#Softraid 5 vs mac os x#
#Softraid 5 vs upgrade#
#Softraid 5 vs software#

Hard drives slow down as they’re loaded, and I’m testing with a load of 4.77 TB used out of 12 TB usable space on my RAID 5 array. My performance varied from the test results shown in that article, and so will yours. For those of you who really want to geek out over tech specs, check out this review on. Comparing Performance With ThunderBay 4 And SoftRAID 5 I also have more capacity now, which greatly helps because I was bumping toward the top of my old system. Photos load faster, my enormous iTunes library loads faster and everything just has some extra zip. I immediately noticed a performance boost.

Not sure why I had permissions issues when I’m the only user, but stuff happens. I eventually just had to change permissions on every file so the copy process would work. SoftRAID 5 worked perfectly and quickly, but I had some permissions issues with my files. I’m hesitant to use any beta on my production system because it can put my information at risk.Ī few weeks ago, SoftRAID 5 shipped and I was ready to make the transfer. I was offered an opportunity to use a beta version of SoftRAID, but decided to wait until it shipped. That’s not what I wanted, so this unit sat rather useless for a few months. Previous versions of SoftRAID, like Apple’s Disk Utility, only support RAID 0 or RAID 1.

The part that kept me waiting was general availability of SoftRAID 5. Unlike some other Thunderbolt systems, the ThunderBay 4 includes both a Thunderbolt cable and dual ports so you can daisy-chain other devices. You can even buy the enclosure and fill it with your own disks. That was my sweet spot for price and capacity, but you can get the enclosure with more or less capacity. I ordered a 16TB capacity array for my needs. With support for Thunderbolt 2, it’s a damn fast collection of just a bunch of disks. Using the ThunderBay 4 and SoftRAID 5 Togetherīy itself, the ThunderBay 4 doesn’t have any RAID chip and works as Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD).

#Softraid 5 vs software#

SoftRAID gives me a much greater level of comfort for performance and reliability because the company is dedicated to this product, where Apple engineers get shuffled around and old software gets left behind. It also isn’t updated very often, which is another cause for concern.

#Softraid 5 vs mac os x#

The Disk Utility that ships with Mac OS X doesn’t support RAID 5. SoftRAID version 5 is shipping and it works great. I still needed a flexible RAID solution rather than relying upon proprietary chips that die under stress.Ībout a year and a half later, I finally have the last piece of the solution I need. Then I finally found the ThunderBay 4 and bought it, but it was incomplete. I also wondered why there weren’t more Thunderbolt RAID enclosures on the market. I decided it was time to rethinking my storage strategy to have greater flexibility and better performance. Although I could get a new chip, it wouldn’t read my data. The proprietary RAID controller chip in that unit isn’t manufactured anymore.

Once I had it repaired, I freaked out again because the next failure would be worse. I got freaked out when my Oyen Digital RAID enclosure failed. That means things get outdated, and sometimes it means that things break. In short, the performance is slicker than unicorn snot! Why I Needed To Change RAID Systems

#Softraid 5 vs upgrade#

Performance is more than double of my old system, and it has capacity to run much faster if I ever decide to upgrade my system to a faster ThunderBolt 2 connection. It’s finally up and running and I’m really happy with the results. I bought a ThunderBay 4 disk enclosure with 16 TB capacity from Other World computing a few months ago.