Quiet external enclosure for SSDs in RAID

I want to create a RAID 0 with 3-4 SSDs in an external TB2 enclosure. I am looking for one that is as quiet as possible. Any recommendations? Thanks.

I'd separate Projects and Media, putting only camera media on the Media drives, and still images, audio, AE projects, etc, in the Projects folder, working towards this:
C: OS/Programs
D: Projects
E: Cache/Scratch
F: Media
G: Exports

Similar Messages

Can I move Time Capsule hard drive to an external enclosure for faster restore (or initial back-up)?

I upgraded my Time Capsule with a 4TB hard drive. I just backed up 500GB of data from a MacBook Pro with Time Machine and it took almost an entire day over a wired gigabit connection. The next MacBook Pro I need to back up has more than 2TB of data, so I'm anticipating that the process will take nearly four days. The slow speed of the Time Capsule leaves me with two questions...
1. If I ever need to restore my entire system from the Time Capsule, can I remove the drive from the Time Capsule, install it in an external hard drive enclosure and restore from that as it will be a much faster USB 3.0 connection than through the Time Capsule itself?
2. To save the time of waiting four days for the initial Time Machine back-up, can I remove the drive from the Time Capsule, install it in an external enclosure to do the first back-up and then put it back in the Time Capsule for future back-ups?
Thank you.

2. To save the time of waiting four days for the initial Time Machine back-up, can I remove the drive from the Time Capsule, install it in an external enclosure to do the first back-up and then put it back in the Time Capsule for future back-ups?
The answer to this is no.. TM backup is done differently on a local drive .. cf a network drive. The network drive must have the backup inside a sparsebundle.. you can read the backup locally and it is vaguely possible to backup files from local to sparsebundle but you are still going to find TM is pretty finicky if it finds you tampered with its internals.
I agree with Kappy .. if you want to use local backups just use USB3 drive.. it is a bit unfair to compare.. as USB3 is 5Gbps connection whilst ethernet is only 1Gbps.. you might also find the speed in the backup is limited by sheer mechanical drive performance.. figures are always quoted for single large files but when you copy heaps of small files.. a mechanical drive takes a lot of time writing file allocations.. even if the actual file write is short.. it takes a long time relative to track after track of large file copying.
Let me add a few things.. 500GB disk in the MBP is not the quickest.. they are usually the slow 5400rpm drives.. unless you replaced it.
Our experience of TC suggests a speed of around 50GB/hr average doing backups.. but it is essential that you turn off wireless.. otherwise you will slow it down.. It is also important IPv6 is set correctly to link-local only and you cannot trust auto to get that right.. you need to set it.
If you still cannot achieve average speed of around 50GB/hr something is wrong.. either you are not getting full gigabit or something is slow.. test with the single large file eg 1GB over ethernet and see.. you should manage speed of around 50MBytes/sec.. (it can vary from 30-60 however... ).
It can take a long long time to do 2TB.. if that is all internal then perhaps look at using TM for the boot drive only.. you surely have it partitioned.. or multiple disks.. and use Carbon Copy Cloner for the other partitions.. it is not that it will go any faster.. but that you can separate out the tasks easier.

External Enclosure for Powerbook

I recently purchased an Addonics external enclosure to use with a G4 Powerbook. I also bought a Maxtor 400gb drive. After having some problems in formatting the drive, I found out the following from Addonics:
**For Mac OS only, there have been reports of incompatibility with the Firewire connection on G5 and PowerBook running Mac OS 10.2 using SATA hard drive larger than 200G. The latest Mac OS 10.3.6 is not supported at this time.**
I'm wanting suggestions on which enclosure to purchase that will function correctly.
Thanks,
John Lanza
Media Services Manager
Town of Smyrna
615-355-5703

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/toughtech.php
I have also used these, but they are pricer than granitedigital.
One very tough enclosure, however, and might worth the money for mobile application such as the poster mentioned.

