Nas Or Thunderbolt Drive For Mac
Jul 24, 2011 - If I had a NAS I'd go with an Apple TV or Western Digital TV Live Hub. Thunderbolt drives don't exist YET and I'm not sure how long I'd have. QNAP Thunderbolt™ 2 NAS is the world's first DAS/NAS/iSCSI SAN triple solution that wields the incredible power of Thunderbolt™ 2 to double the speed potential to 20Gb/s for enabling simultaneous 4K video transfer and display. It is also a perfect match for Thunderbolt™-equipped Mac & Windows.
I feel old saying this, but having used computers since before external hard drives existed, I can say with certainty that buying a hard drive is easier today than it’s ever been before. For traditional drives, prices are low, options are numerous, and capacities are so high that your only choices are “enough space,” “more than enough space,” and “way more than enough space.” I could point you towards a and end this article without another paragraph. Since Apple doesn’t even sell a Mac with that much disk space, you could back up five (or more) computers to that drive without running out of room. Or you could store a decade worth of digital photos alongside a giant media library. But buying an external hard drive isn’t necessarily that simple. There are a bunch of factors worth considering before making a purchase, including everything from reliability to portability, design, capacity, speed, and connectivity.
Some hard drives are really cheap but have a higher chance of failing after a year or two of heavy use. So in this How-To, I’m going to discuss the big issues you need to consider, and guide you towards the best external hard drive for your needs Quick Overview Most hard drives are guaranteed to work for one to two years no matter what you do with them, ranging from occasional backups to continuous video streaming. They’ll generally last much longer if you don’t use them every day. However — and this is really important — if you keep a typical drive mechanism running 24 hours each day for two years, it’s going to burn out. Hard drive longevity used to be measured with an estimate of “Mean Time Before Failure” (MTBF). Each year has 61,320 hours, so a drive with a MTBF of 300,000 hours would promise to last 4.9 years if actively used 24 hours each day.
Desktop drives typically promised higher MTBFs than laptop drives, but there were exceptions. Unfortunately, MTBF numbers were only predictions — and often inaccurately high. Consumers complained. So drive makers switched to a different but even less useful metric: Annualized Failure Rate (AFR), which estimates the percentage of total drives made that will fail in a year due to manufacturing defects. All an AFR of “0.73%” suggests is that 7,300 of 1,000,000 drives will likely develop problems in year one due to defects rather than abuse. That low percentage may seem reassuring, but it obscures the reality that heavy drive use increases failures over time, and some drives are much better-suited to heavy use than others. My advice: purchase your drive with a specific purpose in mind. If you’re backing up precious photos, home videos, or important files, buy a name brand, desktop-sized hard drive from a company with a track record of reliability, and pay a little more for it.
It doesn’t really matter how the drive looks, just that it will work for a long time. But if you’re just using a drive to store apps, games, or iTunes movies that you can easily re-download at any time, or only intermittently turn a drive on for backups, you can feel comfortable going with something cheaper, more portable, or fancier-looking. Capacity + Pricing It’s easy to pick the right hard drive capacity these days: most external drives now offer at least as much space as a standard Mac (1TB) — and there are — and you can get an. Most people will find that that 4TB is more than enough to hold years of accumulated photos, media files, and data, but there’s no wrong answer to the capacity question: it’s mostly a matter of personal preference right now.
That said, there are sweet spots. Expect to pay around,. By “basic,” I mean the popular and consumer-grade desktop drives shown above from Seagate, a major (but not top) drive manufacturer with a good (but not great) warranty. The are similar up until the 4TB mark, where the price doubles.
Generally, 3TB to 5TB would be the sweet spots between capacity and pricing, but of the 3TB Expansion mirror comments I’ve seen elsewhere online: Seagate’s 3TB units had lots of problems. You’re better off considering 2TB, 4TB or 5TB units instead.
Don’t be surprised that longer-lasting drives can cost twice as much as basic models. They’ll typically last longer, which is worth something.
Similarly, don’t be surprised if a solid state drive (SSD) costs much more and offers lower capacity than a mechanical drive. SSDs are just beginning to become mainstream internal drives for computers, and their capacities aren’t yet at the “more than enough space” point.
