News/Blog diglloydTools™
diagnostics software Consulting
Get answers now!

storage

Scroll down to see all publications and blog posts. Not all pages are curated—search.

Newest blog posts

2021-11-26 OWC Mercury Pro U.2 Dual for up to 16TB U.2 SSD, or 64TB NVMe M.2

2021-11-23 OWC Announces miniStack STX World’s First Thunderbolt™ 4 Certified Storage and Hub Expansion Solution

2021-11-23 Computing Suggestions Aimed at Photographers and Videographers— Macs, Storage, Connectivity

2021-10-26 OWC Accelsior 8M2 PCIe SSD offers up to 64TB of Blazing-Fast Storage Capacity

2021-10-22 Recommended Storage Products for Photographers, Used Macs, Port Expansion, etc

2021-10-19 Storage and Accessories by OWC Apple 14/16-inch MacBook Pros M1 Pro/M1 Max

2021-10-18 Apple 14/16-inch MacBook Pros Here, with M1 Max or M1Pro CPU: What You Need to Know

2021-10-12 Portable SSDs for Travel Storage and Especially Backup

2021-07-22 OWC Introduces Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt Bus-Powered Portable SSD

2021-04-04 Display Connections for HDMI/DisplayPort Displays on 2019 Mac Pro or Other Macs

View all related blog posts...

Pages at other diglloyd sites:

See also 5 pages at windinmyface.com

See also 78 pages at diglloyd.com

2021-11-23 Computing Suggestions Aimed at Photographers and Videographers— Macs, Storage, Connectivity

2021-10-22 Recommended Storage Products for Photographers, Used Macs, Port Expansion, etc

2021-10-12 Portable SSDs for Travel Storage and Especially Backup

2021-03-19 TESTED: Sony 80GB CFExpress Type A Camera Storage Card (for Sony A1)

2021-03-08 Fast and Reliable SDXC Camera Card Storage for Fujfilm GFX100S, Batteries/Charger, Tripod Mounting

2021-03-08 Fast Camera Card Storage for Sony A1: CFExpress Type A (NOT Type B), or SDXC

2020-12-28 Some of my Favorite Stuff From OWC

2020-12-28 Some of my Favorite Stuff From OWC

2020-09-05 Photographers and Videographers: Looking for an All-In-One Thunderbolt 3 Storage Unit and PCIe SSD Enclosure + Hub and Camera Card Reader?

2020-07-02 Putting the 16TB OWC Accelsior 4M2 PCIe SSD to Use as Main Storage

2020-06-14 Usability: Raw File Size Quantified, Lack of Lossless-Compressed Raw File

2020-06-10 Reader Question: File Format Longevity, Particularly for Digital RAW Files

2020-05-12 Work from Home: Mac Pro deal, and what to get with it

2020-05-12 Work from Home: Apple MacBook Pro, and What to Get With It

2020-02-02 28-Core Apple Mac Pro with AMD Radeon Pro Vega II

Apple Mac iMac 5K (March 2019)

Rocking fast iMac with 8 cores and up to 128GB..

1. 2019 iMac 5K: Recommended Models and Accessories

Apple Mac mini (November 2018)

True desktop-class performance..

1. 2018 Mac mini: Buying Recommendations and Accessories

Apple MacBook Pro Retina 16-inch (October 2019)

Desktop Class Performance, memory, SSD..

1. Configuring the 2019 MacBook Pro 16-inch as as Desktop Replacement

Apple MacBook Pro Retina (July 2018)

Vastly improved performance over 2017 model, 6 CPU Cores..

1. 2018 MacBook Pro: Video Presentation: Configuring the 2018 MacBook Pro as as Desktop Replacement

Cloning

How to utilize cloning for backup and other chores..

1. Backing up High Capacity Storage: Partitioning for Practical Backup

Understanding Storage and Hard Drives

How to erase and partition drives..

1. Terminology: Volume vs Drive
2. How to Initialize or Erase a New or Existing Drive
3. How to Partition Drives Into Multiple Volumes
4. Validating a Hard Drive or SSD or RAID (DiskTester fill-volume)
5. OWC DriveGuide Software

Drive Capacity and Speed

Larger drives are faster..

1. Why You Need More Space Than You You Need
2. Larger Hard Drives Are Faster Than Smaller Ones
3. The Fastest 2TB Volume is on a 4TB Drive
4. 4/5/6TB Hard Drives: Higher Capacity Boosts Real-World Performance
5. Optimizing Hard Drive Capacity for High Performance

RAID

Various types of RAID setups..

1. About RAID
2. Understanding Fault Tolerance
3. RAID Fault Tolerance : Keep a Cold Spare
4. Speed: RAID-5 vs RAID-0
5. Speed: RAID 1 Mirroring
6. RAID 1 Mirroring
7. How to Create a Software RAID-01
8. RAID 0 Striping
9. How to Create a Software RAID-0
10. RAID 1+0: Striped Mirrors
11. RAID-4 / RAID-5 and RAID 6 for Performance and Reliability
12. Step-by-step to setting up RAID on Mac OS X
13. SoftRAID is easier RAID

Data Safety with RAID-1 Mirror

Protect your data with a fault-tolerant RAID-1 Mirror..

1. RAID-1 Mirror vs Two Separate Drives for Backup

About Using Software RAID

Reasons for using software RAID, making the choice of RAID type, etc..

1. Why Use Software RAID?
2. Why Use RAID-5?
3. RAID-5 / RAID-4 Can be Partitioned to Suit
4. Why Use RAID-1+0?
5. Why Use RAID-1 Mirror?

Software RAID Performance with SoftRAID 5

High performance RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5, RAID-1+0..

1. Single-Drive Performance with SoftRAID 5
2. RAID-0 Performance with SoftRAID 5
3. RAID-5 Performance with SoftRAID 5
4. SoftRAID RAID-4 / RAID-5 Performance with Heavy CPU load
5. RAID-1+0 Performance with SoftRAID 5

Software RAID with SoftRAID

Making software RAID volumes..

