I am not an expert, but software raid is just as good as hardware raid these days. In most cases today software raid outperforms hardware raid because the CPU is more performant than the hardware raid controller which usually uses your grandpas refurbished 8088 or some such collectible antique. Especially if it is just an enclosure with no server duties.
Your link sucks, but it did make me get the efTwo plugin for Chrome so I can finally find pesky hidden keywords like "Thunderbolt". Here is the Drobo Thunderbolt announcement:
Actually this isn't always the case. Modern RAID controllers have specialized ASICs or CPUs specifically designed and optimized for RAID5/6 calculations.
Don't forget that if you have software based RAID, you won't be doing any rebuilds without your computer being on and available. This could be a true pain for laptop users who for whatever reason need to do a rebuild but would also like to go somewhere with their laptop.
You can get a 2-bay USB 3.0/eSATA right now for less than $200. Probably even a 4-bay if on sale. You aren't going to saturate the bandwidth with mechanical drives. In fact, I've been running just such a 2-bay enclosure for well over a year now (November 2010).
Really, REALLY, getting tired of all the TB hype. When I can plug in any PCIe discrete GPU to a device that lets me connect to any laptop with TB, let me know. Until then, TB is a ridiculously over-hyped feature.
Well, if you happen to own a 2011 Mac, you've got Thunderbolt built in, but not eSATA or USB 3.0.
Some of us are getting REALLY tired of people who aren't even necessarily the target audience complaining every time there's a post about a new Thunderbolt product.
And if you're running in RAID 0, not that you'd want to, or connecting multiple devices to the same host controller, 4 spinning disks can easily exceed the sub 400 - 410 MB/s limit of USB 3.0 or most implementations of eSATA 6 Gb/s. If you're using SSD's, even a single drive can fill the pipe, let alone 2 or more.
The sad thing is, in a best case scenario, the Marvell controller in these boxes has a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface which would limit them to about 820 MB/s real world performance. If they used the cheaper controllers that only have an x1 back end, they won't be able to do more than 410 MB/s anyways.
I don't own anything Apple or anything TB, nor do I plan on moving to it for a good while yet, but I can see how useful it'll be to people. Devices are getting smaller and more mobile and we won't have room to plug in every peripheral separately, so the ability to hook up everything to one port is going to make docking so much nicer.
However if that is the goal of TB, companies should try to make TB -> USB 3.0 port hubs so we could just use it with our existing gear.
QNAP doesn't seem to be in the business of selling enclosures for less than $200. Based on the list prices of their other 4 bay enclosures, this one will most likely be in the $399-$499 range.
I totally agree with tanclearas. its way over hyped gadget. with mechnical drives , we will never be able to fully saturate and ssd's are still not cheap to plonk 4 ssd's in this enclosure.
There seems to be some reading comprehension issues here.
Not if you own a 2011 Mac.
Even if you were just using 4 3TB WD Caviar Green drives in RAID 0, average sequential reads or writes would exceed 350 MB/s, which is beyond the capability of any single USB 3.0 device currently available
A single 120GB OCZ Agility 3 ($89.99 after rebate on Newegg) would have trouble stretching its legs over USB 3.0. If you used 4 in RAID 0, forget about it.
A typical use case for these devices is for video pros, who would fill 2 of them with 4TB drives and daisy-chain them in a RAID 0+1 configuration. The performance would be demonstrably better than USB 2.0 or FireWire 800, which are the other options on a 2011 Mac, and also better than USB 3.0 or eSATA on other platforms. Other users are filling them with 240-256 GB SSDs and using them as boot volumes.
What about the original post even qualifies as hype?
Mac owners are a minority, video pros that would want such a setup are a sub minority amongst them. Just saying...
I think the comments about TB being over hyped aren't straight up hate on TB, more like frustration with the fact that prices aren't coming down faster and the interface isn't evolving fast enough.
The most poplar usage case for TB right now is as a docking solution, but for all the added expense or it's really gonna do is save you from plugging in one, maybe two, extra cables (TB + power vs USB + display + power + maybe GigE).
Where are the optical cables, the external GPU? Personally I just hope TB survives this stage in order to fully realize it's potential, and doesn't get relegated to a niche market.
Until this week, Mac users represented 100% of the installed base for Thunderbolt, and with a 25 million unit head start, it will be a while before they cease to be the primary target market for developers of Thunderbolt accessories. Just saying...
