13:07 - also, market research. Interest in Kickstarted may be a good indicator of market demand which will help even an established company to optimise their production, supply chain, and logistics.
First off, excellent video, very well done. Personally I really fancy 2 drives in raid and then 1 or 2 sata drives for random nonsense and then maybe the m.2 drives for audio sample libraries or something like that…. I just don’t really like the price. £300 seems a little steep so maybe I’ll take a look at the 2 bay and the Qnap you mentioned in this video.
Thank you, appreciated! The two bay option could be good, its around 30% cheaper. Amazon.co.uk appear to have a £50 discount on the 4 bay at the moment also, at least at amzn.to/3yGmDEc. QNAP is cheaper, but doesn't have the NVMe option on it. So for the high speed storage option, the D5 and D8 do have an advantage. Which ever you go for, all the best with it. 😁
Great review. Pretty interesting, but Im going to wait until its fully released to see if any issues start occuring after the official launch. Im one of those people who would only use JBOD in such things.
Thank you for the comment. The DAS is fairly simple as its all done in hardware, without the need for an OS etc. During my testing I gave it a pretty hard time with lots of RAID changes and disks getting pulled and inserted and I didn't see any issues, which I think is what would be expected. It will be available pretty soon, and I am continuing to use it. So we will see!
your opinion of this for a movie & tv show plex server library via a mac mini? i’m currently simply using a 14tb seagate drive backed up w/carbon copy cloner on another 14tb seagate. thanks for your videos.
This could be a good use case. Use the HDD slots for a media library, but put the plex app and its database / meta store on an NVMe. You also have the option to RAID 1 the media if you want to, or you could just use another drive bay and non-raid to keep a near line or offline media backup. The SSD drives are the best place for Plex itself and will make the UI experience snappier than if you have that on the HDDs. But depending on the Max Mini drive and your DB size, that could just be on the Mac itself. So have to ask yourself if you are getting the benefit of that high speed NVMe. During the kick starter pricing though, it’s even more compelling, so factor that in.
@@sometechguy the 2012 mac mini has a built-in 128gb ssd. currently the plex app is on that ssd. do i need the nvme benefits? my media library currenty is about 7tb and is on the seagate 14tb drive (i just got several of them at costco being blown out for $99/ea). thanks very much for your reply.
Those chips are also SATA as well, and I suspect one of the lanes may be used for the SATA connection to the respective 3.5” bay. I looked extensively for the Realtek docs for this chip, but Realtek just had lots of broken links. The performance to each NVMe seems to match that of 1 Gen3 lane, so that seemed to support that theory.
@@sometechguy afraid not, the PCB that the SATA drives connects to has two ASM235CM USB to SATA bridges and one ASM1352R USB to SATA RAID controller for the two RAID capable drive bays. Check my review on TechPowerUp for links to all the chips, as I can't post links here.
This is a great review. I ordered this as an expansion for my two bay terramaster NAS. And it makes me feel better knowing I’m not really going to want to buy the fastest drives available since there is that bottleneck. So a budget case makes me buy budget drives. And I’m really going to be very happy with 900 mb/s read and write. I’m planning to basically make those first two drive bays mirror my NAS to give me an extra backup since my NAS is the only place all of my data is stored. Then I’ll use the m.2 nvme drives as a hot array for editing 4K video. I’m saying goodbye to working directly off my Mac! That said, I’m wondering what drives you recommend I get so I can get the max read and write this thing is capable of without spending more than is necessary? What drives will be optimal in this case to keep cost down but take advantage of the most performance? Thanks
Drives normally state their read/write in MBPS, so this is a starting point. However, this performance is often based on either SLC cache speed, or if they have DRAM. Once the cache is full, you are down to the read/write performance of the main NVMe storage. If it’s QLC, it may be slower than 1000MBPs. It’s a bigger topic that may need some research, but mostly TLC (Triple Level Cell) NAND will probably be able to sustain the 1000Mbps, QLC (Quad level Cell) may not. QLC offers the highest capacity, but it’s slow and not as durable. So check for both the speed, dig into the sustained speed and check the cache size as the cache getting filled will determine when the sustained write matters. Depending how much you read/write at a time will be the thing to consider. I want to do some content on all this topic also. Have a few things coming before this though.
