Suggestions for Thunderbolt SSD Enclosure (QUIET)

Does anyone have suggestions for a Thunderbolt SSD Enclosure with an emphasis on (near) silent operation? Thanks largely in part to sample based instruments, I have filled the 500GB drive on my MacBook Pro. I have a couple of 1TB SSD units that I can port over from my PC, so I need at least two slots, but perhaps four would allow for growth. I found this one, which claims to be near silent, but I am not familiar with the brand:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/External-Drive/OWC/ThunderBay-4-mini

Many of the microphones in my home studio are in close proximity of my computer gear, therefore the priority on keeping the noise low or even nil. I have two Silverface Apollo Quads and an Octo Satellite currently tapping into Thunderbolt on my MacBook Pro, which has two TB ports.

Black Magic Multidock, silent, worth the extra bucks. The OWC enclosures are noisy. I do not buy OWC any longer, to many issues with reliability, service, poor quality, and they started charging out of state sales tax.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicmultidock

aesthete said:

Black Magic Multidock, silent, worth the extra bucks. The OWC enclosures are noisy. I do not buy OWC any longer, to many issues with reliability, service, poor quality, and they started charging out of state sales tax.
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicmultidock

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Thanks for this, but I am not quite sold just yet. I really do not need a rack mount unit and something is a bit unnerving about exposing the drives in this manner. The throughput performance is not as high as other solutions either. Having said that, one of the features touted is the ability to "Edit Directly from Disks". This seems to imply that files are only allowed to be copied and replaced with other drive bay solutions, with no real-time editing. If this is the case, then that is a strong argument.

Also, can anyone comment on OWS or other brands relative to performance, noise and reliability?

I don't have any Hardware of that brand but was looking in the same direction as you. I find this one were you can turn of the fan. They have more modules also with thunderbolt 2.
https://www.akitio.com/desktop-storage/thunder3-duo-pro

For me it will be the black magic because i find the rack version handy for my place.

I put these in road rigs and only had one of about 20 fail so far. BM replaced it overnight.

You can buy a rack cover if your worried about overhang, but just being on the careful side should fine. We use little foam painting shape wedges to snug the drives into there holes a bit tighter.

You can run multiple bays in Raid 0 and improve throughput if you want, but I find the single disc speed is fine. Huge templates load in under a minute.

Poesque said:

Thanks for this, but I am not quite sold just yet. I really do not need a rack mount unit and something is a bit unnerving about exposing the drives in this manner. The throughput performance is not as high as other solutions either. Having said that, one of the features touted is the ability to "Edit Directly from Disks". This seems to imply that files are only allowed to be copied and replaced with other drive bay solutions, with no real-time editing. If this is the case, then that is a strong argument.

Also, can anyone comment on OWS or other brands relative to performance, noise and reliability?

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+1 for the Blackmagic Multidock. I don't necessarily need a rack-mount enclosure either but I've owned two now and they're rock solid, and 110% quiet. I keep a slot open for popping in a 2.5 HDD for backups via Carbon Copy Cloner. It's fast and easy.

I've also heard about the fans in the OWC being a bit loud. I love OWC stuff but if silence is important, Blackmagic is the way to go.

Great idea on using a bay for plug and play backup. I also dedicate one my 8 bays for DAW recording.

Jperkinski said:

+1 for the Blackmagic Multidock. I don't necessarily need a rack-mount enclosure either but I've owned two now and they're rock solid, and 110% quiet. I keep a slot open for popping in a 2.5 HDD for backups via Carbon Copy Cloner. It's fast and easy.

I've also heard about the fans in the OWC being a bit loud. I love OWC stuff but if silence is important, Blackmagic is the way to go.

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aesthete said:

Great idea on using a bay for plug and play backup. I also dedicate one my 8 bays for DAW recording.

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Yeah, it just accidentally worked out that way. I have 3 SSDs for my daily work, so that leaves an open slot. So, I picked up a few 2.5" HDDs for various daily/hourly backups which are very affordable.

With Carbon Copy Cloner, it makes for easy for automatic incremental backups. I just pop in the 2.5" HDD BACKUP drive to the empty slot, go take a leak or something, and by the time I get back it's usually done backing up, and I didn't even have to press any buttons or think it about it. Automatic, gotta love that. No messing with cables or power supplies.

I ended up picking up an OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini to house my last 4 Archive 2.5" HDDs where I move all completed projects to. The open slot in the Blackmagic also allows me to pop in a BACKUP 2.5" HDD of all my Archive disks too. As SSD prices come down, hopefully I'll migrate to that for backups too but for now, SSD only makes sense for working audio drives (and OS drives of course). Of course I keep the OWC enclosure unplugged most of the time for noise purposes but when I client emails me looking for an older file, I can fire up the OWC and find it right away.

Super happy with the Blackmagic Multidock even though it feels a little goofy to have the drives exposed at first, and I can see how it's aimed at video editors that are constantly swapping disks. It kind of reminds of me of 8-Track tapes.

Another +1 for the Blackmagic Multidock. Very happy with the purchase after much research, deliberation and seeking a silent option.

One drive slot for samples, another for the current project. I'm now gonna look at using the third to rotate HDDs for Carbon Copy backups instead of the USB drives that I use now. Great ideas on this thread.

J said:

I'm now gonna look at using the third to rotate HDDs for Carbon Copy backups instead of the USB drives that I use now.

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With the right settings, Carbon Copy Cloner is super fast and easy, and it's proven to be a very stable and reliable app. I have a few bare 2.5' HDDs for backup. The 1TB Western Digital Blue's are usually around $60 USD from Amazon or OWC. I keep them in these StarTech cases:
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com...UTF8&qid=1469888691&sr=8-11&keywords=SSD+case

Then I keep those in a nice portable case for additional water/fire protection.

What's great is there is no messing with cables and power supplies. Pop the backup drive in, CCC does it's thing automatically (no further action required) and then CCC tells you when it's done, then you can be confident that you have a mirror image backup of your working drive.

Super Duper is good as well and there is a free version. Not quite as elegant as CCC.
SuperDuper!

Can you stripe two partitions to one drive, say one partition for CCC and one partition for Apple Time Machine ?

Jperkinski said:

With the right settings, Carbon Copy Cloner is super fast and easy, and it's proven to be a very stable and reliable app. I have a few bare 2.5' HDDs for backup. The 1TB Western Digital Blue's are usually around $60 USD from Amazon or OWC. I keep them in these StarTech cases:
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com...UTF8&qid=1469888691&sr=8-11&keywords=SSD+case

Then I keep those in a nice portable case for additional water/fire protection.

What's great is there is no messing with cables and power supplies. Pop the backup drive in, CCC does it's thing automatically (no further action required) and then CCC tells you when it's done, then you can be confident that you have a mirror image backup of your working drive.

Click to expand...

aesthete said:

Super Duper is good as well and there is a free version. Not quite as elegant as CCC.
SuperDuper!

Can you stripe two partitions to one drive, say one partition for CCC and one partition for Apple Time Machine ?

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I'm not sure to be honest. I've never tried it or even looked into it. I just use CCC for direct clones of my working drives and I don't have any RAIDS or partitions set up.