Reliability Since MTBF and AFR are such sketchy measures of hard drive reliability, I suggest that you focus on two more tangible factors: the reputation of the manufacturer, and the length of the drive’s warranty. A three-year warranty is the best you can expect from a consumer-grade external drive from a top vendor, regardless of whether it’s a. (Only the very best internal SSDs now offer and, though notably with much less storage space than the drives covered in this article. See my How-To guides to, and.) If reliability is your major concern, as it generally is mine, I’d suggest you look most seriously at (featuring ultra-reliable Hitachi hard drive mechanisms) and, all of which have three-year warranties. I G-Tech’s excellent for 9to5Mac, and have trusted their earlier drives for many years without any issues. Was covered in my, and while it’s more expensive and lower-capacity than the G-Drive USB, it has no moving parts to worry about.
Go with a G-Drive if you need a large reliable drive, or T1 if you want something small and reliable. Portability + Design There are five major types of external hard drives:,. The first two use 3.5″ hard drive mechanisms and are effectively non-portable: they sit on your desk, depend on wall power, and aren’t easy to carry in typical bags. Flash drives are keychain-sized but relatively limited in capacity and crazy expensive when they begin to approach laptop drive capacities. So if you need a portable hard drive with respectable storage capacity at a reasonable price, you’ll most likely pick a laptop-class drive with a 2.5″ hard drive mechanism inside. Owned by Seagate, boutique drive maker LaCie’s lineup nicely illustrates the relative size differences between the categories of external drives, though there are even smaller laptop and slim laptop drives out there now.
Nas Or Thunderbolt Drive For Mac And Pc
In January, I both, the world’s thinnest external mechanical hard drive, and, a boxy mirrored drive with twice the capacity. Both use USB 3.0 for data and power, with no need for an external power supply. Either one can easily fit into a laptop bag, backpack, or purse, but Seven is much, much smaller. If you want a portable, reliable hard drive at a low price with minimal design frills, consider, which have a. But if you’re looking for something with a distinctive design — and willing to compromise a little on long-term reliability — are definitely the best around. Pick the one that appeals to your personal taste.
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Speed, Connectivity, iOS Compatibility, and Apple’s AirPort Time Capsules A lot could be said about each of these topics, but I’ll save you some time and cut to the chase: recent developments mean that most people will be best off with USB 3.0 wired drives, except under one of three circumstances: you need incredible speed for Mac video editing, you want to stream video to your iOS devices, or you want to do automated wireless backups. If you’re planning on doing 4K or other disk-intensive Mac video editing, Thunderbolt hard drives such as or can deliver dramatically better speeds than drives that share your Mac’s USB bus. They’re much more expensive than comparably capacious USB drives, but they’re built for professional use, and priced accordingly. That said, USB 3.0 drives tend to outperform prior-generation FireWire 800 drives, which were adequate for pre-4K editing, so most users will have no need to look for faster options. If you’re concerned about real-world speeds for a USB drive, check the manufacturer’s stated “up to XXXMB/second transfer rates” claims and subtract around 10-20% for real world performance.
If you want to use your hard drive to store content that can also be streamed to your iOS device, consider or, which offer integrated Wi-Fi streaming, a built-in battery for completely wireless operation, and USB connectivity for synchronization. I’ve tested both, and while Seagate’s version has the edge on pricing, speed, and battery performance, My Passport Wireless has an SD slot built in to back up your digital photos on the road. IOS users will have a better experience with the Wireless Plus, while Mac users and digital photographers with infrequent iOS needs may prefer My Passport Wireless. Go with the one that best suits your needs. Last but not least, if you want to do automated wireless backups, consider — but think carefully about — an.
I currently use the latest version of Time Capsule, which has been completely redesigned and has fast 802.11ac wireless with your choice of a or hard drive. On a positive note, it works completely as expected, and although the initial Time Machine backup process for a large Mac hard drive is incredibly slow, incremental backups later on are fine. My concerns are mostly in reliability and pricing. I’ve had two prior-generation Time Capsules experience hard drive issues, and though Apple may have fixed those problems with the new model, it’s very easy to go out and buy a standalone drive for much less. I’m not a big fan of wireless drives right now, but continue to hope that wireless technology will catch up with the demands of current machines. All of my important files are on a wired, and they will probably stay there for the foreseeable future. Author, lawyer, and award-winning restaurateur Jeremy Horwitz started his journalism career in the early 1990’s, covering video games as a freelancer for numerous publications before creating and running Ziff Davis’s Intelligent Gamer magazine.
