SanDisk G-RAID Mirror evaluation: Quick, secure onerous drive storage and many it

WD’s G-RAID Mirror is an exterior enclosure housing two 3.5-inch onerous drives. It supplies as much as 48TB of storage with the drives in striped (RAID 0) mode, or half that in mirror mode RAID 1. It additionally supplies a Professional Blade SSD port for SanDisk’s modular NVMe SSDs.

What you could not notice when you haven’t been round a 3.5-inch HDD shortly: They’re a complete lot quicker than they was. In RAID 0, the G-RAID Mirror can ship knowledge at over 400MBps. This isn’t your father’s RAID field.

Additional studying: See our roundup of the greatest exterior drives to study competing merchandise.

G-RAID Mirror options

The G-RAID Mirror is a good-looking, darkish grey, Thunderbolt 3, two-drive exterior enclosure out there in capacities as much as 48TB/24TB (striped/mirrored). The unit measures 5.24 x 8.27 x 4.06 inches (13.30 x 21.00 x 10.21 centimeters). It might probably weigh as much as 7 kilos (3.17 kilograms) relying on the drives inside. Standing on non-skid ft, there’s little likelihood of this drive dancing across the desktop. The 4 hex bolts on either side cover anchor factors for attaching the unit to a Digital Imaging Technician cart or including different {hardware}.

The again of the G-RAID Mirror is dwelling to 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports (1 pc, 1 pass-through, see beneath) in addition to the RAID configuration double dip change (JBOD, RAID 0/1). Which means the RAID is onboard, which I want over the software program selection because it’s moveable throughout working programs with out putting in stated software program. There’s additionally a button to regulate the entrance LED gentle.

The entrance of the drive is dwelling to solely the aforementioned LED gentle, and the detachable entrance grate that enables entry to the onerous drives for improve or substitute. Notice that due to the implausible quantity of capability, rebuilding a RAID 1 array can take a really very long time — two hours per terabyte.

By far probably the most uncommon characteristic of the G-RAID Mirror is its Professional-Blade Transport slot. The considerably dear Professional-Blade Transport modules are NVMe SSDs in proprietary enclosures that slide into the slot. They’re tremendous useful for importing, offloading, and backup, and are quick sufficient that you may boot from them. Nonetheless, the Professional Blade system is 20Gbps USB 3.2×2, and present Thunderbolt (Mac and Home windows) implementations don’t assist USB 3.2×2 at 20Gbps, dropping it to 10Gbps. Nonetheless quick, however not optimum. Thunderbolt 3/4 does assist 20Gbps USB 4, although, so I’m confused as to why SanDisk didn’t select USB 4 for the Professional-Blade Transport, and even Thunderbolt 3. Particularly as Mac customers appear to be the supposed viewers.

As this drive is essentially aimed on the Apple/video manufacturing crowd, the G-RAID Mirror ships formatted to APFS. A single 24TB RAID 1 quantity was in our take a look at unit’s case. There is no such thing as a software program on the drive as you’ll discover with most 2.5-inch onerous drives.

The high-capacity HDD conundrum

Whereas exterior 3.5-inch onerous drives will be extremely capacious (belief me, it’s a hoot to see a 48TB drive in your desktop), holding a lot extra knowledge than different media additionally makes them troublesome to again up. The one media of acceptable pace able to holding the identical quantity of information is, yup, one other onerous drive. Consequently, the best approach to keep away from knowledge loss from onerous drive failure is mirroring it to a different onerous drive (RAID 1), or break up it amongst a number of onerous drives in one other sort of fault tolerant RAID.

The way you set the G-RAID Mirror will depend upon whether or not it’s a main or secondary repository. If it’s only one element in a bigger storage scheme, and backed up (macOS RAID for example), then working it at full-capacity striped RAID 0 is okay. Nonetheless, if it’s a solo repository, you’ll need to run it at half-capacity, mirrored RAID 1.

Alas, mirroring tends to kill a tough drive’s worth benefit over the far quicker, way more bodily sturdy, and extra dependable SSDs. Not fully, however the distinction is drastically lowered. A useful segue into…

How a lot does the G-RAID Mirror value?

The G-RAID Mirror is out there in (striped/mirrored) 12TB/6TB, 16TB/8TB, 24TB/12TB, 36TB/18TB, 44TB/22TB, 48TB/24TB capacities for $660, $750, $1,000, $1,200, $1,400, and $1,600, respectively, within the U.S. A part of the rationale for the higher-than-normal pricing is the Thunderbolt 3 connectivity.

