emschmitt
New member
I am looking to buy a 16 terabyte external hard drive. Does anyone have a recommendation?
External Hard Drives
- Thread starter emschmitt
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Viseguy
Well-known member
OWC, many sizes and connection types to choose from. I'm currently running a Mercury Elite Pro Dual 24TB drive, configured into a Raid setup, so it provides 12TB.
emschmitt
New member
Just started my research. Thank you for the reply I will look into yours.
I have the same one and it has also a three port hub incorporated into it. https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC...MIsd3vmLuB8gIVCJfICh1gjgMoEAQYBSABEgIR3PD_BwE
DBS
Member
I will second the vote for drives or enclosures from OWC. I have a couple those plus drives from Western Digital, G-Tech (now Sandisk?), and couple lesser known brands. They each have advantages.
There are lots of good drives to choose from. If you could provide some information on how and where the drive will be used it could help narrow down the selection. For instance will this drive be for: primary storage, backup, or transferring data between computers?
Other features to consider:
- cost
- size and weight
- noise level
- performance / speed
- reliability / redundancy
- connection ports: USB, Thunderbolt, eSATA, ethernet
There are lots of good drives to choose from. If you could provide some information on how and where the drive will be used it could help narrow down the selection. For instance will this drive be for: primary storage, backup, or transferring data between computers?
Other features to consider:
- cost
- size and weight
- noise level
- performance / speed
- reliability / redundancy
- connection ports: USB, Thunderbolt, eSATA, ethernet
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I have been using OWC thunderbay system for years without a problem. The system is configured as a Raid 5 system using Softraid software. The software is great. It gave me early warning that a disk was about fail which I replaced under warranty (no questions asked from Seagate).
I have identical OWC units and use one as a primary storage for my images and the other as a backup. I have two backups - one set stays in the house and I update it after shoot or once or week if I am doing cause editing. Th other is offsite (in a bank vault but could be at friend house). That way if I lose the house (fire, theft, ...) I still have a backup copy. I keep the 2nd OWC unit unplugged except when I am using it. That way, if there is power surge (lightning strikes, for instance), it will not be fried.
Other things I do for backup is use Backblaze.com. For $60 or $70 (?) a year I get unlimited backup of my computer. Yes this may be overkill but the extra backups let me SWAN (Sleep Well At Night). I don't worry that I am not doing enough.
Recommendation
OWD 4 bay Thunderbay drive
4 x 6 TB (or 4 x 8 TB) drives run as a Raid 5 system so you would have 18 or 24 TB net. Check disk statistics on backblaze blog. EXTREMELY informative. If you get Softraid software I would strong suggest you "certify" your disks before using them ( I run each disk for at least 24 hours before using it). This process reads and write to the disk to verify it works correctly.
I have identical OWC units and use one as a primary storage for my images and the other as a backup. I have two backups - one set stays in the house and I update it after shoot or once or week if I am doing cause editing. Th other is offsite (in a bank vault but could be at friend house). That way if I lose the house (fire, theft, ...) I still have a backup copy. I keep the 2nd OWC unit unplugged except when I am using it. That way, if there is power surge (lightning strikes, for instance), it will not be fried.
Other things I do for backup is use Backblaze.com. For $60 or $70 (?) a year I get unlimited backup of my computer. Yes this may be overkill but the extra backups let me SWAN (Sleep Well At Night). I don't worry that I am not doing enough.
Recommendation
OWD 4 bay Thunderbay drive
4 x 6 TB (or 4 x 8 TB) drives run as a Raid 5 system so you would have 18 or 24 TB net. Check disk statistics on backblaze blog. EXTREMELY informative. If you get Softraid software I would strong suggest you "certify" your disks before using them ( I run each disk for at least 24 hours before using it). This process reads and write to the disk to verify it works correctly.
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I bought two G-Tech drives/enclosures earlier this year. Each enclosure has two 18-TB drives, which I run as independent disks, no RAID. I back one set up to the other. Haven’t filled the first 18 TB drive on enclosure #1, but that may happen this year, if my scheduled trips happen (as it looks like they will). I was looking to have a set up that would last for 4-5 years. I also back up to the cloud with Backblaze (which gives me versioning) and back up periodically to other external drives that I leave unattached.
Another vote for OWC.
emschmitt
New member
Thank you all!!!!
So are you using HDD or SSD Rich?
HDD. Run blackmagic diskspeed test on a 2013 Mac Pro with a Thunderbay VI w/ 6 Seagate 10 TB, 7200pm disk, Softraid system, Raid 5, using a thunderbolt 2 out of the Mac pro then into a thunderbolt 2 to 3 adapter into the Thunderbay VI (which has Thunderbolt 3 interface) I write 400 MB/sec and read at 800 MB/sec. I was hoping to have upgrade to new Mac Pro but my wife did not like that idea. So I am waiting for the next generation of Mac Pro (hopefully a bit smaller than the cheese grater).
BTW as a point of reference I have Samsung 2tg t5 connected via USB and it gets 350 MB/sec in both directions.
Are you doing your editing in LRC off the originals on the owc hdd? Just curious if there’s a lag at all over the internal ssd.
On the OWC drive. Small lag to load images For culling I initially use Photo Mechanics 6 which is lightning fast
eaj101
Well-known member
There are many types of RAID, some of which provide more performance, some of which provide more reliability, some of which just facilitate more capacity than a single physical disk, and some of which actually expose you to more failures than a single disk. For example, RAID 0 - simple striping - can provide better performance but has no error recovery; lose one disk and your data's probably gone. RAID - mirroring - will make writes slower, may make reads faster, and will protect you against single drive failures. There are many other forms of RAID as well. Make sure you understand the pluses and minuses of the ones you choose.
