Hi there,
My old Mac Pro died. I have so much media stored on thirty or forty 3.5" SATA drives (mostly 1TB drives), which I'd like to connect to my new M3 MacBook Pro (36 GB RAM). I want access to the media on these drives, and I also want to be able to edit future projects.
Would any Macbook Pro Media Composer editors out there recommend this 5-bay USB 3.1 (Type C) enclosure?
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B073165ZCP/ref=sspa_dk_detail_1?pd_rd_i=B073165ZCP&pd_rd_w=h1FNN&content-id=amzn1.sym.516c2169-755e-413a-a38a-68230f4ab66f&pf_rd_p=516c2169-755e-413a-a38a-68230f4ab66f&pf_rd_r=CNWJJGGT2NHTM3DZEEQS&pd_rd_wg=6YKFb&pd_rd_r=305372eb-49e7-47f1-b990-e82b095bf2ce&s=electronics&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWw&th=1
It's not DAS or NAS, but I don't even know what those acronyms stand for, so I may not need them—(I'm not doing any really mission-critical editing that would warrant back-ups x 3, etc.). And I could never afford super-speedy multi-terrabyte flash drive storage. I just want something that allows me to connect to my SATA drives, something dependable, and something that's fast enough to edit with using Avid Media Composer. I do mostly HD work, but am getting into some 4K.
Advice on this matter, and frankly, any other MacBook Pro/Avid Media Composer set-up advice would be much appreciated.
Regards,
Malcolm
mhamilton:I just want something that allows me to connect to my SATA drives,
I'm pretty sure the TerraMaster you linked to won't be able to accomodate your current hard drives so that you can access the existing data.
This model is an example of a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) rather than a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which generally uses Ethernet to connect/communicate with your computer.
The TerraMaster will need a number of identical hard drives to allow it to build a RAID, after which you can certainly copy the media from your old drives to the RAID using something like a SATA dock. Depending on the type of RAID you choose, you will either get no redundancy (RAID 0) or Mirrored (RAID 1). Be aware that the maximum speed stated will often be a best-case scenario (probably with RAID 0 across 5 drives or with some combination of SSD SATA drives) so take them with a pinch of salt. You should be good for HD but multiple 4K streams may be a problem.
I can see that it has the ability to run in some sort of combined RAID plus single drive mode, but I suspect you can't just put in your old SATA drives in the single drive slots and expect to read the media. Usually these devices format the drives with a different partition format than (say) APFS or Mac OS Extended.
Thank you Bruno. Your answer has saved me from wasting three hundred (Cdn.) dollars, and hours of frustration.
Because you're right! I'm not interested in DAS, or NAS or even RAID! I just want to be able to plug as many of my 3.5" SATA drives into a drive enclosure—that connects via whatever is the fastest connection to a MacBook Pro, which I think is USB-C—as I can, so that:
A. I have access to all the media and files on these drives, and
B. I have an external drive for any Media Composer editing that I do in the future.
In google, for my search, I think I put a selection of terms like "multiple-bay", "USB-C", "3.5-inch SATA drives", and "Mac", and this Terramaster came up.
What can I add to my search parameters so that I don't go down some DAS or NAS-like rabbit hole?
Thanks so much,
You probably need something like this...
https://www.orico.cc/us/product/detail/3569.html
As far as I can see, you can install up to 5 SATA drives into this enclosure, connect to your computer via USB C and they should appear as 5 drives on your desktop.
I would read some reviews (on Amazon etc) to get opinion on how it works in practise. You should be able to mount/eject individual drives as you would with any USB device, but you might want to check this. I did have a quick look at the manual and it seems you can partition/format new drives in the same way as you would with any new drive.
The speeds are stated as USB 3.1 Gen 1, so a theoretical 5Gbits/sec. Like always, this is a theoretical limit for the data bus and you certainly won't get this from a single drive. Depending on your drive, the usual throughput is somewhere around 100-180Mbytes/sec, so good enough for HD but most people will tell you a single SATA mechanical hard disk won't be fast enough for 4K
You could investigate if there's faster options out there (such as Thunderbolt connected docks) but I suspect the limiting factor is going be the speed of your hard drive. I guess you could software RAID 0 the drives to increase performance but this will wipe any data that's currently on the disks.