Hello, thanks for the good review video. I took delivery of this about 2 weeks ago and have populated it with four 12TB Seagate Exos HDDs only. I'm using it with an old Mac mini (2014) and have managed to do a nested RAID (not sure what the proper term is) where bays 1&2, and bays 3&4, are in individual RAID 0s; the two RAID 0s were then put in RAID 1, and it seems to be working well. The funny thing though is that the DAS is showing up in the System Information as a "4-port USB 2.0 hub" and the write speed seems to average out around just under 40 MB/s. Does this all sound right?
The hardware doesn’t support this, so I am guessing you set the RAID up in macOS instead and it’s done in software. So the bandwidth limitation is probably down to the RAID config, or hardware capabilities in the Mac. Maybe it’s worth writing something large to the array and checking what the CPU/Memory load is on the Mac, it’s possible it’s struggling with that.
@@sometechguy Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I'm using the MacOS RAID assistant. I've actually been writing lots to do the DAS and have observed that the write speed remains very consistent around 38-40MB/s, with very occasional dips to 35MB/s or spikes to 45MB/s. As for memory usage, it typically peaks out just above 4.8GB out of the 8GB I have installed. CPU usage though goes up close to 80-90% when I'm scanning and updating my Plex folders.
This performance is well below what I would expect, and I think its likely because the Mac isn't up to the task of running the RAID, especially a RAID 10. Also, I don't know if this would be a reliable way to run a RAID to be honest. Depending on your objective here, you may be better off doing RAID 1 in the DAS on the first 2 slots, and then backing up to the other disks which wouldn't be in a RAID. If you are using X18 Exos 12Tbs, those disks are capable of somewhere in the 260MBps range, so 40MBps is way below what they are capable of. I don't know how busy the Mac is, but if its 80-90%, you could try killing all unneeded processes and seeing if it affects the performance. Also, scanning Plex could be random reads which would be a bit slower, but shouldn't be that slow, but may well put even more strain on the Mac. Maybe try and straight copy of data on and off with and without plex running to check CPU loads and what sequential read and write can get to.
@@sometechguy thanks again! I'm using 2x x12 and 2x X16. I've put one pair in bays 1&2 and the other pair in bays 3&4 but I can't remember which ones are in which. They're all renewed by the way, directly from Amazon. In any case, I'm guessing that the 40MB/s is still a huge underperformance of what should be expected. I actually have a temporarily spare external HDD that I'll use to house my library, and then follow your suggestion and test the straight read/write speeds. Regarding your suggestions and questions about my objective is, can I first just confirm if you meant to suggest that I should run RAID 0 (as opposed to RAID 1) for bays 1&2? Putting bsys 1&2 into RAID 1 would only give me 12TB there, correct? I'm actually planning to mainly use it as a Plex server. I guess I could put bays 1&2 into RAID 0 (via the DAS), and then maybe put bays 3&4 into another RAID 0 (via MacOS) and use some other software to mirror the two RAID 0s? One thing that puzzles me though is why the Mac's System Info detects the DAS as a USB 2.0 hub but correctly detects another hub (that my ext HDD is connected to) as USB 3.1. Any ideas? Could the RAID 10 setup be the problem there also?
@sometechguy OK I've tested the read/write speeds in single, JBOD and RAID 0 (not 10), and the cap appears to remain there. I did get a slightly higher sustained write speed (of around 42MB/s) in single and JBOD, but that's negligible. I'm wondering if it's got anything to do with the fact that the Mac seems to be recognizing the DAS as only USB 2.0 hub?
I would prefer it was managed on onboard personally, but this is certainly and option, especially if use this as an extension to a NAS that will handle that part.
It would be good to see if/how this performs with 4 x 3.5” drives AS single disks and then set up in software RAID5. I have a home music studio and looking for a DAS for local cold storage, with the hot storage being NVMe and SAsAd internally within my desktop. Being a DAS (rather than a NAS) then also allows for a Backblaze cloud backup for cheap of everything too. This looks good for my niche use case, just wish it had RAID5 across all 4 hard drives.