Storage...external enclosure for SATA drives

Hey all,
I'm considering replacing the four internal SATA 1 TB drives that I have in my MacPro early 08 with the new 2 TB drives, but, would like to continue to use the 1TB drives in some kind of external enclosure system.
Any suggestions? Just got referred to some possibilities by MacSales:
FTKSATA2ME4E - port multiplier
SDITR5MB - external enclosure
FTKSATA2EEN4 - external enclosure
(these need to be pasted into their search field)

I don't have their 4bay enclosure, but i owned a portable 2TB hard drive, the drive is fast! the drive so far is running very good! I just tried out this drive when i was looking for an external drive and saw this review on macworld:
http://www.macworld.com/reviews/product/412562/review/istorageproit1_dock2tb.html

Need very large and quiet external drive for my mac mini

Hi, I already own a LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme 1TB triple interface drive.
the problem though is that it is extremely loud.
can anyone recommend an external hard drive as large or at least a 500 GB drive that's reliable and more importantly quiet.
thanks in advance

can anyone recommend an external hard drive as large
or at least a 500 GB drive that's reliable and more
importantly quiet.
Not quite what you asked for but this really is better...
Buy a PC box. Find one that is dead quiet and has a large number of disk drive bays. I have an Antec "Sonata" with a
2.4Ghz Pentium on an Asus M/B inside. The sonata is a
full sized tower and makes about is much noise at a Mac
Mini. Load the box up with up to 6 disk drives.
Next install Linux and use NFS to export the file system
to the Mac(s) (OK if you don't like Linux use Apple's
"darwin" as the two are nearly the same thing) What you've
got now is a "file server" which has much more functionalliy than a firewire disk drive. For example it can serve
the same files to 100 Macs and it can have it's own RAM cache and do RAID. You want "quiet" put the file server on the end of a 100 foot long Ethernet cable and put in in a closet. Darwin/Linux/BSD is happy to be "headless"
(that means run with no monitor/keyboard/mouse.)
Once you start takling "terabyters" you really should start
thinking about file servers and RAID and backup
It can be fast too. The server can make use of as much
RAM as you want to use as a cache, the RAID caclulations
and RAID multiple writes are done on the server
Apple has it's own storage system but it's middle four
digit price tag you can build the same thing with the
Antec Sonota box and common parts
My setup works well. The Seagate SATA dives are faster
than the Mini's internal drive but the Mini only has
100BaseT Eithernet. So that becomes the bottleneck.
I have yet to try to setup a firewire network between
the server and the Mini. It could be done but I'm not
motivated. 100BaseT works well enough

MP early 2008: Seeking advice on e-sata card and external enclosure for backup purposes

Hi everyone
I currently have my home folder on an internal 3TB drive which is SuperDuper'd every day to an identical internal drive.
I am running out of space and need to think of a longer-term solution. I will have to use several large drives - one drive for photos, one for iTunes library, one for documents etc. Each drive would be mirrored with SuperDuper to something like an IcyCUBE and connected through a PCIE e-sata card. I'm not considering any form of RAID solution.
Is Sonnet still the card manufacturer to go for - if so, is the E2P the card I need? Are there alternative cards and if so what should I look for (certain chipsets perhaps)?
Are there any known compatibility problems between certain cards and certain drive enclosures?
Is there a way to have only one cable between the computer and the enclosure or must each drive have its own connection?
Thanks very much in advance for any help with this.
Cheers
Philip

E2P is a low end two port card with limitation in bandwidth. Maybe you want 4-port card to give you more growth and expansion.
Green drives may or may not be ideal for your media storage needs. Cheaper. When floods drove up prive of drives in Sept 2011 they become more popular as Black 2TB price went to $270
Clone is one thing. Mirror is entirely different tech.
The issue are avoid those name brand WD and Seagate or LaCie enclosures.
Every new OS and Mac Pro has had some sort of change to drivers and such.
4TB drives should be part of your storage strategy.
Software RAID is fine with daily or as needed backups. Clone at least one, and TimeMachine for hourly. But never ever have only one backup set. One set should be off line and they would be rotated. For safety sake and avoid the all your eggs in one basket. Which is why yes internal is convenient but external drives and also drive enclosure that allows swapping.
A good USB3 + eSATA card is the most popular I think right now today.
And use Green 3-4TB for backup, and WD Black or enterprise for internal storage.

External enclosure for internal drive?