1. Software RAID Creation in SoftRAID
2. Walkthrough: creating a RAID-0 Stripe in SoftRAID
3. Software RAID-1 Mirror in SoftRAID
4. Software RAID-5 in SoftRAID
5. Software RAID 1+0 (Striped Mirrors) in SoftRAID

Promise Pegasus J4 Thunderbolt 4-Drive Enclosure

SSDs or hard drives for fast single-drive or RAID volumes in a portable enclosure..

1. Promise Pegasus J4 — Overview
2. Promise Pegasus J4 — Drive Installation
3. Promise Pegasus J4 — Reliability Issues
4. Promise Pegasus J4 — Initializing Volumes
5. Promise Pegasus J4 — SSD Speed (Compressible)
6. Promise Pegasus J4 — SSD Speed (Incompressible)
7. Promise Pegasus J4 — SSD Speed (Fast Hard Drives)
8. Promise Pegasus J4 — Photoshop CS6 Speed (diglloydHuge)
9. Promise Pegasus J4 — Recommended Configuration

Thunderbolt peripherals

Reviews of Thunderbolt products..

1. OWC Drive Dock: Thunderbolt + USB3 Connectivity Using Dual Bare Hard Drives or SSDs
2. OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock for Port Expansion
3. LaCie 2Big 20TB Thunderbolt 3 Storage Dock
4. LaCie Bolt 2TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD
5. TekQ Rapide SSD
6. OWC Envoy Pro EX Thunderbolt 3 SSD, Consumer Edition vs Video Edition
7. OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock for Port Expansion
8. OWC USB-C Dock for Apple MacBook
9. OWC Mercury Helios Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis for PCIe Cards
10. OWC Mercury Helios 2 Dual Bay PCIe Enclosure
11. FirmTek ThunderTek/PX Q6G Thunderbolt to 4-Port eSATA
12. OWC 30 Meter Optical Thunderbolt Cable: Does Length Matter for Performance?

OWC Thunderbay 4 Mini

High performance with 2.5-inch hard drives or SSDs..

1. OWC Thunderbay 4 Mini Overview
2. Initializing with New Drives
3. Aggregate Throughput with 4 X 6G SSD
4. Sequential Speed vs Transfer Size with SSDs
5. Sequential Speed of Large Transfers with SSDs
6. RAID-5 vs RAID-4 with SSDs
7. Thunderbay Mini with SSDs as a Photoshop Scratch Disk
8. Thunderbay Mini with SSDs: Incompressible Data
9. CPU Usage for RAID-0 vs RAID-4 or RAID-5
10. Real World Throughput for RAID-0 vs RAID-4 vs RAID-5
11. Outrageous Speed with 8 SSDs in Dual Thunderbay 4 Minis
12. Outrageous Speed with 8 SSDs in Dual Thunderbay 4 Minis: Speed vs Transfer Size

OWC 40TB SSD (in Thunderbay 4 Mini)

Ultra high flat-line performanc in 40 Terabyte capacity.

1. OWC 40TB SSD
2. OWC 40TB SSD: RAID Setup
3. OWC 40TB SSD: RAID-0 and RAID-4 Sustained Transfer Performance
4. OWC 40TB SSD: RAID-4 vs RAID-5
5. OWC 40TB SSD: RAID-0 Transfer Size Performance
6. OWC 40TB SSD: Photoshop Scratch Disk Performance

OWC Thunderbay 6

Six bay storage solution with RAID-0/1/4/5/10 or non-RAID..

1. Overview of OWC Thunderbay 6
2. OWC Thunderbay 6: RAID-0 Performance
3. OWC Thunderbay 6 vs Thunderbay 4: RAID-0 Performance Options
4. OWC Thunderbay 6: RAID-5 Performance
5. OWC Thunderbay 6 vs Thunderbay 4: RAID-5 Performance Options

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dock

Two-Drive Hardware RAID plus USB ports, SD slot, video, gigabit.

1. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dock: Overview
2. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dock: Speed Across Capacity
3. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dock: Speed vs Transfer Size
4. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dock: SD Card Slot Speed

OWC Envoy Pro EX SSD, Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C

Two high-performance SSDs.

1. OWC Envoy Pro EX SSD: Overview
2. OWC Envoy Pro EX SSD: Speed Across Capacity
3. OWC Envoy Pro EX SSD: Speed vs Transfer Size
4. OWC Envoy Pro EX SSD: vs OWC Thunderblade
5. OWC Envoy Pro EX SSD: Conclusions and Recommendations

OWC ThunderBay 8

Eight bay storage solution with RAID-0/1/4/5/10 or non-RAID..

1. OWC ThunderBay 8: Overview
2. OWC ThunderBay 8: Examples of Various Configurations using SoftRAID
3. OWC ThunderBay 8: RAID-0 vs RAID5 vs RAID10 Performance
4. OWC ThunderBay 8: Speed Across Volume Capacity, RAID-0 vs RAID-5
5. OWC ThunderBay 8: Speed vs Transfer size, RAID-0 vs RAID-5

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB-C

2-bay storage solution with hardware RAID options.

1. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual: Overview
2. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual: Performance with 2 X 18TB Hard Drives
3. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual: Performance with 36TB RAID-0
4. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual: Aggregate Read/Write Bandwidth

Big Fast Hard Drives

Big Fast Hard Drives, 2021 and Later.

1. Western Digital 18TB Ultrastar DC HC550 Hard Drive

OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8

Eight bays for HDD, SSD plus PCIe Card and Ports.

1. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: Overview
2. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: Configuration Possibilities
3. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: Designing an OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8 Configuration for Still Photography or Videography
4. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: HDD Speed Across Volume Capacity, RAID-0 vs RAID-5
5. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: HDD Speed vs Transfer Size
6. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: SSD Speed Across Volume Capacity
7. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: SSD Speed vs Transfer Size
8. OWC Thunderbay FLEX 8: SD Camera Card Slot Speed

OWC Thunderblade SSD

Ultra high speed robust pro-grade external SSD..

1. OWC Thunderblade Thunderbolt 3 SSD: Overview
2. OWC Thunderblade Thunderbolt 3 SSD: Unboxing
3. OWC Thunderblade Thunderbolt 3 SSD: Sustained Transfer Speed
4. OWC Thunderblade Thunderbolt 3 SSD: Speed vs Transfer Size
5. OWC Thunderblade 16TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD: Double the Fun

OWC Thunderbay IV / 4 Thunderbolt Enclosure

High performance with hard drives or SSDs..

1. OWC Thunderbay IV / 4 Thunderbolt Enclosure
2. OWC Thunderbay IV vs Thunderbay 4 (Thunderbolt vs Thunderbolt 2)
3. OWC Thunderbay 4 with Four OWC SSDs as RAID-0 Stripe
4. OWC Thunderbay 4 with Four OWC SSDs in RAID-5
5. RAID-0, RAID-5, RAID 1+0 Performance (SoftRAID, Thunderbolt v1)
6. RAID-0 with 4/3/2 Drives (SoftRAID, Thunderbolt v1)
7. RAID-5 with 4 / 3 Hard Drives (SoftRAID, Thunderbolt v1)
8. RAID-1 Mirror (SoftRAID, Thunderbolt v1)
9. Thunderbolt vs USB3 with 6G SSD (SoftRAID, Thunderbolt v1)

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Thunderbolt / USB3

Dual-drive Thunderbolt + USB3 user-selectable RAID..

1. Overview of OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual
2. Formatting and Partitioning
3. Ergonomics of OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual
4. Performance as RAID-0 Stripe
5. Performance as RAID-1 Mirror
6. Thunderbolt vs USB3 Performance as RAID-0 Stripe
7. Striping 4 Drives In Two OWC Mercury Elite Pro Duals
8. RAID 1+0: Striping a Pair of Mirrors for Fault Tolerance

CalDigit T3 3-Drive Thunderbolt Enclosure

Three drives in a high-grade enclosure..

1. CalDigit T3 Overview
2. CalDigit T3 Drive Modules
3. CalDigit T3: 3-HDD RAID-0 Stripe
4. CalDigit T3: 3-HDD RAID-1 Mirror
5. CalDigit T3: 3-HDD RAID-5 (Striping with Parity)
6. CalDigit T3: 3-HDD RAID-5 vs RAID-0

Drobo 5D with Thunderbolt or USB3

RAID reliability in easy to configure 5-drive enclosure for full-size hard drives..

1. Data Robotics DROBO 5D
2. Drobo 5D Setup
3. Drobo Dashboard
4. Drobo 5D Read/Write Performance
5. Drobo 5D Read/Write Performance Across Capacity
6. Drobo 5D — Excessive CPU Utilization
7. Drobo 5D — As a Photoshop Scratch Disk

Apple 2017 iMac Pro

High-end computing moves to the iMac form factor..

1. 2017 iMac Pro: Introduction
2. 2017 iMac Pro: Scalability with CPU-Intensive, Memory-Intensive and Mixed Workload
3. 2017 iMac Pro: CPU Cores, Clock Speed, Turbo Boost
4. 2017 iMac Pro: Power Usage (Watts)
5. 2017 iMac Pro: Flash Drive (SSD)
6. 2017 iMac Pro: APFS vs HFS SSD Speed
7. 2017 iMac Pro: Grep (Search)
8. 2017 iMac Pro: Integrity Checker Verify
9. 2017 iMac Pro: diglloyd Photoshop Benchmarks
10. 2017 iMac Pro: Photoshop Filters
11. 2017 iMac Pro: RAW to JPEG
12. 2017 iMac Pro: Real World Photoshop: Make Multi-Res Image Series
13. 2017 iMac Pro: Lightroom Import and Export
14. 2017 iMac Pro: Phase One Capture One Pro
15. 2017 iMac Pro: Iridient Developer
16. 2017 iMac Pro: Zerene Stacker
17. 2017 iMac Pro: Helicon Focus
18. 2017 iMac Pro: XCode Build C++ Project
19. 2017 iMac Pro: Recommended Configurations

Apple 2015 iMac 5K

5K Display, blazingly fast SSD.

1. iMac 5K: Building a High-Performance Configuration

Apple Dec 2013 Mac Pro

Choosing among 4/6/8/12 cores, GPUs, memory, flash..

1. 2013 Mac Pro: How and Why to Partition the PCIe Flash Drive

Transitioning to the 2013 Mac Pro

Peripherals and add-ons forexisting hardware..

1. The MPG 2013 Mac Pro Working System

How To Guides

How to perform useful tasks and upgrades..

1. How to Verify/Repair a RAID Volume
2. How to detect a failing hard drive (SMART status)
3. How to See Disk Usage / Space Used
4. How to use a Mac Pro as a Robust File Server

Digital Camera Related

Camera cards and readers..

1. Lexar Professional 2000X 64GB SDXC Camera Storage Card (Tested in 3 Card Readers)
2. Lexar Professional 1000X 256GB SDXC Camera Storage Card
3. Lexar Professional 1066X 128GB Compact Flash Camera Storage Card

Setting Up Your Mac For Better Security

Reduce the chances of security breaches..

1. Safe Settings for Adobe Flash
2. File Sharing and Remote Access

Upgrading Your Mac

When and Why to Upgrade Your Mac..

1. Upgrades: Internal Hard Drive or Solid State Drive?
2. Upgrading Your System Drive
3. MacBook Pro Upgrades
4. Upgrading Mac Pro Internal Drives
5. Upgrading Reliability and Backup
6. Case Study: Upgrade a 2010 MacBook Pro for Photoshop Performance

Optimizing Mac Performance

Learn about Activity Monitor and understand how CPU cores, processes, memory use, and software scalability affect performance..