This is a possibility, and with around 980MBps bandwidth, it should be possible to run 4x of most drives at their max or close. Though it might be worth validating that there are no other bottlenecks for that. I am naturally a bit cautious about running a RAID over USB as integrity is going to be crucial, especially to a PC though a hard connection to a NAS feels better to me. But yes, I agree. I would have loved it if this delivered on board, native RAID5.
Because this is a DAS and not a NAS, it won’t provide a media server itself as a DAS is just a storage device you connect to something else like a PC or media server. You can attach it to something else that hosts the media server and use it’s storage to host the library. But if you want something that is going to be a media server itself, then a NAS will be a better fit.
They offer on that Kickstarter to add an F2-423 NAS …. I am a beginner with the need of back-up photo’s . Would that be an o.k. option ? I have to figure out which HDD’s to put in … any idee ? Kind regards
You could, but I think DAS units are targeted for those who work with machines where that flexibility isn't available. Graphics artists and creators often work with Apple or laptops etc. But this is also why I would have preferred RAID5 in the device, so the array is managed in hardware outside the host OS. Also bear in mind that these devices are pretty cheap, and by the time you bought a larger case and maybe a motherboard that can accommodate the extra NVMe's, you probably spent more than you would have on a DAS. You can also move a DAS between devices, and they provide a desktop platform for hot-swapping disks if you want to take backups to a cold store disk and pull it out. So they do have benefits.
This channel is criminally under subscribed.
Thank you, and I agree. Spread the word! 😎
This looks pretty interesting for attaching to my Odroid C4 Openmediavault NAS.
13:07 - also, market research. Interest in Kickstarted may be a good indicator of market demand which will help even an established company to optimise their production, supply chain, and logistics.
Great review! If I didn’t already have my storage needs sorted out. I would definitely be looking at one of these.
Appreciate it! 👍
First off, excellent video, very well done. Personally I really fancy 2 drives in raid and then 1 or 2 sata drives for random nonsense and then maybe the m.2 drives for audio sample libraries or something like that…. I just don’t really like the price. £300 seems a little steep so maybe I’ll take a look at the 2 bay and the Qnap you mentioned in this video.
Thank you, appreciated! The two bay option could be good, its around 30% cheaper. Amazon.co.uk appear to have a £50 discount on the 4 bay at the moment also, at least at amzn.to/3yGmDEc. QNAP is cheaper, but doesn't have the NVMe option on it. So for the high speed storage option, the D5 and D8 do have an advantage.
Which ever you go for, all the best with it. 😁
Great review.
Pretty interesting, but Im going to wait until its fully released to see if any issues start occuring after the official launch.
Im one of those people who would only use JBOD in such things.
Thank you for the comment. The DAS is fairly simple as its all done in hardware, without the need for an OS etc. During my testing I gave it a pretty hard time with lots of RAID changes and disks getting pulled and inserted and I didn't see any issues, which I think is what would be expected.
It will be available pretty soon, and I am continuing to use it. So we will see!
Raid is overRaided
Subscribed
Welcome 😊
your opinion of this for a movie & tv show plex server library via a mac mini? i’m currently simply using a 14tb seagate drive backed up w/carbon copy cloner on another 14tb seagate. thanks for your videos.
This could be a good use case. Use the HDD slots for a media library, but put the plex app and its database / meta store on an NVMe. You also have the option to RAID 1 the media if you want to, or you could just use another drive bay and non-raid to keep a near line or offline media backup. The SSD drives are the best place for Plex itself and will make the UI experience snappier than if you have that on the HDDs. But depending on the Max Mini drive and your DB size, that could just be on the Mac itself. So have to ask yourself if you are getting the benefit of that high speed NVMe. During the kick starter pricing though, it’s even more compelling, so factor that in.