A graduate of Cornell Law School, he previously ran editorial for the Apple-centric site iLounge and created the historic iLounge Pavilion at CES before joining 9to5Mac and 9to5Toys as a Senior Editor. A lifelong consumer electronics expert and gourmet, he now focuses on the changing ways people work, play, eat, and travel. His Spanish restaurant Aro Bar de Tapas won Best New Restaurant (Opened 2015-2016), Best Charcuterie, Best Craft Cocktails, and Best Desserts awards.
Tweet Share Whatsapp Email What will happen in NAS, Thunderbolt, Storage and more in 2018? A new Synology NAS? A new Thunderbolt QNAP NAS? Thunderbolt 4 or USB 3.2?
I see ALOT of new technology on NASCompares every month and though it is safe to say that some of it is completely out of the blue, a lot of it you can predict. Either because of popular trends in data storage never going away, brands having their bread and butter product range or just Moore’s law staying tested and true with tech doubling its ability and demand. For whatever the reason, some new releases in NAS, DAS, Thunderbolt, HDD and SSD can be expected and today I wanted to take a moment to talk about what I genuinely believe are the likely candidates for development, release and availability in 2018. Current Trends of NAS, Thunderbolt, Storage and more in 2018 Before we look at my predictions for 2018 in NAS, Thunderbolt and Storage, it is worth highlighting what are the growing trends in data this year. If the end of 2017 and the last 3 months of 2018 are anything to go by, people’s desires in the world of data storage are: Encryption, Privacy, Accessibility Never have people felt more like they are being monitored and manipulated by their own data than 2018.
We have seen growing allegations surrounding Russia, facebook being caught up in the Cambridge Analytica scandals, more cloud platform’s being hacked and the likes of Apple discussing the move to a cloud only playback service means that people have never felt like their data is less secure, private of accessible on their terms. In 2018 we are seeing NAS brands like Synology, QNAP and Buffalo heavily promoting their hardware and software’s superiority in these three key areas. SPEED vs DATA SIZE Data is getting HUGE. Notwithstanding that we are now creating more data every minute than ever before (often even when we sleep), the amount of data capacity the average person needs is now comfortably in the terabytes. However either larger capacities and larger average file sizes, we need faster means of retrieval and this year we are seeing two methods go up in usage over 500% by home users – Thunderbolt 3 and 10Gbe. These are now at a price point whereby they are no longer for business or the heavy budget only (QNAP and their TS-453BT3 with TB3 and 10G is around £900+, or Buffalo and their TeraStation 5810DN is under £500 with 10Gbe 10GBASE-T). Work Smart not Hard Although this is not a new concept (I hear my colleagues say it often) but in 2018 we are already seeing a huge output of time and power efficient developments from almost all brands.
From now CPU from companies like Realtek being used by a large% of NAS brands that can work to a standard of much grander industry standard processors (Intel, AMD, etc) as a lower price and power point (so they last longers and do more with less). All the way to software being developed to harness machine learning so many processes are doing without your interaction or permission. It may sound scary, but more of these processes you have been using already online on a much smaller scale and this logic is just being carried over to your locally available storage with applications such as Synology Moment, QuAI from QNAP and Container station apps working with your Google home and Alexa. The result is a much more centralized environment and many commands/instructions happening from a single input.
NAS, Thunderbolt, Storage and Releases in 2018 Below are my top 10 predictions for data storage and access in 2018. Last time I did this I scored a comfortable 6/10, so I am quietly confident on these ones. Take a look: Next Gen Synology in 2018 Bit of an obvious one this, but we will, of course, see a new series of 2-Bay and 4-Bay NAS from the Synology Diskstation series. The DS2xx and DS4xx series is the Synology equivalent of the Reebok classic and it would be highly unlikely that we would see a break from this formula. To be a little more precise, I am willing to bet we will see a whisper (an empty chassis, a firmware reference, etc) to a DS219j or DS219se in June/July in CeBit or around Computex in June 2018.