If I replace the 80 GB hard drive that will be coming with my Macbook with a lareger drive running at 7200 RPM, I would like to convert the stock one into an external drive.
Can anyone recommend a specific "enclosure" that will convert the 2.5" with the SATA interface, offer both USB and firewire connections, and for a cheap price??? I would really appreciate the insight, my search thus far has me scratching my head....

Unfortunately there isn't a cheap Firewire enclosure yet. There is a really good USB one, which I have <a href="http://cavemonkey50.com/2006/07/coolgears-25-inch-sata-to-usb-hard-drive- enclosure/"
reviewed on my website</a>.
As far as Firewire v. USB, it depends what you'll use the drive for. If it's just for occasional backup or file storage, USB will work fine for you. However if you want to transfer huge files back and forth between the drive often, you'll definitely want a Firewire connection. There is a great benchmark comparison that you should check out to see the actual performance difference. Now just keep in mind that the MacBook only has a Firewire 400 port.

External Enclosure for Drive Module?

We are setting up an emergency contingency strategy and we would like to be able to remove a drive module from our Xserve, then use it on another computer. Ideally we would like an external Firewire drive enclosure that would accept the Apple Drive Module as is. That's vs. unscrewing the drive from the module and installing it in an enclosure or in another computer. Has anyone seen anything like this? A carry bag or case for the drive module would be handy also. Thanks for any pointers.
Xserve G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Joseph-
Not trying to be an arse, but what about another XServe? I do not know how backwards compatible your drive modules are (as in a used G4 XServe), but certainly even a single processor node with no license would probably end up costing about the same as a specialty-type external housing.
Heck, that would possibly give you an entire contingency strategy in a box.
Just a thought. I know a nice case in the 300 dollar or less range would be superb, but I think they get you on that Apple proprietary thing.
-DaddyPaycheck

Convert IDE 2.5" external enclosure for use with SATA hard drive

Hello all,
I recently upgraded my Macbook hard drive and ordered a 2.5" enclosure at the same time for use with my old hard drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817347007). As soon as I opened it, I noticed that the pins don't line up and have now learned about IDE vs SATA in the forums. Okay, is there anyway I can still use this enclosure? An adapter?
Thanks,
Amber
MacBook 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)
MacBook 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)
MacBook 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Thanks. Hopefully I can find something that will fit into this tiny enclosure...
MacBook 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

HELP ! Two SATA drives in an external enclosure RAID ZERO. Need data recovery.

What a nightmare !     My neighbor died from esophageal cancer and the funeral is in one week. He left behind a G5 2.5 DP tower with a dead motherboard, and he put the two 640 GB SATA drives in an Other World Computing external enclosure Mercury Elite Pro Dual) weeks before he expired. He got access to these drives in this enclosure. (External RAIDs are a no-no).
His grieving wife wants pictures extracted from the drives. There is no known back up and the G5 tower cannot be found.
When connecting the external enclosure by FW800 or USB3, the need to format flag pops up. Disk Utility shows one 1400 GB drive "unformatted".    The DIP switches on the enclosure are set to RAID 0.   Several data recovery programs find files, but of course any jpg over 50kb looks like venetian blinds, Tried Data Rescue 3, and the drive depicted as 1280 GB does not divide using expert features and the command key, thus a RAID SET for emulation cannot be formed. See here: See here: http://www.prosofteng.com/blog/recovering-data-from-a-apple-raid-using-data-resc ue-3-by-prosoft-engineering-2/
What to do now to recover jpg's intact and ASAP ?
1. Try another enclosure ?
2. Insert these drives into my personal G5 tower ?
3. Try different data recovery software ?
4. Which software other than Data Rescue will recover from two drives in one external enclosure believed to be RAID ZERO ?
Thank you.

Yes, if and when the tower can be located and retrieved.   In one communication it was described as a G4, in another, a G5.
Turns out that a single external drive was found, so suspect that is the boot drive. In the mean time, am doing an emulated recovery (two sets) using two converter boxes to isolate the two SATA drives, assuming RAID 0 and 32kb striped,   The two sets and because the drive order is unknown.   The first recovery is almost completed.
BTW, OWC rep stated that the two drives cannot be read in their dual SATA enclosure. The rep stated that the drives would have to be reformatted while in thier enclosure, then use. Tried two enclosures to see if they would read the drives independently, and one brand had a silly interface.   One has to put in two "dummy drives" (or ones in which the data is not important) and then convert the electronics (reset switch + power button) to RAID 0.

