Recommend an external storage unit for mac

[Mark R]

I'm looking for an external storage box to expand the storage on a mac workstation at work.

Looking for around 4 TB with RAID 1 capability. Any recommendations? NAS not an option.

 

[Essence_of_War]

What model of Mac do you have, and specifically, what sort of connectivity options do you have?

 

[tweakboy]

Most of these HD external have MAC support.

 

[Mark R]

It's a Mac Mini.

Connectivity options are USB or firewire.

Speed isn't critical, but reliability is desirable (there will be a backup, but on a server proven to be unreliable).

Needs to be quiet enough to sit in an office environment next to a workstation (i.e. not server grade fans).

Network is unlikely to be adequate as there is only 100 mbps infrastructure in this particular office, and as this workstation gets 100 GB per day pushed to it for storage, having to push it back out to a NAS isn't going to work.

 

[Essence_of_War]

There is a nice dual-bay from OWC:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/PerformanceRAID

It has FW800 and USB 3.0 connectivity. You could order it bare, and BYO drives. Using FW, each of the drives can be accessed separately and you can utilize OS X's software RAID 1, which is probably more reliable than whatever RAID controller it comes with.

 

[Mark R]

Looks good.

Any thoughts on a drobo DAS (with thunderbolt/USB3)? I don't know if I've got a spare thunderbolt available, but USB would be plenty good enough.

The drobo apparently offers dual-drive redundancy, which might be a good idea, as the device will basically need to survive without much management.

 

[tweakboy]

Grab a Samsung or LaCie or WD. 3 choices, the rest are junk IMO. gl

 

[Essence_of_War]

I've heard good things about the Drobo, they use a proprietary not-quite-RAID-but-something-close-to-it that provides a couple of neat perks over ordinary RAID, and allows for on-the-fly expansion, which is pretty nice.

Do you have a specific budget in mind? If you're thinking of a Drobo, you might want to shop similar offerings from Buffalo, Lacie, and Promise.

 

[Mark R]

Thanks for the help.

Turns out we might not need this, we've found a spare NAS, so we're going to try to get that to work.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Not a problem. Best luck!

 

[Venomous]

Drobos are junk, stay away from them.