Need help with deciding on a new external desktop drive

[Viathelens]

Hi, I have to buy a new external desk top drive system for my Mac. I want to use Thunderbolt connections. I'm out of space on my current two drives. I need at minimum 16-20T to cover my current images and leave some room for new images. I'm currently using 2 external drives on RAID systems, a total of 10T with images and maxed out. I looked at buying an SSD for images and then an HDD for the backup instead of a RAID but the SSD is more than I want to spend for the storage space I need. Any comments on the item below? Any recommendations along the lines of what I currently use? It looks like using a RAID system is more affordable than trying to buy an SSD/HDD setup. I'm not a "techie," but do know enough to figure things out and make it all work fine once I get it. I do backup off site, which will be a PITA because now I'll have to back up the new drives! My drives now are G drives and one My Book Thunderbolt. I've only used the small travel external drives from LaCie but have been happy with them. Any suggestions? I'm at a standstill and heading to Yellowstone next week so won't be able to download that set of images until the new drive system is in place, after I return two weeks later. This drive is currently BO'd but I'd wait for it if people think it is ok.

NEW QUESTION-Wed, June 5....I have decided against the LaCIE based on what one person who had the same set up I was looking at said. Only a few people actually commented on my original question and the thread has gone off on some deep end that is not of interest to me, but maybe to others. I'm now looking at the OWC Thunder Bay 4. Either 16 or 24T. The 24T says this about speed...
Speedy:up to 1007MB/s peak performance (RAID 0)
I will be using RAID 1. Is this really speedy? I assume it may be less so with the RAID configuration. It is a soft RAID storage system. Anyone have an answer to this specific question? I want to order this as soon as I return from Yellowstone on the 12th so trying to figure it out now.

I do not want to use any other type of storage system, like a NAS. I have decided to simply continue to use a RAID system as this works for me, along with off-site backup.

Thanks.

 

[John Navitsky]

i think if you read between the lines that’s two 14tb drives, so if you actually enable raid it’s going to be 14tb

 

[Viathelens]

i think if you read between the lines that’s two 14tb drives, so if you actually enable raid it’s going to be 14tb

Yes, I understand that about a RAID system. Thanks.

 

[John Navitsky]

a lot of them are tb only, but you might cross shop the owc offerings: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/storage

i’m pretty keen on their ssd options that use m.2 or u.2, but obviously those don’t fit your pricing parameters. they also are starting with some usb4 like the 1m2 which i like a lot

 

[Viathelens]

a lot of them are tb only, but you might cross shop the owc offerings: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/storage

i’m pretty keen on their ssd options that use m.2 or u.2, but obviously those don’t fit your pricing parameters. they also are starting with some usb4 like the 1m2 which i like a lot

Thanks, I did look at OWC but the SSD drives are very expensive when you need a lot of space, maybe they'll come down in price if and when I need to do this again.

 

[John Navitsky]

they have non ssd options like the thunderbay models

 

[Viathelens]

they have non ssd options like the thunderbay models

Thanks.

 

[Ralph]

I also would check out OWC options. They have enclosures that are very reasonable and you can put high capacity spinning HD in them. If they’re used for backup then speed is not an issue. I use their Mercury Elite Pro Dual drive with 3-Port Hub. It can be used as a RAID or as separate drives.

 

[wotan1]

It would help to know what you currently have as it affects what might be recommended.

Speed is a factor on choice of drives. If all you want is backup capability speed is not important. On the other hand if you are going to use the drive for active photo editing you will want to have something with higher read/write speed. That will cost more money.

It also depends on whether you are using a Mac with an M silicone chip or earlier processors. In adddition are you using your internal drive for editing or do you use external for that.

Looks like you are using direct attached storage. RAID drives can be an economical solution. Many of the less expensive options use software to control the RAID which may not be as reliable or easy to manage compared to hardware devices.

OWC makes a variety of software managed RAID arrays. I have one of those, the software can be difficult to manage. I had to convert mine from a PC use to MAC and that proved to be a major headache although it eventually worked out.

The Apple Store only offers LaCie and Pegasus RAID drives but Pegasus seems to be unavailable as far as I can tell.

Unless you have skill at computer management I would consider buying something plug and play and pre-set up for Mac.

 

[Anjin San]

Thanks, I did look at OWC but the SSD drives are very expensive when you need a lot of space, maybe they'll come down in price if and when I need to do this again.

SSD RAID arrays are pretty expensive no matter who makes them. You could do what I did and keep the LR catalog and current year originals on a TB SSD…I got a 4TB one from OWC…and keep the older years originals out on a spinning RAID…I've got a Thunderbay mini with the 4x4 TB 2.5 inch drives for quietness and it's fast enough for older year's images with the catalog and previews on the SSD drive.