Can I pull out a RAID drive and use in an external enclosure?

Hi everyone,
I have a Quicksilver with two identical drives formatted as a RAID setup (mirrored) and the G4 has reached its EOL (won't boot). Can I pull one of the RAID drives out and use in an external enclosure? Does the RAID formatting render it unusable in any other configuration? If that is the case, can I put the two drives into an external RAID enclosure?
Thanks in advance for any advice the community can supply!
Cheers,
James

Hi-
Can I pull one of the RAID drives out and use in an external enclosure?
Yes. Not as the original RAID setup, but as a drive, or part of a new RAID.
Does the RAID formatting render it unusable in any other configuration?
No. Just reformat the drive, and it's a regular drive, ready to go.
If that is the case, can I put the two drives into an external RAID enclosure?
A RAID set does not have to be internal. External RAID sets can be created, and successfully used.
Use firewire, or, if SATA, an eSATA connection to PCI controller.....
If the drive is, as you say, EOL, I would write zeros to the entire drive before reformatting.
Give Disk Utility a chance to map any bad sectors......

External Drive for Backups or Files

I just purchased a 4TB (2x2TB) external drive from OWC. I have two scenarios for its use and I'd like opinions on which is better. I have a lot of movies and video files (as well as other files that eat a lot of disk space).
*My setup is as follows...*
Mac Pro (late 2007 model)
1x500GB internal drive (Main Volume, aka "Macintosh HD")
2x500GB internal drives (RAID 0 - Used for Time Machine backup volume)
External enclosure with 2x2TB drives (eSATA output)
*Scenario 1: Use the external drive as a secondary storage device.*
In this scenario, I would keep the existing setup with the internal drives, and have a total of 500GB of space available for internal storage.
The external enclosure would have it's 2TB drives RAIDed together (RAID 1) with mirroring so that any video/miscellaneous files copied to it were copied to both drives (auto-backup). This means that I would have a total of 2TB of writeable space, instead of the full 4TB (2TB from each drive).
*Scenario 2: RAID all internal drives together (RAID 0) and use external enclosure for Time Machine.*
In this scenario, I would RAID the 3x500GB internal drives together (RAID 0) and combine them into one 1.5TB volume for Mac OS X. This would allow me to store all my files on the OS X volume.
I would also RAID the two external drives (RAID 0) in the enclosure (2x2TB) into one 4TB volume for Time Machine backups.
I'm leaning toward Scenario 2 because it's my understanding that RAIDing the three internal drives into a single volume will increase overall performance in terms of file save/copy operations. BUT...Will it decrease seek time when I'm accessing files?
I like Scenario 2 because it lets me keep everything on the same volume. I also like it because it allows me to upgrade the drives later to 1TB each and seems to provide the most flexibility. And, if there's ever a fire, I can grab the external enclosure in a hurry and run out of my house with my cats and car keys.
I'm really looking to get this right the first time, so opinions are what I need. Are there any performance drawbacks if I use Scenario 2?
Also, I've read that RAID will only work if the drives being combined are exactly the same (same size AND model number, etc). Is that true? I don't think OS X cares about this, but I've seen it as a warning on a lot of external drive enclosures that come with their own RAID controllers. Maybe it's just a CYA warning for those companies.
Thanks! Any help is very much appreciated.

Kappy wrote:
TM is not a substitute for permanent storage. TM will delete files from the backup that have been deleted from the source. If you need to keep files you will delete from the main drive, then TM is not a viable backup solution.
Backup is backup, not added storage. The two should be separate. Separation should be by using different drives to avoid loss of data on a partition if the entire drive fails. Furthermore, if you use a drive for permanent storage, then you should also make a backup of it.
Not sure what you mean. Time Machine is not permanent. The main startup volume is perm storage. Time Machine deletes files, yes, but only at the next backup. You can always go back in time and grab a file that was deleted today, yesterday, or two weeks ago, if Time Machine backed up a copy a month ago.
Not sure what you mean by "backup is backup", either. Which scenario are you referring to?
Both scenarios have a dedicated backup volume for Time Machine.
Scenario 1 has the external drive being mirrored, which means I've always got a backup of it when it's used as perm storage.
In scenario 2, the external drive is used for Time Machine only and the perm storage is all on the startup volume.
Sorry, I don't think you saw my two scenarios. Can you look them over and either detail what issues you have with each, or pick one as the "better" of the two. I need advice and it seems that I've met your requirements as you've laid them out.

