Tag Archives: hard drive

Never Ending Storage Needs

Posted on August 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

The OWC ThunderBay 8-Bay Enclosure

With the constant need for more storage, when my current storage got down to a few hundred gigabytes of free space, the time came to expand. I was very happy to spot that OWC had brought out a new 8-bay solution, which I had somehow missed. So I ordered the OWC ThunderBay 8-Bay Enclosure to expand my photographic and video storage.

OWC ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3, 8 Bay Storage Enclosure. August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

I’ve been using various OWC external storage boxes for many years now. My current storage for my picture library (including video) was residing on a four bay ThunderBay box, filled with WD 6Tb Enterprise class hard drives. These were all left as individual drives, connected via Thunderbolt 2 to my Mac Pro. Once the fourth drive was down to a few hundred gigabytes of free space, it was time to plan ahead and upgrade.

OWC ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3, 8 Bay Storage Enclosure. The lockable front cover has been taken off, showing the 8 drive trays. August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

Before I continue, a few explanations on why use multiple drive bay enclosure boxes, over getting individual external drives. In a nutshell, its to keep things nice and tidy. Declutter. With a box storing 2, 4 or 8 hard drives, you only need one electricity plug and one connection cable to your computer, not 2, 4 or 8. It also means that my entire picture library is always available; many colleagues have to unplug and plug in various hard drives to try and find more historical work. Lastly, the constantly attached library also means that Cloud backups can happen fully and properly.

OWC ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3, 8 Bay Storage Enclosure. With the thumbscrew undone, the drive tray can easily be slid out. Here, the new 8Tb Toshiba hard drive has been screwed into the tray, ready to be inserted back. August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

The ThunderBay enclosures aren’t hardware RAID boxes, but give you an option of using SoftRAID (a software RAID, available in two versions) by OWC. It’s not something I personally use. All my drives in my ThunderBay enclosures have always been used as individual drives (I do use hardware RAID 5 in other enclosures as backup boxes). These individual hard drives are then backed up to my RAID 5 box using Carbon Copy Cloner, backed up offsite manually (per assignment) and also backed up in the Cloud automatically, using Backblaze. Incidentally, that Backblaze referral link will give us both a free month of Cloud backup, if you’re a new customer.

OWC ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3, 8 Bay Storage Enclosure. I always add a label to the hard drive (make sure never to cover any holes on the hard disk’s case) and also onto each individual tray. This makes future upgrades or swap outs easier and fool proof. August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

Once the OWC ThunderBay 8-Bay TB3 Enclosure arrived, I simply shut down my Mac Pro, took out the four hard drives from my previous ThunderBay 4-bay enclosure, installed them in the 8-bay enclosure and added the fifth, new drive. Each drive screws into its own drive tray using the supplied screws. After some research, I also decided to try a Toshiba Enterprise class hard drive for the first time. I opted for the Toshiba 8.0TB MG05ACA Series SATA Interface Enterprise Class Hard Disk Drive, also available from OWC. This leaves three bays free in the box, for future upgrade needs. It’s an extremely elegant, practical and future proof solution for one’s never ending storage needs.

OWC ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3, 8 Bay Storage Enclosure, next to (on the left) an OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini enclosure, which houses 2.5” SSD drives. All the drives have been fitted, leaving thee vacant for the future and the unit is plugged in. Being a TB3 enclosure, I used an Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter, to allow it to work with my Mac Pro (Late 2013 model). August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

Something worth thinking about, if your current storage involves multiple external drives, with a spaghetti like tangle of cables. If you’re not worried about warranties, you are extremely careful and are happy to take the risk (there is always risk present in doing anything with the innards of computers and related equipment) is to physically transfer those individual SATA hard drives into a ThunderBay box. Declutter and become more efficient. The intelligent design also allows 2.5” drives to be used.

Clockwise: OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini, ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3, G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL (in RAID 5 configuration, used as a backup) and my Apple Mac Pro (Late 2013). August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

However, the best option would be to transfer the data onto new hard drives. I tend to swap out hard disks every 4-5 years, as they all have finite life cycles. Also it means that as hard drives increase in size, the physical number of drives needed is less.

OWC ThunderBay 8 Thunderbolt 3, 8 Bay Storage Enclosure has individual LEDs for each drive. August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

Lastly, always backup your work. You need everything on at least two physically different drives, but ideally three. One set being kept in a geographically different location. Ideally, a final layer of safety would be a Cloud backup.

My previous OWC ThunderBay, 4 Bay Storage Enclosure, which has now been retired. August 28, 2020. Photo: ©Edmond Terakopian

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Posted in Apple, Computers and Software, Mac, Photography, Review, Storage, Video, viewpoint

Tagged 8 bay, backup, data, hard disk, hard drive, owc, photographs, photography, sata, storage, Thunderbay, Toshiba, video

Cooling Fans

Posted on July 18, 2015 | Leave a comment

Keeping Your Hard Drives & Computer Cool

The warmest room by far in most homes is the home office, mainly because that’s where the computer and the hard drives live. Any creative will generate loads of data (pictures, video or audio) which means loads of hard drives for storage and backup. Even though some external hard drives have fans to keep things cool, once these pile up, pockets of hot air form and have an effect on both the active (fan) and passive (heatsink) cooling of hard drives. Excess heat can result in hard drive failure and on computers erratic behaviour at best or failure of internal components at worst.

A powered USB hub and a pair of USB fans cool down my hard drives. July 18, 2015. Photo: Edmond Terakoian

Server rooms in offices have specific air-conditioning installed to keep the storage arrays cool, but alas most of us won’t be in a position to do that. Next best thing is to move the hot air away from the drives and also to cool the air falling upon and into them.

