes it clear why the individual USB-C drives sold at Fry's are slow.

I am amazed at how fast my internal SATA III drive is inside the Kingwin TrueDock, connecting to the computer via USB3 -- much faster than the $400 10 TB USB3 external drives that I bought from G-Tech.
Spinners are even slower due to platter speed. I've always wondered about the SATA III rating on an HHD—SSDs can approach it but HHDs can't come close, again except in certain RAID arrays.

Enough drives in a RAID 10 array can maximize the speed of TB. It takes more with HHDs and consumes a lot more juice and runs way hotter... oh, you sacrifice capacity for speed... How fast do you really, really want it?
http://www.raid-calculator.com/raid-typ ... rence.aspx

What is not mentioned is that the greatest capacity is JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives). Not all enclosures support this.
https://www.storagecraft.com/blog/jbod- ... e-systems/
Last edited by mikehalloran on Sat Jul 08, 2017 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by Michael Canavan »

Sure, my confusion came from you saying USB-C is a step backwards, it's not.
I can get roughly 430mbs read speeds from a USB 3 enclosure on a 2012 MacBook pro and a 1TB crucial SSD, but a Thunderbolt Lacie case gets the previously mentioned 380mbs, albeit with a 512ssd.

All of these protocols are subject to bottle necking from your hardware for sure. and USB-c can be brutally slow if the manufacturer isn't interested in taking advantage of the tech.
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Re: Interesting changes in hard drive options these days

Post by Michael Canavan »

mikehalloran wrote: Enough drives in a RAID 10 array can maximize the speed of TB. It takes more with HHDs and consumes a lot more juice and runs way hotter... oh, you sacrifice capacity for speed... How fast do you really, really want it?
http://www.raid-calculator.com/raid-typ ... rence.aspx
[/quote]
Bookmarking, at some point here I'm getting the Sonnet PCIe raid card for two+ SSDs, for sample libraries, so Raid 0 for sure.
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