1. Optimizing your Mac: SSD for Fast Virtual Memory
2. Optimizing your Mac: Fast Hard Drive or SSD
3. How to Reclaim Wasted Cache Space on Your Boot Drive

Choosing and Configuring a Mac

An in-depth look at how to find the right Mac setup for you.

1. How to Select and Configure a Mac Pro

How to Buy / What to Buy

Nuts and bolts of buying a Mac, and recommended extras..

1. Buyer's Guide: Multi-interface External Enclosures
2. Buyer's Guide: Hard Drives for Mac Pro
3. Buyer's Guide: Recommended Solid State Drives (SSD)

Fast and Reliable Hardware RAID

How fast and reliable can RAID-0, RAID-5 and RAID-6 go using an 8-drive mini-SAS box and a hardware RAID card?.

1. Introduction to RAID Considerations
2. Choosing RAID-0, RAID-5, RAID-6
3. CiDesign iStoragePro iT8SAE Enclosure
4. Atto R380 RAID PCI Express RAID Card
5. Atto/iStoragePro Performance and Testing Overview
6. Atto/iStoragePro Test Results for RAID-0 Striping
7. Atto/iStoragePro Test Results for RAID-5 Striping + Parity
8. Atto/iStoragePro Test Results for RAID-6 Striping + Dual Parity
9. Atto/iStoragePro Speed with Western Digital RE4 vs Hitachi 7K2000
10. Atto/iStoragePro RAID Conclusions

OWC Mercury Accelsior PCIe RAID SSD

Ultra-fast solid state storage with hardware RAID for a Mac Pro in a PCIe slot..

1. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD with Hardware RAID
2. Mercury Accelsior 'E2' PCIe SSD with Dual eSATA Ports
3. Mercury Accelsior 'E2' Upgrade Process (Module Swap)
4. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Setup and Configuration
5. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Benefits and Applications
6. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Performance Singly and Striped
7. Mercury Accelsior 'E2' eSATA 6G Speed with HDD / SSD
8. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Photoshop CS6 Benchmark (diglloydMedium)
9. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Photoshop CS6 Benchmark (diglloydHuge)
10. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Speed vs Capacity and Data Type (240GB)
11. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Speed vs Capacity and Data Type (480GB)
12. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Speed (Triple RAID-0 Stripe)
13. Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD — Conclusions

OWC Mercury Accelsior Pro Q

Ultra-fast PCIe SSD for Classic Mac Pro or Thunderbolt Macs.

1. OWC Mercury Accelsior Pro Q
2. Performance as Photoshop Scratch Drive (diglloydHuge Benchmark)
3. Sustained Transfer Speed, Single and Striped (2013 Mac Pro)
4. Speed vs Transfer Size, Single and Striped (2013 Mac Pro)

OWC Mercury Electra 960GB 3G SSD

Huge capacity in a speedy SATA SSD..

1. OWC Mercury Electra 960GB — Introduction
2. OWC Mercury Electra 960GB — Performance
3. OWC Mercury Electra 960GB — RAID-0 Stripe Performance
4. OWC Mercury Electra 960GB — Photoshop CS6 diglloydMedium

Solid State Drives, Various

SSDs and thumb drives..

1. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini USB-C SSD
2. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini USB3 / eSATA SSD
3. Kingston HyperX 128GB Data Traveler USB3 Thumb Drive
4. OWC Mercury Envoy Pro EX 480GB USB3 SSD
5. OWC Mercury Envoy Pro EX 1TB USB3 SSD
6. OWC Mercury Envoy Pro EX 2TB USB-C SSD: Awesomely Fast!
7. OWC Mercury Envoy Pro FX Thunderbolt 3 SSD: Awesomely Fast!
8. OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini USB-C
9. Samsung T5 2TB USB-C SSD
10. Samsung T7 2TB USB-C SSD
11. Samsung 850 EVO 2TB SSD, Singly and in 8TB RAID-0
12. Samsung 860 EVO, 2TB and 4TB SSDs
13. OWC Envoy Pro Mini 480GB Ultra-Portable SSD
14. OWC Aura 960GB SSD Upgrade for MacBook Air or MacBook Pro Retina
15. Micron P400e 400GB Enterprise-Grade SSD
16. Samsung 4TB 850 Evo SATA III SSD

OWC SSDs, Various

Various SATA and USB SSDs..

1. Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD
2. Sustained Transfer Speed — 2011 MacBook Pro 6G Port
3. Read Applications Folder — 2011 MacBook Pro 6G Port
4. Duplicate Image Files — 2011 MacBook Pro 6G Port
5. Photoshop CS5 diglloydMedium Benchmark
6. Photoshop CS5 diglloydHuge Benchmark — OWC 480GB 6G SSD on Mac Pro 3G Port
7. Sustained Transfer Speed — OWC 480GB 6G SSD on 2010 Mac Pro 3G Ports
8. Sustained Transfer Speed — OWC 480GB 6G SSD on 2011 MacBook Pro 6G
9. Sustained Transfer Speed — 2010 Mac Pro Internal 3G Port 120GB Model
10. OWC 1TB Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD (Late 2015), Single and RAID-0
11. OWC 2TB Mercury Electra Max 6G SSD
12. OWC 4TB Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD
13. OWC Elektron USB-C SSD

OWC Mercury Electra 6G 960GB SSD

Fast 6 Gbps high capacity SSD..

1. OWC Mercury Electra 6G 960GB SSD: Aggregate Throughput in OWC Thunderbay Mini
2. OWC Mercury Electra 6G 960GB SSD: Zeroes vs Incompressible
3. OWC Mercury Electra 6G 960GB SSD: diglloydHuge Photoshop Benchmark
4. OWC Mercury Electra 960GB — RAID-5, RAID-4, RAID-0, RAID 1+0

OWC Mercury Aura SSD for Mac Pro

High Capacity internal SSD for 2013 Mac Pro..