A powered USB hub and a pair of USB fans cool down my hard drives. July 18, 2015. Photo: Edmond Terakoian

A very simple and cheap solution is to install a powered USB hub and plug in some USB fans. These will cool down the air and also move the air around. Simple, cheap, easy and effective.

A USB fan cools down the air before it get’s sucked into my MacPro. July 18, 2015. Photo: Edmond Terakoian

Another use for the simple USB fan is to have it cool down the air that’s sucked into your computer by it’s own internal cooling fan. By cooling the air outside the computer, the computer’s internal cooling system has a more effective job of keeping the CPU, GPU and internal hard drives cool. Incidentally, having a fan blow cooler air towards the air intake on your laptop will have the same effect (on Apple MacBooks it’s the hinge between the screen and keyboard. On PCs it’s sometimes the same place and sometimes on one of the sides).

Naturally, on hot days, the same technology can be used to cool you down too!

Good places to source this equipment will be Scan, Amazon or Dabs.

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Posted in Computers and Software

Tagged apple, computer, cooling, external hard drive cooling, fan, hard drive, hard drive cooling, heat, mac, summer

ioSafe Rugged Portable

Posted on October 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Tough, Tough & Tough!

ioSafe Rugged Portable at the pool. Royal Hideaway Placar, Riviera Maya, Mexico. July 12, 2012. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

ioSafe describe their Rugged Portable drive as an aircraft black box for mobile date; I must say that I agree. I’ve been using their 500Gb model for over three months now and I am very impressed. From the moment you pick it up you realise it’s no ordinary portable drive. It is solid; really solid, yet not too heavy. The case is a solid piece of aluminium covering the top and the sides, with another solid piece of metal covering the bottom. Just by knocking it you can feel that this thing is built to last and designed to take knocks. ioSafe say that it will withstand a three meter drop and is crush proof withstanding up to a ton of weight. It’s also water proof! Yes, a waterproof portable hard drive! It can withstand being immersed in up to three meters of water (salt or fresh). The titanium and SSD versions of the drive can withstand even more abuse. To top things off data recovery and a no quibble warrantee finish things off nicely.

I took this drive on assignment to Cancun. As with my G-Tech Minis, it stood up to the knocks of travel well. One thing however I would not do to any other drive out there is take it to the hotel pool. I even immersed it in the pool, threw it around underwater and knocked it about a bit. Some bubbles escaped from the interface sockets (FW800 and USB 2.0), but that was it. I was absolutely certain though that I had killed the drive! I then took the drive out, dried it up and went back to my room, where I washed it in the sink! After drying out the contacts, I plugged it into my MacBook Pro using FW800 and it started up without issue, mounting on the desktop immediately. Checking through my data, all was safe; no issues at all. I for one was absolutely stunned, shocked and in a state of disbelief.

ioSafe Rugged Portable in the pool. Royal Hideaway Placar, Riviera Maya, Mexico. July 12, 2012. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

ioSafe Rugged Portable at the pool side, dripping with water after being submerged. Royal Hideaway Placar, Riviera Maya, Mexico. July 12, 2012. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

My only wish would be for a faster drive, as the one used runs at 5400rpm. My guess is this is purely to manage heat build up, as without ventilation slots a 7200rpm would probably fail. Having said that, 5400rpm is more than adequate for backing up. Our data is important to us; for most, it is vital. Most of us work in hazardous environments from time to time and on top of this, accidents will happen even in normal surroundings. I’m so impressed by the way this little yet solid drive has worked that I will definitely become a customer of theirs. With the SSD and titanium versions offering even more protection, it comes as a no brainer for me to recommend you look at this range of Rugged Portable drives by ioSafe. Very impressive indeed. Amazon UK price this drive at under £195 which is good value in my opinion. You can find other UK stockists here.

ioSafe Rugged Portable is washed in the sink. Royal Hideaway Placar, Riviera Maya, Mexico. July 12, 2012. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

The company also has a range of desktop solutions, which add fireproofing to the mix. Lastly, they are on Indiegogo crowd sourcing funds for their new Disaster proof private cloud NAS RAID box.

ioSafe Rugged Portable plugged into a MacBook Pro after being dunked int he pool. Royal Hideaway Placar, Mexico. July 12, 2012. Photo: Edmond Terakopian

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Posted in Archiving, Computers and Software, Review, Storage, Travel, viewpoint

Tagged crush proof, hard drive, hotel pool, ioSafe, portable, review, rugged, tough, water proof

Excellence In Customer Service

Posted on September 14, 2010 | 9 comments

G-Tech Going Above & Beyond

Anyone who has read my posts about backing up knows how important good hard drives are; they will also know that all drives eventually break – it’s just a question of when. To re-cap, it’s essential to have backups, and preferably more than one!

I have seven drives from G-Tech. Superbly designed, solidly built and reliable. Unfortunately one of my drives, a Time Machine drive stopped working; the disk just wouldn’t power up and spin. The drive in question was a 1Tb G-Drive which has been in constant use for well over a year. Good news was that all G-Tech drives come with a three year warranty.

I contacted G-Technology’s customer service and arranged to send it back for repair. The drive was returned after a couple of weeks but what absolutely stunned me was that they had not only changed the faulty drive, but upgraded the case and circuitry to the latest version!

G-Tech are more expensive than others, but with customer service as amazing as this, every penny spent turns out to be well worth it. On a related note, a development with the company is that they are using Enterprise standard drives in some of their products. I’d love to see this extended to the full range; after all, professional level drives are absolutely relied on and some used 24/7. I for one would be happy to have the option to spend more and have Enterprise drives as I do in my Sonnet Fusion D800.