 

[Viathelens]

SSD RAID arrays are pretty expensive no matter who makes them. You could do what I did and keep the LR catalog and current year originals on a TB SSD…I got a 4TB one from OWC…and keep the older years originals out on a spinning RAID…I've got a Thunderbay mini with the 4x4 TB 2.5 inch drives for quietness and it's fast enough for older year's images with the catalog and previews on the SSD drive.

Thanks, I'll have to give this some thought when I return from Yellowstone since I can't download anything now as all my disks are full!

 

[wotan1]

For my base model Mac Studio M2 with 1 TB internal drive I added the 7.68 TB enterprise level SSD and I use that for photo processing. I had a four bay OWC RAID drive that uses spinning discs. I made that my backup.

The enterprise level SSD was relatively expensive ($900 something) but it is incredibly fast and reportedly has enterprise level drives built for reliability and durability. It also has a five year warranty.

I don't yet have that large a storage issue yet, but my plan is to move older photos onto spinning disks to make room.

The key is to make sure your photo processing drives are really fast.

WIth mine the combination of the enterprise level SSD and the Studio M2 are blazingly fast, work well with multiple screens and high resolution monitors. This setup is currently handling a 5k and 4k monitor, it is capable of handling 6k and even an 8k monitor if I ever go that far.

I am experiencing no lag whatsoever and imports happen quickly and smoothly.

I switched from PC to MAC and I still have a mess to clean up in my Lightroom catalog but the equipment is working just fine.

 

[R_Warshaw]

I have a pair of Lacie 20 TB drives similar to what you're considering (10Tb when set up for mirroring) and a G Drive with the same specs. All three have been reliable. That said all spinning drives eventually fail so even if I didn't need more storage (i do) I will need to replace them soon. I edit from the G drive and while it's slower than the SSD in my Mac it's fast enough for me. If I were a vidiographer I'd use SSDs for sure. I rotate the Lacie drives off-site for backup so each one is used only half the time. I admit to being a bit OCD about backup.

 

[RecalcitrantRon]

Hudson Henry did a video on using a Synology NAS with a combination of spinning drives and SSD. This might be helpful.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

My recommendation is to get a NAS (Synology or QNAP) and buy your own drives. You can get those two 14TB drives for a lot less than $1,000, so spend that money on a 4-8 bay NAS box (always be ready for expansion so you don't have to start from scratch again in the future). Also consider going even higher than 14TB units (18-20TB drives are not much more). I started with 8TB when I started and had to rebuild with 14s when 8x8 filled up.

Do RAID 6 (using 2 drives for parity) rather than RAID 5 (1 parity drive) and all drives after that add to the pool.

Rather than replace the 2x14 in a few years when it fills up, all you would need to do is buy a single new drive and pop it in.

Chris

 

[Anjin San]

Hudson Henry did a video on using a Synology NAS with a combination of spinning drives and SSD. This might be helpful.

Remember though…he is a great guy but he is a photographer and not a computer geek. As an actual computer geek…I’m not going to say he is wrong but he overstates the problem and overly complicates the solution IMO. He’s also a pro making money with his images and workshops and videos…so his needs are different from most of the rest of us…and he can take a tax deduction for that very expensive drive setup. And to be honest, while it is technically faster than some other options…from a practical standpoint the extra speed doesn’t really affect actual LR performance significantly.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

And to be honest, while it is technically faster than some other options…from a practical standpoint the extra speed doesn’t really affect actual LR performance significantly.

I received my best LR performance boost by putting the catalogs, previews, and ACR cache on NVMe SSD drives, while still editing my RAW source files from spinning discs in my NAS. (The NAS is on a 10G net connection though.)

 

[RecalcitrantRon]

Remember though…he is a great guy but he is a photographer and not a computer geek. As an actual computer geek…I’m not going to say he is wrong but he overstates the problem and overly complicates the solution IMO. He’s also a pro making money with his images and workshops and videos…so his needs are different from most of the rest of us…and he can take a tax deduction for that very expensive drive setup. And to be honest, while it is technically faster than some other options…from a practical standpoint the extra speed doesn’t really affect actual LR performance significantly.

Fair enough. As a self-described computer geek, what would you recommend?

 

[John Navitsky]

Fair enough. As a self-described computer geek, what would you recommend?

truenas (or any other zfs based solution)

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[Anjin San]

I received my best LR performance boost by putting the catalogs, previews, and ACR cache on NVMe SSD drives, while still editing my RAW source files from spinning discs in my NAS. (The NAS is on a 10G net connection though.)