1. OWC Mercury Aura SSD for Mac Pro
2. Suggested Boot/Master Volume Partitioning for Large SSD
3. Sustained Transfer Speed for Large Transfers
4. Transfer speed from 32K to 512MB
5. As Photoshop Scratch Disk for diglloydHuge Benchmark

OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 3G Solid State Drives

Fast and durable, enterprise-grade solid state drives..

1. Introduction to Mercury Extreme Pro 3G
2. Mercury Extreme Pro 3G Single Drive Performance
3. Mercury Extreme Pro 3G RAID-0 Stripe Performance
4. Mercury Extreme Pro 3G and Photoshop on Mac
5. Mercury Extreme Pro 3G and Photoshop on Windows
6. Mercury Extreme Pro 3G RAID-0 Stripe Performance
7. Comparing the Mercury Extreme Pro 3G 400GB to 200GB Model
8. Comparing the Mercury Extreme Pro 3G 480GB to 240GB Model
9. OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 3G 115GB SSD (25nm Flash)
10. Mercury Extreme Pro 3G Conclusions

SPECIAL REPORT: Real World SSD Performance

Many brands of solid state drives put on a good show when new, but some degrade with use..

1. Real-World SSD Performance Considerations (Introduction)
2. Seasoning SSDs for Testing
3. New vs Seasoned OWC Mercury Pro RE 200GB
4. New vs Seasoned OWC Mercury Pro 240GB
5. New vs Seasoned Crucial RealSSD 256GB
6. New vs Seasoned Crucial M225 256GB
7. New vs Seasoned Intel 160GB G2
8. Comparing SSD Performance Results
9. Comparing SSD Performance: Fill-volume 1000-file Test Results
10. Severe Duty: OWC Extreme Pro RE vs Crucial RealSSD
11. Severe Duty: OWC Extreme Pro vs Intel 160GB G2
12. Severe Duty: OWC Extreme Pro vs Apple 512GB SSD
13. Real World SSD Performance Conclusions

Solid State Drives (SSD)

Choosing and using solid state drives..

1. Overview of Solid State Drives (SSD)
2. Understanding Compressible vs Incompressible Data
3. How to Make Your Mac Feel Lightning-fast
4. Installing a solid state drive (SSD)
5. Reconditioning a solid state drive (SSD)
6. Crucial 128GB solid state drive (SSD)
7. Crucial M225 256GB solid state drive (SSD)
8. Intel X25-M G2 160GB solid state drive (SSD)
9. OWC Mercury Elite On-The-Go External SSD
10. Intel X25-E SSD
11. Intel X25-M SSD on MacBook Pro
12. Intel X25-M SSD in Mac Pro RAID

Special Report: Virtual Memory on Apple MacBook Pro

Virtual memory performance on the Apple MacBook Pro 2010/2009 with solid state drives and hard drives..

1. MacBook Pro Virtual Memory Considerations
2. How The MacBook Pro Virtual Memory Tests Were Done
3. Terms Used in Virtual Memory Test Graphs
4. Virtual Memory with 32-bit Snow Leopard Kernel (MacBook Pro)
5. Virtual Memory with 64-bit Snow Leopard Kernel (MacBook Pro)
6. MacBook Pro Virtual Memory Recommendations

Apple MacBook Pro Retina Quad-Core (Late 2013, 'Crystal Well')

Higher performance Retina model..

1. 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 'Crystal Well'

Apple MacBook Pro Retina Quad-Core (June 2012)

Apple’s 2012 MacBook Pro Retina Display..

1. 2012 MacBook Pro Retina
2. Choosing a MacBook Pro Retina Configuration (IMPORTANT!)

2010 MacBook Air for Photographers?

How does the 2010 MacBook Air fare in the context of photography?.

1. MacBook Air 2010 — A Photographer’s View

OWC Portable Dual-Drive RAID-0 or RAID-1 Mini Enclosures

Dual-drive externals for travel or compact backup..

1. OWC Dual-drive Enclosures Overview
2. OWC Dual-drive Features
3. OWC Dual-drive Power Supply Options
4. OWC Dual-drive Ergonomics
5. Performance on Mac Pro with eSATA
6. Performance on Mac Pro with Firewire 800
7. Performance on MacBook Pro with eSATA
8. Performance on MacBook Pro with Firewire 800
9. OWC Dual-drive Conclusions

Drives and Expansion and Various

Reviews of various hardware and software..

1. CalDigit PCIe 2-Port USB3 Card for Mac Pro
2. NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G 2-Port PCIe Card for Mac Pro
3. NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G 4-Port RAID Controller
4. NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G + USB3 PCIe Card
5. Newer Technology Guardian Maximum 2TB RAID-1 Mirror for Plug and Play Reliability
6. OWC Mercury Elite Pro (2011 model)
7. OWC Mercury Elite Pro (2012 w/USB3 model)
8. OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Mini (2010 model)
9. FirmTek U3 USB3 Swappable 2.5-inch Drive Enclosure
10. OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini (2011 model)
11. OWC Mercury Elite Al-PRO QX2
12. Data Robotics Drobo
13. NewerTech Voyager Q Drive Dock
14. OWC Drive Dock USB-C
15. OWC On-The-Go 2.5-inch enclosure
16. Sonnet Fusion F2 portable 2-drive RAID
17. 2009 Apple MacBook Pro unibody 17
18. Pimp My MacBook Pro
19. 2008 Apple MacBook Pro unibody
20. 2009 Apple MacMini
21. Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34
22. Novatel Wireless MiFi 2372 3G Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot

Desktop Hard Drives

Performance and use..