Bus-powered external enclosure, too many choices.

Hi, I'm shopping for an external enclosure for my Macbook's Sata drive as I just ordered a 7200 Hitachi drive as a replacement, I would like the enclosure to be bus-powered, firewire is a good option but not necessary.
I noticed there are a few on eBay with those characteristics, are they any good. Checked the ones on Newegg (even though they don't ship to Canada), and they are a little more expensive. There is also one that seems nice on OWC but it's pretty expensive at 80$.
Not sure if I can trust the ones on eBay, what are you guys using/usggesting ?
Francis.

Hi
I did exactly the same thing a couple of months ago so that I could save money with the white macbook versus the black. I bought a 120GB drive for my iBook and switched it with the shipped one when the machine arrived from the Apple Store. Result = I get a better specified machine than was available on line (and in white) and a removable 60GB drive with bus power, firewire 800/400 and USB 2.0.
To get to the point buy one of these:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=736770&tstart=30
works a dream, is neat and compact, comes with useful short wires, can be powered if necessary, and looks cool.
I searched for a long time and the OWC enclosure was easily the best for me, even to import to the UK (i.e need to add on a few pounds sterling for customs - still way cheaper and better than alternatives).
David
macbook, PM G4s & G5s, PBG4, iMac G4 & G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)
PM G4 & G5s, PBG4, iMac G4 & G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)
PM G4 & G5s, PBG4, iMac G4 & G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Enclosures for Quantum Viking II 9.1 GB hard drive from a PowerMac G3 Tower?

Does ANY company make a stand-alone external enclosure for a Quantum Viking II 9.1 GB PHXWS hard drive from an old G3 Tower? Thanks!

I'm assuming that the hard drive is from a Blue & White G3. You'll have to spend more money than you'd probably want to, just to accomplish this. You can use any SCSI I/II enclosure that's designed for either a 3.5" HDD or 5.25" optical drive. These enclosures typically have a pair of Centronics-50 ports on the rear. Internally, the 50-conductor ribbon cable's plug must be adapted for use with your 9 GB Ultra2 LVD drive. I think your hard drive has a 68-pin connection, so you'd need an adapter that converts the 68-pin interface to a 50-pin connection and has high-byte termination (or 9-line negation), to safely "tie off" the unused 18 conductors. You'd also install a jumper across the pins that select "SE" (Single-Ended) operation of the drive. Because the high-byte termination adapter for the hard drive doesn't terminate the SCSI bus, you'd also need an Active SCSI terminator to plug into one of the Centronics-50 ports on the rear of the enclosure. The other Centronics-50 port would be cabled/connected to the external SCSI port on the host computer.

External Enclosure with out a fan

I bought a 250 gig Sata internal hard drive a while back and want to put it in an external enclosure for my video files to edit off of. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a huge selection of Sata firewire enclosures available. I found a couple from Coolgear.
Using it for video editing, would I be making a mistake using an aluminum enclosure without a fan?
Does anyone have any recommendation of specific enclosures they would recommend. I'm a hobbyist, so price is always a concern.
Thanks for your help.

Thanks for your input Alchroma. Unfortunately, when you throw in the SATA into the mix, you will find the options are very limited, especially with firewire. Most Externals right now are made for IDE drives. Coolgear makes a couple of enclosures, one with and one without the fan. I was very surprised when I started researching for an external enclosure how limited the SATA enclosures were. Kind of regret not going IDE at this time. I just didn't know at the time. Probably the reason is, you don't really benefit from the extra speed a SATA drive has to offer when it is in a 400FW enclosure.

Quiet external enclosure for SSDs in RAID

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