@@sometechguy the 2012 mac mini has a built-in 128gb ssd. currently the plex app is on that ssd. do i need the nvme benefits? my media library currenty is about 7tb and is on the seagate 14tb drive (i just got several of them at costco being blown out for $99/ea). thanks very much for your reply.
The Realtek RTL9210 chips are PCIe 3.0 x2 to USB 3.2 Gen 2 bridge chips, FYI. The RTS5432 is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 hub.
Those chips are also SATA as well, and I suspect one of the lanes may be used for the SATA connection to the respective 3.5” bay. I looked extensively for the Realtek docs for this chip, but Realtek just had lots of broken links.
The performance to each NVMe seems to match that of 1 Gen3 lane, so that seemed to support that theory.
@@sometechguy afraid not, the PCB that the SATA drives connects to has two ASM235CM USB to SATA bridges and one ASM1352R USB to SATA RAID controller for the two RAID capable drive bays. Check my review on TechPowerUp for links to all the chips, as I can't post links here.
This is a great review. I ordered this as an expansion for my two bay terramaster NAS. And it makes me feel better knowing I’m not really going to want to buy the fastest drives available since there is that bottleneck. So a budget case makes me buy budget drives. And I’m really going to be very happy with 900 mb/s read and write. I’m planning to basically make those first two drive bays mirror my NAS to give me an extra backup since my NAS is the only place all of my data is stored. Then I’ll use the m.2 nvme drives as a hot array for editing 4K video. I’m saying goodbye to working directly off my Mac! That said, I’m wondering what drives you recommend I get so I can get the max read and write this thing is capable of without spending more than is necessary? What drives will be optimal in this case to keep cost down but take advantage of the most performance? Thanks
Drives normally state their read/write in MBPS, so this is a starting point. However, this performance is often based on either SLC cache speed, or if they have DRAM. Once the cache is full, you are down to the read/write performance of the main NVMe storage. If it’s QLC, it may be slower than 1000MBPs. It’s a bigger topic that may need some research, but mostly TLC (Triple Level Cell) NAND will probably be able to sustain the 1000Mbps, QLC (Quad level Cell) may not. QLC offers the highest capacity, but it’s slow and not as durable.
So check for both the speed, dig into the sustained speed and check the cache size as the cache getting filled will determine when the sustained write matters. Depending how much you read/write at a time will be the thing to consider.
I want to do some content on all this topic also. Have a few things coming before this though.
Hello, thanks for the good review video. I took delivery of this about 2 weeks ago and have populated it with four 12TB Seagate Exos HDDs only. I'm using it with an old Mac mini (2014) and have managed to do a nested RAID (not sure what the proper term is) where bays 1&2, and bays 3&4, are in individual RAID 0s; the two RAID 0s were then put in RAID 1, and it seems to be working well. The funny thing though is that the DAS is showing up in the System Information as a "4-port USB 2.0 hub" and the write speed seems to average out around just under 40 MB/s. Does this all sound right?
The hardware doesn’t support this, so I am guessing you set the RAID up in macOS instead and it’s done in software. So the bandwidth limitation is probably down to the RAID config, or hardware capabilities in the Mac. Maybe it’s worth writing something large to the array and checking what the CPU/Memory load is on the Mac, it’s possible it’s struggling with that.
@@sometechguy Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I'm using the MacOS RAID assistant. I've actually been writing lots to do the DAS and have observed that the write speed remains very consistent around 38-40MB/s, with very occasional dips to 35MB/s or spikes to 45MB/s. As for memory usage, it typically peaks out just above 4.8GB out of the 8GB I have installed. CPU usage though goes up close to 80-90% when I'm scanning and updating my Plex folders.
This performance is well below what I would expect, and I think its likely because the Mac isn't up to the task of running the RAID, especially a RAID 10. Also, I don't know if this would be a reliable way to run a RAID to be honest.
Depending on your objective here, you may be better off doing RAID 1 in the DAS on the first 2 slots, and then backing up to the other disks which wouldn't be in a RAID. If you are using X18 Exos 12Tbs, those disks are capable of somewhere in the 260MBps range, so 40MBps is way below what they are capable of.