1. Testing Desktop Hard Drives (Introduction)
2. HGST Deskstar 6TB NAS Hard Drive
3. Hitachi 4TB Deskstar 7K4000 Hard Drive
4. Toshiba 3TB Hard Drive (HDKPC08/DT01ACAxx)
5. Toshiba 4TB Enterprise Hard Drive (MG03ACA400)
6. Toshiba 4TB MG03ACA400 vs 3TB DT01ACA300: Is Cheaper Faster?
7. Hitachi 4TB Deskstar 5K4000 'Coolspin' Hard Drive
8. Hitachi 3TB Deskstar 7K3000
9. Western Digital RE4 2TB Enterprise Grade 'RAID Edition' HDD
10. Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB hard drive
11. Hitachi 2TB Deskstar 7K2000 / Ultrastar A7K2000
12. Western Digital RE4-GP 2TB
13. Low-power 2TB consumer hard drives
14. Hitachi 1TB Deskstar E7K1000 Saturn.E
15. Hitachi 1TB Deskstar 7K1000
16. Maxtor 500GB Maxline Pro 7H500F0
17. Seagate 1TB Barracuda ES_2
18. Seagate 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11
19. Western Digital 1TB RE3

HGST 8TB Ultrastar He8

Outstanding high-capacity enterprise hard drive..

1. HGST 8TB Ultrastar He8 Hard Drive
2. Using 4 or 5 8TB Hard Drives: Singly or RAID and How?
3. Using High Capacity Drives Singly (non-RAID)
4. Using High Capacity Drives in a RAID-0 Stripe Volume
5. Using High Capacity Drives as Single Large RAID-4 / RAID-5 Volume
6. Using High Capacity Drives as RAID-4 / RAID-5, Multiple Volumes
7. HGST Ultrastar He8: Sample Variation
8. HGST 8TB Ultrastar He8 vs HGST 6TB Deskstar NAS, 6TB Capacity Utilization
9. HGST Ultrastar He8 Performance: Speed vs Capacity Utilization
10. HGST Ultrastar He8 Performance: Transfer Size
11. HGST Ultrastar He8 Performance: RAID-0 Striping
12. HGST Ultrastar He8 Performance: RAID-0 vs RAID-4 / RAID-5 Compared 3/4/5/6/7/8 Drives
13. HGST Ultrastar He8 Performance: RAID 1+0

Laptop Hard Drives

Technical performance data..

1. Testing Laptop Hard Drives (Introduction)
2. Seagate 500GB Momentus XT Hybrid Hard Drive
3. Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB
4. Fujitsu 320GB
5. Intel 80GB X25-M SSD
6. Hitachi 500GB Travelstar 5K500.B
7. Hitachi 320GB Travelstar 7K320
8. Seagate 160GB Momentus 7200.2
9. Seagate 320GB Momentus 7200.3
10. Western Digital 320GB Scorpio Black
11. Western Digital 500GB Scorpio Blue

ioSafe N2 Fireproof and Waterproof NAS

Network attached storage with fire and flood protection..

1. ioSafe 1513 5-to-15 Bay NAS

Older storage interfaces

Modern Macs use USB3 and Thunderbolt..

1. Introduction to Storage Performance
2. Why you should avoid Port Multiplication
3. SATA, Firewire, and USB
4. eSATA compared to Firewire 800
5. eSATA PCI-Express card configuration

Fusion How To

Using Apple’s Fusion drive technology..

1. Apple’s Fusion Drive Technology
2. Fusion vs Alternatives
3. Are Two Drives 'Fused' as Reliable?
4. Controlled Fusion: Partitioning for Targeted Performance
5. How to Partition A Fusion Drive

Fusion Technical Nerd Stuff

More technical details about using Apple Fusion..

1. How Foolin' with Fusion Can Blow Up Your Data
2. Does Fusion Actually Migrate Files?
3. Setting up a Fusion Volume
4. Fusion Volume Speed (OWC PCIe SSD + HDD)

Blog posts

2021

2021-11-26 OWC Mercury Pro U.2 Dual for up to 16TB U.2 SSD, or 64TB NVMe M.2

2021-11-23 OWC Announces miniStack STX World’s First Thunderbolt™ 4 Certified Storage and Hub Expansion Solution

2021-11-23 Computing Suggestions Aimed at Photographers and Videographers— Macs, Storage, Connectivity

2021-10-26 OWC Accelsior 8M2 PCIe SSD offers up to 64TB of Blazing-Fast Storage Capacity

2021-10-22 Recommended Storage Products for Photographers, Used Macs, Port Expansion, etc

2021-10-19 Storage and Accessories by OWC Apple 14/16-inch MacBook Pros M1 Pro/M1 Max

2021-10-18 Apple 14/16-inch MacBook Pros Here, with M1 Max or M1Pro CPU: What You Need to Know

2021-10-12 Portable SSDs for Travel Storage and Especially Backup

2021-07-22 OWC Introduces Envoy Pro SX Thunderbolt Bus-Powered Portable SSD

2021-04-04 Display Connections for HDMI/DisplayPort Displays on 2019 Mac Pro or Other Macs

2021-02-19 OWC Thunderbolt 4 Dock Adds Ports, and a Thunderbolt Hub

2021-02-09 Up to a Whopping 36TB Storage in the *NEW* OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB-C Enclosure

2021-01-29 Installing an 18TB Hard Drive into the OWC Mercury Elite Pro USB 3.2 Enclosure

2021-01-16 OWC Acquires LumaForge, Forging into High-End Video Storage and Workflow

2021-01-10 OWC Envoy Pro FX Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C SSD

2020

2020-12-28 Some of my Favorite Stuff From OWC

2020-11-18 OWC ANNOUNCES PRODUCT COMPATIBILITIES WITH NEW APPLE M1 MACS

2020-10-02 OWC Launches New Hub for Thunderbolt™ 4 PCs

2020-10-01 OWC Introduces OWC Mercury Pro LTO Tape Archiving Solution

2020-07-12 OWC ThunderBay FLEX 8: Eight Bays for Hard Drives, U.2 NVMe SSDs, Hard Drives or SATA SSDs — Now Shipping

