Disk Storage recommendation

[Josh Beadle]

2 x G-Speed eS Pro enclosures, Raid 6 with Atto 680 dual port board for 800mbs on the cheap. No need for fibre except in your diet. Thunderbolt is not the answer for R3D's:

http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-speed-es-pro.cfm

. . . but until The Kilgroe speaks - you do not have an answer

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Thunderbolt is not the answer for R3D's

I've heard good things about people using the Pegasus TB unit.

[Stephen Townsend]

Just wondering if anyone has some further input on this and if anything might have changed in the last few months (as it easily can do with todays ever-changing technology)?

The G-Speed eS Pro enclosures that Josh recommended seem like a good option. Just wondering why I might go for that over an internal solution? At first I thought it might because I could connect it up to another machine easily but the only machine I'd be likely to connect it up to would be an iMac which that particularly enclosure wouldn't support. I then looked at the G-Speed Qs which support firewire and usb (http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-speed-q.cfm) but obviously I'd lose a lot of speed when connecting to my MacPro.

[Brian Merlen]

Mac pro ports are just too damn slow is the problem. Esata. SAS, USB3 are your best options if you want to go external, but like you said, if you want to hook it up to an Imac, that is going to be a problem. Unless you get some sort of thunderbolt adapter to hook it up with (if the Imac has TB even)... Internal is a good option speed wise, but not if you want to hook the drive up to other workstations occasionally, which based on your Imac issue seems to be what your trying to do.

This is basically why everyone hates Apple now, forget about the CPU speed bump, how do we hook up the old workstations to the new devices when non of the damn ports match machine to machine... Its a total nightmare right now port wise...

Until the Mac Pro gets thunderbolt added, or the Imac gets USB3 added, its going to cause issues trying to go from one to the other while using fast external storage devices...Hopefully the Imac gets its Ivy upgrade soon, not that it will help you if you got an older one...

Personally I like the new Drobo 5D, since it has USB3 AND thunderbolt I think that will be my new storage device, I like the legacy support that offers compared to thunderbolt only externals like the R6. Plus I believe the Drobo 5D supports 4tb HDD's, which is also a plus storage wise since I can pack a ton of storage in a relatively small device. I also was looking at the rack mount USB3 OWC storage rack, but that's a pain for mobility reasons...