Yep…my catalog and current year images are on a TB external SSD and older year images are on a TB OWC ThunderBay mini with the 2.5 inch drives because they’re quiet. There is a difference in looking at older years in LR…but it’s not significant in actual time and one doesn’t really go back and re-edit old much anyway (or at least I don’t). 10GB is nice…but after overhead I don’t know 8f it’s actually faster than TB or not…but in practical terms it doesn’t matter because both are plenty fast enough. And while the NAS does share to the network…most clients aren’t connecting via 10GB Ethernet but either gig E or wifi…and the Studio he has could share to the network a direct tracked drive just as easily as the NAS does…and DropBox or a dozen other cheaper solutions would provide the internet accessible drive for his partners and backup and all the other things he is doing. There is zero wrong with his ’use an expensive NAS’ approach…but it’s overkill and the same functionality could be provided for less money with a drive direct attached to his Mac Studio.

I tested LR performance and compared the TB external to the internal…and while again Speedtest or whatever shows the internal SSD to be slightly faster…it is insignificant in actual real time terms.

Now I could afford the NAS and being a computer geek setting it up is easy for me…it just doesn’t provide any actual tangible benefits for the much higher price tag. I’ve always believed that better is the enemy of good enough and that overpaying for capabilities makes no sense.

 

[Anjin San]

Fair enough. As a self-described computer geek, what would you recommend?

I’ve got a Mac Studio with a 4TB Thunderbolt external that has catalog, previews, and current year images on it and older year images on a TB OWC ThunderBay mini that gives 12TB with 2.5 inch spinning drives…I got the mini because of almost no noise in operation as compared to 7200 rpm 3.5 inch drives. If I ever run out of space on the mini…hopefully 8TB in 2.5 inch spinners or iTB SSDs will be affordable. Otherwise I will get a Thunderbay and stick it in the closet on a longer TB cable.

One could get a larger internal but you overpay for the space that way…

Then there are backup drives…my main one is a 20TB enterprise spinner and BackBlaze. I’m happy to offer suggestions if you tell me what you need though.

If I were starting off from a clean slate…I would get a maxed out MacBook Pro 14 inch and the Studio display for at home. I would keep current year images (and maybe 2 years worth)on internal along with the LR catalog. I would put the spinning RAID on a Mac mini that’s always on for things like print server, music server, file server, scanner host and backup manager. Every Jan 1 when the old year RAW files got moved to the RAID I would just plug the laptop into Ethernet instead of wifi and let it chug away overnight. The catalog and current year images would get backed up daily via wifi to the RAID on the mini…in my case I use CarbonCopyCloner for that as Time Machine over the network is unreliable. And I would plug in a SSD and clone the drive after every major LR operation…because I would be using the Studio display for that and a TB dock with the SSd attached. The RAID would get backed up to another locally attached drive and BackBlaze. I would still not use a NAS instead of an attached RAID…because the NAS is basically a computer with an attached RAID and why pay for another computer to manage if it doesn’t provide any actual benefits. A NAS makes sense for serving a lot of clients…and by a lot I mean high double digits to triple digits. I’ve tested…and even my 10 year old Intel Mac on gigabit Ethernet easily keeps up with 3 WiFi or Ethernet clients and isn’t breaking a sweat on the mini. Sure…if I wanted to copy terabytes to a network drive and had a 10GB connection that’s going to be faster than wifi or gig E…but that’s an unrealistic scenario. If I’m moving 100GB over wifi which is a much more likely idea…the WiFi is the limiting factor, not the speed of the ethernet or drives And whether it takes 10 minutes or 11 is irrelevant.

Like I said in another reply…nothing wrong with a NAS if that’s what one chooses but they’re overkill and over paying for most people.

 

[Marsha Jane]

Hi, I have to buy a new external desk top drive system for my Mac. I want to use Thunderbolt connections. I'm out of space on my current two drives. I need at minimum 16-20T to cover my current images and leave some room for new images. I'm currently using 2 external drives on RAID systems, a total of 10T with images and maxed out. I looked at buying an SSD for images and then an HDD for the backup instead of a RAID but the SSD is more than I want to spend for the storage space I need. Any comments on the item below? Any recommendations along the lines of what I currently use? It looks like using a RAID system is more affordable than trying to buy an SSD/HDD setup. I'm not a "techie," but do know enough to figure things out and make it all work fine once I get it. I do backup off site, which will be a PITA because now I'll have to back up the new drives! My drives now are G drives and one My Book Thunderbolt. I've only used the small travel external drives from LaCie but have been happy with them. Any suggestions? I'm at a standstill and heading to Yellowstone next week so won't be able to download that set of images until the new drive system is in place, after I return two weeks later. This drive is currently BO'd but I'd wait for it if people think it is ok.