2020-07-10 OWC Announces SoftRAID for Windows

2020-06-30 Update your PC or Older Mac with a FAST High Capacity SSD: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD Now to 4TB Capacity

2020-06-29 OWC Envoy Express Thunderbolt 3 DIY Enclosure : World’s First Thunderbolt 3 Bus-Powered M.2 NVME SSD Solution

2020-05-28 Reviewed: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dock Storage Solution with USB-A Ports, DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet, Thunderbolt 3

2020-05-11 OWC ThunderBay FLEX 8: Eight Bays for Hard Drives, U.2 NVMe SSDs, Hard Drives or SATA SSDs

2020-05-11 OWC ThunderBay 8: Installing Hard Drives and SSDs, Plus Info and Specifications

2020-04-26 OWC Doubles SSD Capacity for Accelsior 4M2 PCIe SSD, Thunderblade, Envoy Pro EX

2020-01-29 Why I Returned the 16-Core 2019 Mac Pro... Wanted 28 Cores!

2019

2019-12-20 PCIe SSD for Mac Pro and PCs from OWC: “MEET THE FASTEST OWC SSD EVER BUILT – THE ACCELSIOR 4M2”

2019-12-04 OWC Cyber Week Deals, and Lloyd’s Most-Used Computer Products

2019-05-25 An Interview with OWC’s Larry O'Conner on Development of the Aura Pro X2 SSD.

2019-04-16 OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD: up to 2TB of Super Fast SSD in Your MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini Models up

2019-03-21 OWC Continues Growth and Expansion on Three Continents

2019-02-07 Banishing the Drone of Spinning Hard Drives: and Fans: Moving to 8TB OWC Thunderblade SSD

2019-01-06 OWC Unleashes the 2019 Envoy Pro EX Lineup Featuring All-New Shock-Resistant Sleeve

2019-01-06 OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini Family of Storage Solutions Delivers USB-C Performance in a Portable Package

2019-01-03 OWC Acquires Akitio, Adds to Thunderbolt 3 Product Lineup

2018

2018-12-25 Data Integrity Over Time, and with OS Changes

2018-11-26 OWC Cyber Monday Specials

2018-11-01 OWC Products Compatible with new 2018 MacMini, 2018 MacBook Air, 2018 iPad Pro

2018-10-26 OWC Updates Pricing for Aura Pro X Line of SSDs

2018-09-29 Data Integrity Over Time, and with OS Changes

2018-09-18 OWC Lauches the Thunderbay 6, a Six-Drive Thunderbolt 3 Enclosure, with RAID Options

2018-09-03 Video Presentation: Configuring the 2018 MacBook Pro as as Desktop Replacement

2018-08-12 Reader Question: 2018 MacBook Pro Soldered -On Storage vs Data recovery

2018-07-30 Reader Comment: Which SSD or Storage for Video?

2018-07-04 OWC Express 4M2: 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure

2018-02-25 Get 4TB of SSD for about $776, Install in $90 Dual-Bay External — Super Convenient Capacious Storage

2018-02-24 What Can an iMac Pro 18 Core Do? Destroy Its Boot Volume Rendering Itself Unbootable

2018-02-14 What Can an iMac Pro 18 Core Do? Coming Next Week to Find Out

2018-01-25 Reader Comment: LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt 3 Storage Dock

2018-01-18 REVIEWED: LaCie 2Big 20TB Thunderbolt 3 Storage Dock

2017

2017-12-31 Computer Gear Recommendations + OWC Year-End Deals

2017-11-27 Using Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports to Build Out a System

2017-11-27 Time Machine and APFS: Local Backups

2017-11-25 Testing Seagate 12TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5-inch (Helium) Hard Drives

2017-11-23 Why I Probably Will Never Buy a Mac Pro Again

2017-11-23 Choosing a Photography Workstation Setup for 2018 Usage

2017-11-21 Black Friday Sneak Preview Deals at OWC + Note on Big Fast Thunderbolt Storage

2017-11-20 Ordered a 2017 iMac 5K: Why Now and what about iMac Pro?

2017-10-06 Out of Space on your 2010-2015 MacBook Pro? SSD Prices Highly Attractive for Upgrading SSD Capacity

2017-06-17 Comparing the 2017 iMac 5K to the iMac Pro

2017-04-16 New Thunderbolt 3 Products from OWC

2017-01-03 OWC “DEC” for 2016 MacBook Pro

2016

2016-12-26 Which 13-inch 2016 MacBook Pro? (or MacBook)

2016-11-18 2016 MacBook Pro: Why I Went With the 2TB SSD

2016-11-07 OWC Announces Updated Mercury Elite Pro Dual

2016-10-27 macOS Sierra 10.12.1: Data Loss + Breaking Backup Protocols is Now a Feature?

2016-04-21 Thunderbolt 3 Emerges: OWC Announces Thunderbolt 3 SSD, Dock, PCIe Enclosure

2016-04-06 Upgrading SSD Boot Drive: USABLE Capacity Increase Is Even Better Than It Seems

2016-03-15 OWC Introduces 480GB and 1TB SSD Upgrades for 2013 and Later MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Retina

2016-02-03 Newertech Headless Video Accelerator: Speeds Up Display, Video, Keyboard & Mouse Use Via Remote Access

2015

2015-12-27 Archiving Images and Data

2015-12-20 $1799 ($500 off) for Excellent MacBook Pro 15", Recommended Peripherals for Storage, Backup

2015-12-07 Reconfiguring Storage to use 8TB Drives, Data Integrity Critical

2015-11-10 Coming Soon for Testing: HGST 8TB Ultrastar He8 Hard Drive

2015-11-05 MPG’s Computer and Storage Wish List at B&H Photo

2015-09-19 Two Products MPG Uses Every Day

2015-06-28 Lexar 64GB 2000X SDXC Digital Camera Storage Card: How Fast in Different Card Readers?