I don't know how busy the Mac is, but if its 80-90%, you could try killing all unneeded processes and seeing if it affects the performance. Also, scanning Plex could be random reads which would be a bit slower, but shouldn't be that slow, but may well put even more strain on the Mac. Maybe try and straight copy of data on and off with and without plex running to check CPU loads and what sequential read and write can get to.
@@sometechguy thanks again! I'm using 2x x12 and 2x X16. I've put one pair in bays 1&2 and the other pair in bays 3&4 but I can't remember which ones are in which. They're all renewed by the way, directly from Amazon. In any case, I'm guessing that the 40MB/s is still a huge underperformance of what should be expected. I actually have a temporarily spare external HDD that I'll use to house my library, and then follow your suggestion and test the straight read/write speeds.
Regarding your suggestions and questions about my objective is, can I first just confirm if you meant to suggest that I should run RAID 0 (as opposed to RAID 1) for bays 1&2? Putting bsys 1&2 into RAID 1 would only give me 12TB there, correct? I'm actually planning to mainly use it as a Plex server. I guess I could put bays 1&2 into RAID 0 (via the DAS), and then maybe put bays 3&4 into another RAID 0 (via MacOS) and use some other software to mirror the two RAID 0s?
One thing that puzzles me though is why the Mac's System Info detects the DAS as a USB 2.0 hub but correctly detects another hub (that my ext HDD is connected to) as USB 3.1. Any ideas? Could the RAID 10 setup be the problem there also?
@sometechguy OK I've tested the read/write speeds in single, JBOD and RAID 0 (not 10), and the cap appears to remain there. I did get a slightly higher sustained write speed (of around 42MB/s) in single and JBOD, but that's negligible. I'm wondering if it's got anything to do with the fact that the Mac seems to be recognizing the DAS as only USB 2.0 hub?
Maybe use it in single mode and then put a software raid on it.
I would prefer it was managed on onboard personally, but this is certainly and option, especially if use this as an extension to a NAS that will handle that part.
It would be good to see if/how this performs with 4 x 3.5” drives AS single disks and then set up in software RAID5. I have a home music studio and looking for a DAS for local cold storage, with the hot storage being NVMe and SAsAd internally within my desktop. Being a DAS (rather than a NAS) then also allows for a Backblaze cloud backup for cheap of everything too. This looks good for my niche use case, just wish it had RAID5 across all 4 hard drives.
This is a possibility, and with around 980MBps bandwidth, it should be possible to run 4x of most drives at their max or close. Though it might be worth validating that there are no other bottlenecks for that. I am naturally a bit cautious about running a RAID over USB as integrity is going to be crucial, especially to a PC though a hard connection to a NAS feels better to me.
But yes, I agree. I would have loved it if this delivered on board, native RAID5.
Raid for SSDs is more than just speed. Another product that shows why someone should avoid those NAS/DAS boxes...
I don't understand. Can you please elaborate
New to Home Storage. Would I have any issues using this as a Media server as well?
Because this is a DAS and not a NAS, it won’t provide a media server itself as a DAS is just a storage device you connect to something else like a PC or media server. You can attach it to something else that hosts the media server and use it’s storage to host the library.
But if you want something that is going to be a media server itself, then a NAS will be a better fit.
They offer on that Kickstarter to add an F2-423 NAS …. I am a beginner with the need of back-up photo’s . Would that be an o.k. option ? I have to figure out which HDD’s to put in … any idee ? Kind regards
Couldn't you just get a tower case and shove some extra drives in it? Seems a bit niche.
You could, but I think DAS units are targeted for those who work with machines where that flexibility isn't available. Graphics artists and creators often work with Apple or laptops etc. But this is also why I would have preferred RAID5 in the device, so the array is managed in hardware outside the host OS.
Also bear in mind that these devices are pretty cheap, and by the time you bought a larger case and maybe a motherboard that can accommodate the extra NVMe's, you probably spent more than you would have on a DAS.
You can also move a DAS between devices, and they provide a desktop platform for hot-swapping disks if you want to take backups to a cold store disk and pull it out.
So they do have benefits.