View attachment 89820

I had a very bad experience with external LaCie hard drives which I purchased from Apple last fall. It appears that one was corrupt, and somehow when I installed it, it ended up erasing every document that I had for 35 years on my computer. It took Apple engineers to restore all of my files.

 

[wotan1]

I went around and around about NAS and other options when I was setting up my system. What I am reporting is a summary of what I learned:

1. A NAS drive is not necessary unless you are editing from multiple locations or need remote access. NAS is also more expensive to build and maintain. DAS or direct attached storage is more efficient and simpler when you do your editing from a single computer.
2. NAS is normally slower than DAS because access is governed by network speed. What Hudson Henry did was speed up network access by adding higher speed network equipment. That adds complexity and expense to the network system. None of that complexity is necessary with a DAS connection.
3. Thunderbolt connections found in later model MAC computers are plenty fast enough when used with the proper cables for a DAS connection. This becomes a much simpler and less expensive process than modifying network speed. As indicated elsewhere, a high speed SSD drive directly attached to the computer by Thunderbolt is for practical purposes as effective as an internal drive.
4. All drives can eventually fail. You need an effective backup system which includes both on site and remote backup. That way if you have a catastrophic failure you can replace the defective drive and restore the data from a backup. Backup drives don't have to be as fast as drives used for active photo importing and processing so they can be less expensive.

NOW ABOUT RAID DRIVES:

RAID means redundant array of independent drives. A RAID drive groups individual drives together and has a system for managing access to the drives. RAID drives handle the management either through software or hardware. Generally hardware RAID systems are more expensive.

How you configure a RAID drive depends on the need you are trying to serve. You can speed up access by using multiple slower drives to serve as a single combined drive (striping). Or you can use drives to mirror content to adjacent drives so if one drive fails it can be replaced without loss of data. Or you can increase storage capacity by simply adding individual drives to the RAID.

With a proper backup system a RAID may not be necessary. A simple backup management system is effective to protect your images and will work with individual drives. Here is how it works:

a. You import your images to the main processing drive as usual. Do not reformat your cards until your newly imported images have been backed up.
b. Set your backup systems up so the backup is done at least daily. Back up both to a local backup drive and to cloud storage.
c. Verify the backup has been completed. Backup systems verify the backups have been made.
d. Now you can safely reformat your data card.

With this system you know your images have been captured in three places, one of which is off site. Should a drive fail you can replace it and restore your images to that drive simply and easily.

 

[Not A Speck Of Cereal]

I went around and around about NAS and other options when I was setting up my system. What I am reporting is a summary of what I learned:

1. A NAS drive is not necessary unless you are editing from multiple locations or need remote access. NAS is also more expensive to build and maintain. DAS or direct attached storage is more efficient and simpler when you do your editing from a single computer.

This is true. I don't have huge regrets, but if I had it to over again, I would probably just do a DAS, since I edit on one machine.

But with a NAS, you can access your volume from anywhere in the world, even if you only edit on one machine when you're home. I don't do that, but some folk find it valuable.

With a proper backup system a RAID may not be necessary. A simple backup management system is effective to protect your images and will work with individual drives.

While it's true you can have a source drive(s) plus backups without RAID, there are several advantages to RAID, especially for those running a business and need more rapid recovery and/or restore.

When a simple, non-RAID system fails, you can restore from back up, but large volumes will take a very long time. This is downtime for the working photographer (well, you can go shoot some more, but you can't work on them.)

With RAID, you have these abilities:

1. Hot swap a drive immediately with no downtime.
2. Rebuilding of the new drive starts immediately and you continue working while that happens.
3. Increase your volume size by simply adding a drive. Add a 16TB drive to an existing 32TB volume turns it into a 48TB volume
4. You're getting higher speed performance with spinning drives in a RAID configuration than you would with the same drives in non-RAID use.

Regarding point #3 above, I'm not aware of a way of making a single extended volume from multiple drives at todays typical volume sizes (20TB and beyond). Unless someone can correct me on that, what you're looking at, when you add another drive to increase storage, is just another drive letter. That starts complicating file/folder management, not to mention backup schemes.

And you're still not getting the performance advantage from point #4.

A NAS downside: I will once again mention the caveat that the best NAS performance comes from one on a 10GbE network (even if editing from one machine). That means the additional cost of two 10G network cards, one for the NAS and one in your editing machine. It's not that much though, if you're already investing in a new NAS system.

Chris

 

[John Navitsky]

wrt nas, one advantage of nas over a das raid is the easy availability of software to diy