2015-06-07 Big Capacity for your Digital Camera: Lexar Professional 128GB Cards

2015-06-06 Storage and RAID Deals

2015-05-27 Upgrade iMac to up to 8TB Internally!

2015-05-07 Tested: Lexar 128GB 1066X Compact Flash Digital Camera Storage Card

2015-04-16 OWC Jupiter Ideal for Video Storage; NAS and/or SAN at 10 GBps, up to 512TB

2015-03-26 Hard Drives: Staying the Course with Higher Performance and up to 8TB Capacity

2015-02-09 Lexar 64GB 2000X SDXC Digital Camera Storage Card

2015-01-13 ioSafe Fireproof NAS

2014

2014-12-01 Big Discounts on Storage

2014-11-17 OWC Announces ThunderBay Mini: 4-bay Enclosure for 2.5-inch Drives, Thunderbolt v2

2014-11-11 Configuring and Backing Up High Capacity Multi-Drive Storage

2014-11-03 Audio Storage Drive for a MacMini

2014-10-16 Game Changer: MacMini with Dual Thunderbolt 2 Ports

2014-10-08 Big Storage: 4TB, 5TB, 6TB Hard Drives

2014-09-10 Big Storage: 4TB, 5TB, 6TB Hard Drives

2014-09-02 OWC Thunderbay Now Up to 24TB (4 X 6TB Hard Drives)

2014-08-31 Simplify Your Storage: Fast, Reliable, Expandable

2014-08-29 OWC Labor Day Specials

2014-08-05 OWC Offers Thunderbay in RAID-5 Edition

2014-06-10 Big Fault Tolerant Storage: OWC Now Offers a Supported and Preconfigured RAID-5 Solution via SoftRAID + Thunderbay

2014-05-28 OWC Thunderbay as RAID-5 or RAID 1+0 Video Storage Solution

2014-05-17 Safely Recording and Storing Video Footage: a Few Pointers

2014-03-08 2013 Mac Pro: that 1TB Flash Storage (SSD) ’Rocks’

2014-01-20 2013 Mac Pro: Workflow, Backup Advice

2014-01-10 Understanding Drive vs Volume, Partitioning

2014-01-05 Erasing a Drive, How and Why to Partition a Drive, RAID, Validating a Drive

2013

2013-12-28 Apple Posts Mac Pro PCIe Flash Storage (SSD) Tech Note

2013-10-22 Notes on the Apple 2013 Mac Pro

2013-10-22 Brief Notes on new Apple MacBook Pro

2013-10-03 Making an Old Dog of a Laptop Run Like a New One: Wow!

2013-09-24 New iMac with PCIe Flash Storage

2013-09-17 OWC DataDoubler Kit for Mac Mini: 2 X 1.5 TB Internally With 9.5mm Drives

2013-09-16 ioSafe N2 Fireproof and Waterproof Dual-Drive NAS

2013-06-11 2013 Apple Mac Pro: Hive Storage

2013-06-10 2013 Apple Mac Pro: Reader Comments

2013-06-10 2013 Apple Mac Pro: Faster or Slower, Elegant but Klunky, Promise vs Reality, Video Oriented

2013-05-01 The Commercialization of Digital Spying

2013-04-30 OWC Mercury Envoy Pro USB 3.0 Slim SSD

2013-02-04 FOR SALE: Atto R380 RAID Card + CiDesign iStorage Pro + 8 X 2TB Hard Drives

2012

2012-07-06 1.92TB of Fast SSD Storage in a 15" MacBook Pro

2012-06-22 OWC 960GB Mercury Electra 3G SSD — Breakthrough SSD Capacity!

2012-06-12 MacBook Pro Retina vs MacBook Pro 17" (or 13" or 15")

2012-04-15 OWC’s new Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD for Blistering-fast Drive Performance

2012-02-18 ZFS for Mac OS X — ZEVO

2012-01-19 OWC PCIe SSD Card Coming Soon

2011

2011-11-12 OWC Comments on the Hard Drive Availability Situation

2011-08-11 FOR SALE: Atto R380 RAID Card + CiDesign iStorage Pro + 8 X 2TB Hard Drives

2011-06-07 The All-SSD Mac Pro

2011-03-21 OWC Transitions to 25nm Flash Memory With Big Price Drop for 480GB SSD at $920

2010

2010-12-29 Two Compact and Portable Choices for Mirrored or Striped External Storage

2010-12-29 OWC QX2 RAID now with up to 12TB

2010-12-11 NewerTech Guardian Maximus 3TB RAID-1 Mirror for Fault Tolerance

2010-11-21 Hitachi 7K3000 for 3TB of Storage on a Single Drive

2010-11-11 Tested: Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 vs Western Digital RE4 in iStoragePro SAS Enclosure w/ Atto R380

2010-11-07 Fast Reliable Hardware RAID with the iStoragePro 8-Bay Enclosure + Atto R380 RAID card

2010-07-27 Apple’s SSD for Mac Pro (or iMac) — Not a Smart Move

2010-07-16 OWC offers 30-day Money-back Guarantee on Mercury Extreme Pro SSD

2010-07-08 NewerTech StoraDrive™ for Bare Hard Drive Storage

2010-06-22 Dual internal Drives in a MacBook Pro with “OWC Data Doubler” Bracket

2010-06-15 Cost Effective Reliable Backup and Storage

2010-05-29 Speed and reliability in your MacBook Pro When Traveling — Solid State Drives (SSD)

2010-05-23 Newer Technology Guardian Maximum 2TB RAID-1 Mirror for Plug and Play Reliability

2010-05-22 Fast and ample storage in a MacBook Pro with 480GB SSD and 1TB HDD