If it's reasonably priced, "finally what I've been asking for" sums up my feelings pretty well too, although I hope to see 6 and 8 drive models at some point. ZFS eliminates the value of hardware RAID and thus makes this a perfect match. I'm worried about the "reasonably priced" bit though, since most places still seem to want to charge through the nose. But if QNAP can hit no more then a $50-70 premium say then it can't come soon enough for me.
Thanks, this is a great giveaway. I would like to scrapbook/journal my getting laid off from a great paying job that Scrubs Seasons 1-9 DVD allowed me to work from home. This charge in my life hit me hard and even my crafting has been affected.
I'm looking for somthing similar but rack mountable and with room for more disks, I guess that ten disk would not be a problem. Do any1 know when/if we will see pcie expansion cards for thunderbolt? I have seen Asus expansion card but it requires a thunderbolt header on the motherboard.
I don't think we will see pure pci-e add on cards as it requires more than just the data connection from pci-e to fully function. It also needs a display port connection.
For HD production and post THNDBlt is a god send and crazy cheap ROI from our location sensitive perspective. Being able to have a Red Rocket card for RealTime playback/effects then data drops and archiving all in a simple chain carried in your backback powdered up via battery packs in the middle of nowhere is insane!
CPUTechs can grumble on, and I get it: it took APPL what 3yrs to put USB3 on machines only after cashing in on ThndBlt. Regardless, Intel's TB is phenomenal new beginning! And, yes, SSDs are a big part of the equation too.
"This project has been postponed because of Intel chipset support issue. We might start the product later this year but do not have any firm schedule yet. Thank you very much."
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23 Comments
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nephrostar - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
can it go below 200?anything below 200 would be great price in my opinion.
hansfilipelo - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
For 200$ I'll have one as soon as it drops.This is the perfect companion to my Mac Mini Server and Z-410 (waiting for developers edition).
Finally I'll be able to replicate my NAS, and with ZFS replication.
Souka - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
With no built in hardware RAID...might as well get a DROBO.http://www.drobo.com/how-it-works/index.php
Azethoth - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
I am not an expert, but software raid is just as good as hardware raid these days. In most cases today software raid outperforms hardware raid because the CPU is more performant than the hardware raid controller which usually uses your grandpas refurbished 8088 or some such collectible antique. Especially if it is just an enclosure with no server duties.Your link sucks, but it did make me get the efTwo plugin for Chrome so I can finally find pesky hidden keywords like "Thunderbolt". Here is the Drobo Thunderbolt announcement:
http://www.drobo.com/news/press-releases/2012/pres...
enealDC - Monday, June 11, 2012 - link
Actually this isn't always the case. Modern RAID controllers have specialized ASICs or CPUs specifically designed and optimized for RAID5/6 calculations.bobcov - Friday, December 21, 2012 - link
Don't forget that if you have software based RAID, you won't be doing any rebuilds without your computer being on and available. This could be a true pain for laptop users who for whatever reason need to do a rebuild but would also like to go somewhere with their laptop.Tanclearas - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
You can get a 2-bay USB 3.0/eSATA right now for less than $200. Probably even a 4-bay if on sale. You aren't going to saturate the bandwidth with mechanical drives. In fact, I've been running just such a 2-bay enclosure for well over a year now (November 2010).Really, REALLY, getting tired of all the TB hype. When I can plug in any PCIe discrete GPU to a device that lets me connect to any laptop with TB, let me know. Until then, TB is a ridiculously over-hyped feature.
repoman27 - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
Well, if you happen to own a 2011 Mac, you've got Thunderbolt built in, but not eSATA or USB 3.0.Some of us are getting REALLY tired of people who aren't even necessarily the target audience complaining every time there's a post about a new Thunderbolt product.
And if you're running in RAID 0, not that you'd want to, or connecting multiple devices to the same host controller, 4 spinning disks can easily exceed the sub 400 - 410 MB/s limit of USB 3.0 or most implementations of eSATA 6 Gb/s. If you're using SSD's, even a single drive can fill the pipe, let alone 2 or more.