I dont know about that thing. If you tried to access more than 1 drive at a time, i'm guessing it would slow to a halt.
I would consider buying a better Nas that can do raid 5, and combine all your data to that.
If you insist on using single hard drives, i would look at an enclosure with a 10 tb drive, and just transfer everything to it, keeping your old drives as a backup.
Hi both,
If you don't mind having a peek—would this do the trick for me?
https://www.amazon.ca/TS-453A-Professional-Grade-Attached-Supports-Playback/dp/B017YB7T6U/ref=asc_df_B017YB7T6U/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=706724917347&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2274339953268769002&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9000678&hvtargid=pla-382423110149&mcid=3817d64b4481347480a2feb9b4ab30f3&gad_source=1&th=1
... says it can handle 4K editing. Thunderbolt, which is faster than USB-C.
Regards, Malcolm
This is a NAS, as it says in the description..
So all the things that were described in previous posts apply. There's no Thunderbolt ports that I can see - just USB ports.
The 4K it's talking about is simply telling you that it will play out 4K media from the HDMI ports due to the fact it has some sort of hardware H.264 decoding built-in. You can thus use it as a media player or load something like Plex to turn it into a Media Server for movies, music etc. Any computer or Smart TV that has the Plex player installed can then access the Plex library and stream the media to their device.
This device is designed to send out data through it's Gbit Ethernet ports, so it forms part of your home network once attached to your router. The USB ports are simply for attaching external portable drives (for backup onto the NAS) or for extending the NAS with additional drive bays.
This might be what you are looking for:
https://www.amazon.com/Mobius-5-Bay-USB-C-External-Enclosure/dp/B07ND3JNZ6/
It's a very simple hot swap plug and play drive enclosure with a 10Gb USB-C port. Each drive bay is independently "attached" to the Operation System so you can eject a drive in the OS and remove the drive from the bay without turning it off or having any other connected drives disconnect. Slide a drive into a bay and it mounts in the OS. We've been using these for years and they work great.
I had the same issue moving from old 5,1 mac pro to a studio ultra. Been using the owc thunderbay 8. Works great. Have the option to use their software to raid all internals but i am just using as a hotswappable drive enclouse. I have ALL of my mac pro drives in and have added others. It runs smooth. Is quiet and supports thunderbolt so you get full speed out of your drives as opposted to usbe 3.1. https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderbay-8
I really really appreciate this real-world help!
I checked out the option you recommended ck123. $150 on amazon in the US, and almost $350 here in Canada, just across the border! I'm used to things being one-and-a-half times more costly, but boy oh boy—more than double.
I will contact OWC, Dale, about the Thunderbay unit. I don't need 8 bays, so I'm hoping I can get something for a decent price. I've dealt with OWC before and they've been reliable.
So thanks very much everyone!
i believe they have their own 4 bay unit which i have on my home computer and it works well as well. It is just an older one that doesn't have thunderbolt. Only usbc but still solid. Good luck.
I got the OWC Thunderbolt 4-bay enclosure. Will now install some of my old 3.5" SATA drives. For editing (I'm not getting into RAID at this point), should I format them as HFS+?
Thanks, Malcolm
NO.....formatting will delete your files. If you get new drives or drives that can be wiped, then format those....but not your older drives
yes, Robert—thank you for the reminder. I'm capable of doing just that.
I have so many old 3.5" drives, though, whose contents (Avid Media Files and whatnot for projects long ago finished and forgotten about) I no longer need. These drives I must have formatted back in 2007-2016, let's say.
Should I re-format those drives as part of the process of clearing them so I can use them again? and if so, is there a new formatting standard for more modern Mac hardware and software?
© Copyright 2011 Avid Technology, Inc. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Site Map | Find a Reseller