That works out to $55/$110, $46.88/$93.76, $41.67/$83.33, $33.33/$66.66, $31.82/$63.64, $33.33/$66.66 (striped/mirrored) per terabyte. As you’ll be able to see, the 44TB unit is the candy spot by way of worth per terabyte.

Final we checked, 4TB and smaller SSDs had been right down to round $70 per terabyte, although the bigger 8TB fashions had been nonetheless over $100 per TB. Maintain that in thoughts when deciding in your storage plan of assault.

When you’re not within the present Professional Blade system, then a less expensive USB 3.x RAID enclosure such because the WD (SanDisk’s proprietor) MyBook Duo is an possibility.

How does theG-RAID Mirror carry out?

The 48TB G-RAID Mirror that SanDisk despatched me arrived configured in RAID 1 (mirroring) — as you’d anticipate given the identify. I examined it in that mode, in addition to in RAID 0 to see simply what it’s able to. (Spoiler alert: much more.) I additionally examined the Professional Blade as I had two modules readily available, and put all three by PCWorld’s take a look at suite for good measure.

The results of all these checks means there are a number of captures and pictures to wade by beneath. If you wish to keep away from that, the abstract is that sequential throughput with the onerous drives is between 175MBps and 210MBps in RAID 1, and 350MBps and 410MBps in RAID 0.

The Professional Blade reads and writes round 800MBps, properly beneath the 1.8GBps it manages over USB 3.2×2 on a Home windows PC. In sensible phrases, nonetheless, even the HDDs in RAID 1 are quick sufficient for at the very least an 8K video stream, and possibly a number of. With the Professional Blade on board, which mounts as a separate drive, you’ll be able to accommodate even increased bandwidth eventualities.

Sustained throughput is a lot better than with exterior 2.5-inch onerous drives, particularly in RAID 0. Nonetheless, as you’ll see, in order for you quick search occasions, these should not the drives you search.

G-RAID Mirror RAID 0 outcomes

As I stated, it’s at all times good to have a bit context, so we’ve included the outcomes from PCWorld’s Home windows take a look at mattress for the onerous disks in each RAID 0 and RAID 1, in addition to the Professional Blade SSD. They’re in comparison with the lately reviewed Seagate Enlargement Desktop onerous drive, and the Professional Blade Transport utilizing USB 3.2×2.

Sure, the numbers are a bit extra spectacular underneath Home windows. However once more, the Thunderbolt hindered the Professional Blade on the G-RAID by limiting it to 10Gbps.

The random numbers for the onerous disks are minuscule in comparison with the Professional Blade’s. However CrystalDiskMark 8’s numbers are nonetheless legitimate, even when it’s not designed particularly for HDDs.

Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry

Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry

Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry

Once more, the Professional Blade Transport’s outcomes are included to indicate you what these modules can do at 20Gbps on an actual 3.2×2 bus, and simply how choked the Professional Blade on the G-RAID Mirror is by the Thunderbolt 3 bus.

The outcomes for the Transport on the Mac are similar to these for the port embedded on the G-RAID Mirror.

Clearly, as soon as once more, the G-RAID Mirror in RAID 0 was approach quicker writing 450GB than RAID 1.

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

Jon L. Jacobi

The G-RAID Mirror’s fan, when it kicks in at startup is fairly loud. More often than not, nonetheless, my Mac Studio fan makes as a lot noise, and that’s hardly any. To be honest, my workplace has take a look at beds and NAS bins whirring away more often than not, so my tolerance for white noise could be very excessive. However there’s additionally noise due the learn/write heads shifting about. When you haven’t been round onerous drives for some time, it’d bug you. One would possibly argue for extra sound-deadening materials inside, however that tends to entice warmth as properly noise, and that will be dangerous.

Notice that the person information I downloaded says you solely have to show off the G-RAID Mirror twice when altering RAID modes, which one would possibly interpret as utilizing the facility button. This could be improper. Data on the web site and my expertise says it’s essential to pull the facility plug each occasions to modify RAID modes.

In complete, the G-RAID Mirror is quite a bit quicker in RAID 0 than RAID 1, which implies you may be higher off with two much less capacious fashions utilizing RAID 0 and macOS’s personal RAID 1 mode. Then once more, you may make use of the Professional Blade while you want actual pace, and depart the HDDs safely mirrored.