The in late August/early September we will see a DS419 4-Bay chassis. I don’t think we will see the internal hardware jump that we saw in the 2017-2018 series (bit update on CPU, Memory and SSD abilities), but I think we will see more growth in their software than hardware. Of course, there are a couple of other bits worth noting but read on.
Thunderbolt 3 2-Bay TS-253BT3 and NEW GOLD TVS-873BT3 QNAP and their Thunderbolt NAS series have really, really been a hit. I am still stunned that it was QNAP that managed to develop this techNOLOGY FIRST. I Genuinely believe that QNAP is the more innovative and technically minded NAS brand out there, but with so many Mac users favouring Synology and Thunderbolt previously being favoured by photo and video editors (who do have a tendency to have a MacBook on the go), I kind of assumed that Synology would have bridged this gap first.
However, QNAP has developed this first and have taken a large% of the Mac community with them! Since the inception of the first Thunderbolt NAS (TVS-871T back in 2015), QNAP Thunderbolt NAS devices are fast becoming the ultimate work-flow optimizing and fast collaboration tool for photographers and videographers the world over. Late last year we saw QNAP include this specialised kind of connectivity to the home-based TS-453B NAS and I genuinely believe that we are going to see it more readily available on more mainstream platforms. My sincerest hope (along with many of you) is that we will see a 2-Bay Thunderbolt NAS in the form of QNAP TS-253BT3 and I think this is certainly possible. Failing that I think we will be seeing the T3 badge being added to the 77 series or perhaps the 73. Keep your eyes peeled for the TS-1277T3 or TVS-873T3 later in 2018.
USB 3.1 Gen 2 on Synology NAS A little bit of an underwhelming third prediction I know, but given that last year Synology introduced both an SSD Flashstation NAS server AND an NVMe supported NAS, I think we may finally see the brand adopt the 10Gb/s USB connection that is appearing on more and more NAS devices. Of course, this will not feature as a means to connect with the NAS, but with the ever-present popularity of using an external USB drive as a means of backup (then taking offsite) the appeal of these backups happening even faster will be doubly appealing! It will almost certainly be in its USB-A form (due to chassis slots) but I do think this is something we will see soon. Thunderbolt 3 Card from QNAP I know, I know – I say this a lot! I am almost getting a reputation as a larry-letdown on this one. Of all the things on my predictions of 2018 list, this is one of the least likely.
I would have finally ruled it out completely if it wasn’t for the fact that QNAP recently introduced an incredibly diverse selection of PCIe cards in their QM2 series. This coupled with the release of the TS-453BT3 last November, means that QNAP is clearly open to the idea of Thunderbolt technology on fewer enterprise frameworks (abandoning their i5 and i7 elitism and letting the humble Intel Celeron have a go).
This may be a Q4 2018/19 release, but by no means impossible. Let’s just cross those fingers and play the waiting game. Seagate, HGST and WD will release a 16TB drive A little bit of a dull one, but definitely worthy of a mention. Currently, the biggest commercially available hard drive in terms of NAS drives is the Seagate 12TB Ironwolf and the WD Gold 12TB. These drives certainly do represent a massive advancement in just how much storage can be crammed into the existing 3.5″ framework of a SATA hard drive.
Each time we think ‘whooah – that’s loads’, then 6 months later than manage to squeeze in another 1 or 2 more terabytes into the platters. However, if you look at growing trends of hard drives, there have always been a few capacities that were either skipped completely or available for a short length of time and then phased out very quickly. Classic examples are the rather odd 1.5TB drive, the commercially dismal 5TB and the utter non-existence of a 7TB or 9TB Hard drive. I genuinely believe that in 2018 two things will happen in this arena. Firstly, the 14TB will be mostly skipped as a hard drive capacity.
Some already exist but not exactly common or pursued, as well as being rather unconventionally designed. I cannot vouch for their stability but can easily imagine a much more reliable and commercially viable alternative presenting itself in the form of a Seagate Ironwolf 16TB or WD Gold 16TB in very late 2018.