From a reliability and management standpoint I second the recommendation of Synology NAS servers. But for raw performance nothing exceeds locally attached storage. Everything else incurs the overhead of an interconnect that adds latency, whether Thunderbolt, Firewire, ethernet, or USB. Media matters as well, whether spinning rust (hard drives) or solid state SSDs.
From a reliability and management standpoint I second the recommendation of Synology NAS servers. But for raw performance nothing exceeds locally attached storage. Everything else incurs the overhead of an interconnect that adds latency, whether Thunderbolt, Firewire, ethernet, or USB. Media matters as well, whether spinning rust (hard drives) or solid state SSDs.
Garfield
Well-known member
As a Mac user, for ultimate simplicity I just use OWC Thunderblades hanging off the thunderbolt port with backups to multiple TM disks. No RAID needed. Life is simple, dead silent and very speedy. 
Why 16 TB? If I needed 16 TB, I'd get two 8TB or four 4TB drives. 16 TB is a lot of stuff to lose if one drive goes bad... I wish you well in your research, choosing and implementation!
As of now, my configuration is two 4TB G-Technology drives that get copied to another two 4TB drives. (One is a Western Digital and the other is a G-Technology.) If one of those drives goes bad, I'm out $100-$150 and the time it takes to copy its mirrored drive. An IT tech I used to work with recommended this and called it "virtual RAID."
Amen. No way I would trust one big drive. My working configuration is a 4x4TB OWC external RAID 5.0 which provides 12 TB of storage. I back up to four individual 4TB drives, no RAID. Even RAIDs can go kaput, I've had it happen. OWC offers nice enclosures that allow you to swap drives. When my backups get full, I pull them out of the enclosure and store the "naked" drives in a vault. Takes up much less room than a bunch of enclosures, and cheaper, too. I have an inexpensive device (also from OWC) which will read the naked drives on the rare occasions I need to retrieve an old file.
emschmitt
New member
You are absolutely correct. That is what I want is 4x4. If one gets full I can replace or if it goes bad I can replace. Correct?
emschmitt
New member
Ok would this work? All I really want is to have a backup so I don’t loose all my pix. I have swallowed up the 2 external backups I have. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...wctb2srt16_0s_thunderbay_4_16tb_72_4_bay.html
The only "problem" is that it is exactly 16TB. You may want larger disk to allow you to expand or run as a raid system to have reduncancy in case of disk failure. Might consider 4x6 TB.
emschmitt
New member
Thanks Rich
I never regretted buying a large disk system. I have at time regretted not buying enough.
IMO it strongly depends on the purpose of this drive.
Many people run in problems because they think about capacity and "ease of use" but forget about SPOF (Single Point of failure).
So yes, I agree with some of the above comments that recomment avoiding SPOF by running RAID arrays and STILL a proper backup strategy (RAID does NOT replace a backup) .. or split the data across multiple smaller disks.
If you really want to get one, I can't really recommend a ready product, because I usually buy the harddisk and the housing separately. This way I can choose the best harddisk, the best cooling, the best connectivity a.s.o. IF I use harddisks I use WD harddisks from the RED series, because the are server grade harddisks designed for 24/7 operation. I follow this way for ages now and was always on the safe side (not one data loss because of defective harddisk in more than 15 years). For the cases I usually go with Sharkoon, because I find their interface electronics good, reliable and exchangeable between different cases - even across diefferent types of cases and HDD docking stations.
That said, depending on the purose of use it might be worthwhile thinking about one of these docking stations, because you can easily swap the HDD without touching the wiring. This works only stationary - e.g. at home - but I use them for rotating my three backup hard disks.
Many people run in problems because they think about capacity and "ease of use" but forget about SPOF (Single Point of failure).
So yes, I agree with some of the above comments that recomment avoiding SPOF by running RAID arrays and STILL a proper backup strategy (RAID does NOT replace a backup) .. or split the data across multiple smaller disks.
If you really want to get one, I can't really recommend a ready product, because I usually buy the harddisk and the housing separately. This way I can choose the best harddisk, the best cooling, the best connectivity a.s.o. IF I use harddisks I use WD harddisks from the RED series, because the are server grade harddisks designed for 24/7 operation. I follow this way for ages now and was always on the safe side (not one data loss because of defective harddisk in more than 15 years). For the cases I usually go with Sharkoon, because I find their interface electronics good, reliable and exchangeable between different cases - even across diefferent types of cases and HDD docking stations.
That said, depending on the purose of use it might be worthwhile thinking about one of these docking stations, because you can easily swap the HDD without touching the wiring. This works only stationary - e.g. at home - but I use them for rotating my three backup hard disks.
Agree. a raid system is not a backup but protects against a drive failure destroying your data. With a single disk (or a collection of independent disks), a failutre means you have lost your data on that disk. With a raid system, a disk failure may let you recover, depending upon the raid system.
One minor comment if I may.....the subtle comment from the first posters' response indicating "Raid" drives is significant. Some many years ago I backed up files for my day job onto a single usb external drive....one day I was swapping out a new computer, and the drive (with my only copy) due to the computer swap failed, and we had to pay a data recovery company almost $2000 to get my files back. So...knowing physical drives DO FAIL, a device that is really multiple drives in a raid configuration minimizes such an event. In theory, depending on brand/Issue at hand, a single drive failure in a raid system should allow the drive to be replaced, and the raid device to then rebuild everything with no loss of files/content.