The sad thing is, in a best case scenario, the Marvell controller in these boxes has a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface which would limit them to about 820 MB/s real world performance. If they used the cheaper controllers that only have an x1 back end, they won't be able to do more than 410 MB/s anyways.
dananski - Sunday, June 10, 2012 - link
I don't own anything Apple or anything TB, nor do I plan on moving to it for a good while yet, but I can see how useful it'll be to people. Devices are getting smaller and more mobile and we won't have room to plug in every peripheral separately, so the ability to hook up everything to one port is going to make docking so much nicer.However if that is the goal of TB, companies should try to make TB -> USB 3.0 port hubs so we could just use it with our existing gear.
repoman27 - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
QNAP doesn't seem to be in the business of selling enclosures for less than $200. Based on the list prices of their other 4 bay enclosures, this one will most likely be in the $399-$499 range.nephrostar - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
I totally agree with tanclearas.its way over hyped gadget.
with mechnical drives , we will never be able to fully saturate and ssd's are still not cheap to plonk 4 ssd's in this enclosure.
repoman27 - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
There seems to be some reading comprehension issues here.Not if you own a 2011 Mac.
Even if you were just using 4 3TB WD Caviar Green drives in RAID 0, average sequential reads or writes would exceed 350 MB/s, which is beyond the capability of any single USB 3.0 device currently available
A single 120GB OCZ Agility 3 ($89.99 after rebate on Newegg) would have trouble stretching its legs over USB 3.0. If you used 4 in RAID 0, forget about it.
A typical use case for these devices is for video pros, who would fill 2 of them with 4TB drives and daisy-chain them in a RAID 0+1 configuration. The performance would be demonstrably better than USB 2.0 or FireWire 800, which are the other options on a 2011 Mac, and also better than USB 3.0 or eSATA on other platforms. Other users are filling them with 240-256 GB SSDs and using them as boot volumes.
What about the original post even qualifies as hype?
Impulses - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
Mac owners are a minority, video pros that would want such a setup are a sub minority amongst them. Just saying...I think the comments about TB being over hyped aren't straight up hate on TB, more like frustration with the fact that prices aren't coming down faster and the interface isn't evolving fast enough.
The most poplar usage case for TB right now is as a docking solution, but for all the added expense or it's really gonna do is save you from plugging in one, maybe two, extra cables (TB + power vs USB + display + power + maybe GigE).
Where are the optical cables, the external GPU? Personally I just hope TB survives this stage in order to fully realize it's potential, and doesn't get relegated to a niche market.
Impulses - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
or it's gonna do = all it's gonna dorepoman27 - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
Until this week, Mac users represented 100% of the installed base for Thunderbolt, and with a 25 million unit head start, it will be a while before they cease to be the primary target market for developers of Thunderbolt accessories. Just saying...zanon - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
If it's reasonably priced, "finally what I've been asking for" sums up my feelings pretty well too, although I hope to see 6 and 8 drive models at some point. ZFS eliminates the value of hardware RAID and thus makes this a perfect match. I'm worried about the "reasonably priced" bit though, since most places still seem to want to charge through the nose. But if QNAP can hit no more then a $50-70 premium say then it can't come soon enough for me.DarioLuna - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
Thanks, this is a great giveaway. I would like to scrapbook/journal my getting laid off from a great paying job that Scrubs Seasons 1-9 DVD allowed me to work from home. This charge in my life hit me hard and even my crafting has been affected.Azodan - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
I'm looking for somthing similar but rack mountable and with room for more disks, I guess that ten disk would not be a problem. Do any1 know when/if we will see pcie expansion cards for thunderbolt? I have seen Asus expansion card but it requires a thunderbolt header on the motherboard.Laststop311 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
I don't think we will see pure pci-e add on cards as it requires more than just the data connection from pci-e to fully function. It also needs a display port connection.bigtiny - Monday, June 18, 2012 - link
For HD production and post THNDBlt is a god send and crazy cheap ROI from our location sensitive perspective. Being able to have a Red Rocket card for RealTime playback/effects then data drops and archiving all in a simple chain carried in your backback powdered up via battery packs in the middle of nowhere is insane!CPUTechs can grumble on, and I get it: it took APPL what 3yrs to put USB3 on machines only after cashing in on ThndBlt. Regardless, Intel's TB is phenomenal new beginning! And, yes, SSDs are a big part of the equation too.
bigtiny - Monday, June 18, 2012 - link
remember, we're getting video/audio monitoring too, even without a pcie card and enclosure.Jeffops - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
So . . . it's December. Where is it?ManxStef - Monday, January 14, 2013 - link
Here's the reply I got back from QNAP:"This project has been postponed because of Intel chipset support issue. We might start the product later this year but do not have any firm schedule yet. Thank you very much."
Bit of a shame, but there we go.