I'd be grateful for any informed advice on which of these two better suits music application (connecting to an early 2011 MBP with Thunderbolt):


G-Tech 4TB G-RAID Thunderbolt Hard Drive:
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/H8248ZM/A/g-technology-g-raid-thunderbol t-hard-drive?n=thunderbolt&fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&s=topSellers#mfr-info


or:


LaCie 4TB 2big Thunderbolt Series RAID Hard Drive
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/H8279ZM/A/lacie-4tb-2big-thunderbolt-ser ies-raid-hard-drive?n=thunderbolt&fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&s=topSellers


Thanks!
Kevin.

G-Tech - Lacie are notoriously unreliable - I've had about 5 over the years - all are now dead - I've moved on to G-tech and WD

--------------------
Mac Pro, Logic Pro, lots of software and 17 hard drives!

Bugger me, those are expensive.

( and unlikely to perform significantly faster than non-thunderbird disks )

@Johhypopisical - thanks a million for that pointer - really appreciated.



@Chris - the only alternative for my MBP (without buying some sort of interface adapter) is to use USB2: surely these Thunderbolt disks would be better USB2?

Reviews I've found on-line seem favourable though I profess to having little experience to date in gauging these issues.


thanks,
Kevin

Be careful with LaCie.

My 11 month old LaCie 2Tb drive failed without warning recently.

I needed to recover files urgently and took the drive to a specialist file recovery firm which recovered most of the files (at considerable cost to me).

LaCie refused to replace the drive, even though it failed within the warranty period.

LaCie asserted that as the drive chassis had been opened, the warranty was voided.

LaCie had not disclosed this exclusion clause at the time of purchase, but chose to rely upon it despite the fact that its defective product was the cause of the emergency which led to the opening of the drive chassis.

LaCie lacks commercial integrity and this might prove costly to you.

Cheers.

Thanks for the insight. It seems so that Lacie are an unreliable company with dubious technology. It looks like it's the G-Tech so.

Thanks,
Kevin.

do you need raid ? that ups the cost considerably ....

Well I'm just looking for Thunderbolt (or any fast), reliable and large capacity external HDs for my MBP for usual recording, sample libraries and such.

The options are limited. I'm planning to use this disk in Raid 0 mode - I have a back up regime in place where, when complete, projects are backed up twice to separate cheaper USB HDs - I compose part time for media (and compose art music too) so there isn't quite daily urgency to go to higher RAID levels (I'm now expecting a plethora of attacks for being so stupid on that !! :-) ).


In summary, I'm looking for the best Thunderbolt, reliable and high capacity external HDs and at the moment that seems to be a choice of the two I've mentioned (Western Digital seem to be rated poorly for speed in this category of disk from what I've read online).


But any other pointers welcome and am delighted to stand corrected on any misconception I've built up.

Cheers,
Kevin.

Thunderbolt seems rather expensive and an overkill for most applications. I'd probably consider the Apple FW adapter and a decent FW 800 drive. Apparently, "Apple will be releasing a FireWire 800 to Thunderbolt adapter this July."

http://store.apple.com/us/question/answers/product/MD463ZM/A?pqid=Q7AT2KTX PT2XF2HCTUDXXXFHKKDTXH22K9UT99TATKCDUTTY7

Quote Kevin Nolan:

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(Western Digital seem to be rated poorly for speed in this category of disk from what I've read online).



Cheers,
Kevin.

---

I get about 230MB/s read/write from my WD thunderbolt drive...is that fast enough?

actually one real plus about that drive for me is that It's really quiet.....

Which WD Thunderbolt drive in particular are you referring to (I'm now interested in it!!).

As mentioned above I have little experience to date with these technologies (up to recently used a _very_ slow PC-Laptop (as well as hardware sequencers)) - so I've no idea if 230 Mb/s is fast - is it? (I was only indicating WD as slower from a few reviews I read and not from experience so would value your indicator as to the performance of this WD when compared to the others). For example, I don't even know what effective rates USB2 HDs deliver - I'm going on quite simplistic perceptions on all of this (and it's difficult as a novice to HD technology to find good statistics on these things online (would love a comprehensive SOS review of all of this, and perhaps a monthly hi-tech page on the latest and greatest HD and interface technologies !!). The quietness issue is an important one too so it's great to hear the WD is quiet.

I believe the G-Tech overs over 300 Mb/s so superficially that suggests its a good lot faster (but again, have no real world experience to back that up).


Thanks,
Kevin.

Actually wmcintyre - here's a question for you.

With those WD drives (or indeed an Thunderbolt drive) - if you daisy chained two of them together, would you get 230 mb/s each, giving an effective 460 mb/s (say using one for sample libraries and the other for recording?).

Thanks,
Kevin.

Quote Kevin Nolan:

---

Which WD Thunderbolt drive in particular are you referring to (I'm now interested in it!!).

---

This one

It does use the slower green drives but I have had no trouble using them

Quote Kevin Nolan:

---

I believe the G-Tech overs over 300 Mb/s so superficially that suggests its a good lot faster (but again, have no real world experience to back that up).

---

that should be 300MB/s

Quote Kevin Nolan:

---

Actually wmcintyre - here's a question for you.

With those WD drives (or indeed an Thunderbolt drive) - if you daisy chained two of them together, would you get 230 mb/s each, giving an effective 460 mb/s (say using one for sample libraries and the other for recording?).

Thanks,
Kevin.

---

Yes I think so .....Thunderbolt can shift data at a rate of 1.25 GB/s × 2 so it can certainly handle a few of those drives without too much trouble

Quote Jonnypopisical:

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G-Tech - Lacie are notoriously unreliable - I've had about 5 over the years - all are now dead - I've moved on to G-tech and WD

---

Sometimes I think all the negative LaCie reports are due to LaCie simply having more products in the market.

I have a 7 year old FW-400 LaCie that's run every day. I have a newer LaCie drive with the same experiences.

I have two G-Tech drives. Not that impressed. A LaCie was my next drive purchase after the two G-Techs.