I have a Pegasus R-6 32tb tbolt 3 RAID...works fine...need another 64tb raid system. Only one user on it from a 2019 imacpro. 
it's been awhile since I've bought a new RAID. The OWC Thunderbay looks interesting...any experiences?  Good or bod or indifferent😁. 

Thanks and cheers 

Last time I used one the fan was loud and it used SoftRAID rather than a hardware RAID.  Outside of that, it performed well.

Thanks...

Do you have a favorite RAID solution for a single user?

Have an R6 and 2 x R8s. They are considerably better than the G-Tech G-Speed Shuttle that I also have; quieter and faster. Swapped out the drives in the R8s for bigger one's and went without a hitch so you can expand easily too.  Haven't tried the OWC though, just endorsing the Pegasus.

Andi

I have two ThunderBay 4 non-raid enclosures loaded with eight 4TB Sandisk SSDs in an 8-way RAID 0 - 32TB total.  I'm currently using a 2019 27" iMac and the trick I found is to connect the Thunderbay 4s to separate TB3 ports on your computer, if available.  When connected to 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports instead of looping with one port, read/write speed went from 1500 MB/s to 2500+ MB/s.  The SSDs are extremely quiet and produce almost no heat at all so the fans rarely run, and when they do run, I can't hear them.  Their performance with Media Composer is the best single-user setup I've ever had.  They also have looping TB3 connections AND a display-port.  Connected to one of the ThunderBay 4s is a 48" ultra-wide screen monitor.  Connected to the second ThunderBay 4 is an Artist DNxIO and another ThunderBay 6 with backup and storage HDs. The 4x DIY enclosures are only $369.00.  The SSDs are expensive, but for me, the advantages are totally worth it. 

I have reccommended the owc thunderbay as well to a few different editors on setups with imacs who have used them to bring their mac pro internal drives over to a new imac. Was very successful and the nice thing about the owc is the ability to use the drives unraided to keep existing project data alive as well as to be able to raid them in the future via their software. Great options and from all the feedback I've gotten very quiet, reliable, and fast.  I have Lacie raid. Solid, fast. This one is 10 years old and still one of my main drives for tv series work. Runs off esata on a mac pro 5,1. In 10yrs i've replaced 1 hd in it.  Costly drives but very reliable as well.

I have a promise r6, which is a hardware raid.

I have a Thunderbay8, which is a software raid.

The Thunderbay is very fast, but the software raid aspect sucks.  You can't just move it from box to box without dicking around with the software licensing, or buying more licenses.

As well, if you are like me, and have both Win and Macs, the software raid on Windows doesn't do Raid 5 or 6, so you can't move those back and forth between the two boxes nearly as easily as you can with the promise raid, which will launch on either type of computer in my suite.

Thanks so much for this comment. I've been going back and forth trying to decide between the Pegasus3 and the G-Speed Shuttle. Sounds like you prefer the Pegasus3. Can you please let me know which drives worked well for you in upgrading the R8s with bigger drives? 

Hi, so I used the Promise compatibility document on their website to make sure I was using supported drives. It hasn't been updated in a while but that shows you the drives they've tested it with. I think the largest on the list is 16TB.

For me, I replaced the 4TB drives that mine shipped with, with 8TB Toshiba drives, specifically Toshiba Enterprise MG Series SATA drives - item code is MG05ACA800E - I believe this is similar to what I bought. I bought 24 of these and 3 more for spares in case I needed to swap out a failing drive (so far, all good).

The process of replacing the drives was very straightforward. If you do decide to do this then you can see my posts on their forum that describe and link to the process of doing it.

The main reasons I prefer the Pegasus over the G-Speed are the lower noise and the better performance when dealing with smaller files. For example I found that copying things like TIFF sequences or multiple smaller video files (like GoPro or other minicam etc) would slow the G-Speed to a crawl. Although I realise that most of these type of RAIDs are optimised for larger files, the Pegasus did a better job. I had a few cases open with G-Tech but nothing came of it, they were no help.

Noise-wise, the tower sits on my desk so the quieter the better. I found the G-Speed to be constantly "clunking" as the heads moved about whereas the Promise was overall, much quieter.

I also had a few occasions where the G-Speed would completely corrupt itself if it was accidentally unplugged whilst the machine was still on. This then needed a very laborious fix where I would have to plug in in to a PC (I mainly work on a Mac) then fix the errors on the PC, then re-attach it the the Mac. It would be unreadable on the mac until this was done, so if you only have a mac, I would add that to the list of things to be cautious about.

I do prefer the form factor of the G-Speed with the built-in handle but it's not a dealbreaker for me. 

Hope that helps somewhat.

Andi

Sorry that 1st link didn't work. Just google; 

Pegasus32 R4 / R6 / R8 Compatibility List V1.2

and you'll find it.

Andi

Andi,

You're incredible. Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I went with the Pegasus3 and purchased these Enterprise 14TB drives because of their ratings and the great deal: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T63FDJQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hoping they work well. Promise support suggested I try them because they said there are many drives that will work but aren't listed just because they haven't tried them. Such helpful information about the G-shuttle too. I shared your findings with a friend looking as well. Really appreciate it, Andi!

Ryan

No problem Ryan. I have 3 of the Pegasus units and all of them are working fine after quite a few years of owning them. I think I had one drive fail once (obviously not an issue with the Promise - more the drive) and the process to replace a failed drive is also very painless and can be done without switching off the tower - you literally just hot-swap the failed drive for a new one and the unit begins rebuilding the data to the new drive. All in all, I'm very happy with them. Hope it works out well for you, let us know if there are any issues.

Cheers,

Andi