Maybe either with a WD Red 16TB in Q4 of 2018/19. NVMe enabled QNAP for Home and SMB For a brand that I almost monthly state is at the cutting edge of NAS hardware, I think it is baffling that they are yet to truly adopt the use of NVMe based SSD in the way that Synology has done in the DS918+ NAS. The idea of m.2 form factor SSD being used in NAS is not even something that QNAP haven’t tried – their QNAP NASBook TBS-453A was, although hugely specialist, a fantastic bit of kit and the work that would go into adapting this into an NVMe based version wouldn’t exactly be back breaking. That said I think, this would absolutely need either a dedicated 10Gbe connection or even Thunderbolt in order to see the advantages of that speed for many.
I hope to think we will see QNAP enter this area in a much more hands-on way than their QM2 PCIe cards, as with 2018 being the year for 10Gbe, removing that SATA bottleneck would be insanely appealing. Mainstream NVMe from Seagate, not the Nytro Another slightly dull but likely one, sorry.
Thunderbolt For Mac Pro
Not that NVMe is dull, it is the fastest form of commercially available storage to date and with prices on the likes of the WD Black and Samsung 960 range coming down, I think that Seeagate will make another play at this market. They already technically did this with the rather overlooked Nytro series – blame the NAND chip shortage and poor marketing of the range, but I think a second run at this SSD market is long overdue from such a big brand as Seagate technology. QNAP will come up with the USB 3.2 OK, this one is definitely the least likely to actually happen. USB 3.2 (so 20Gb/s USB) was first openly discussed early last year with a manufacturing release for mid to late 2018. Once again, steering slightly away from why they are not just calling it USB 4.0, it may well be too late to see this feature on any NAS in 2018, but you can bet your bottom dollar that a PCIe card featuring the USB-C port will be released and will be compatible on a QNAP NAS. After that it is just a matter of time before QNAP adopt the connection as they did with USB 3.1 Gen 2. As mentioned early, localized backups from your NAS onto a USB External drive are not a new thing, but whatever can make the sync/backup task that bit quicker, all the better!
PLEX will partner up with a NAS provider If you were to ask 100 home NAS buyers why they nought their NAS server, at least 3/4 of them would say ‘multimedia’. As them again which program they are using and a good chunk of them would say they bought their Synology or QNAP NAS as a Plex Media Server.
You cannot blame them, the combination of a feature-rich NAS server combined with the versatility of the plex media server application results in an aesthetically pleasing and centralized media server that you will struggle to compete with. Many of the biggest names in media streaming devices have their own branded hardware – Amazon Firesticks, Roku Boxes, Apple TV, Chromecast and more. However, PLEX has always been a seemingly software only option whereby you need to buy a third party piece of hardware to install said software onto. We have seen the PLEX badge appear on the side of NAS retail boxes, with the WD My Cloud Pro being the latest to do so. However these are not really official PLEX NAS devices, but devices that have hardware that has been recommended as plex optimized and still require a separate Plex download and installation. The idea of a PLEX branded NAS would certainly shake up the NAS market and give something for the NAS brands to consider – as only Synology and QNAP have their own competitive video streaming applications, which are good but still not in the same league as plex.
It is also worth highlighting that there is also a good chance (as an alternative) that we are more likely to see an HDMI enabled plug-in Plex device, rather than a full NAS (like Chromecast, etc). In that scenario, you would still need a NAS for your library much as you do with Kodi, Twonky and Emby. USB enabled PCIe Expansion Box IN the last year or so we have seen a huge jump in both the popularity of external PCIe cases (ePCIe) but also their portability. Lesser known brands like Akitio and Netstor have lept back into peoples baskets with Thunderbolt-enabled external GPU cases. These are primarily designed to give a portable (and often lighter spec) laptop/Macbook the ability to access and utilize a PCIe card (rendering, graphic, sound, capture card and more) and take any work off the CPU. However more and more we are seeing desktop systems use these because even though they feature PCIe slots, they are often occupied or at a lower speed.
With USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gb/s) and the technical details that are available of USB 3.2 (20Gb/s) I think it is already long overdue for us to see a USB enabled external PCIe enclosure. I do not expect thunderbolt-heavy brands like Sonnet to take this task on – they have a market and do very well in it. However, Akitio and Netstor will certainly be among the first to release a USB connected eGPU. Another clue would be that Nestor re-released it’s TurboBox series, featuring a PCIe card for your host system and SAconnectionon. Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert? We want to keep the free advice on NASCompares FREE for as long as we can.
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