I'll mention that all my audio is internal, strictly video being played from the external drive.

That's always been my main argument for bus-powered external drives.

I'm not one who favors Lacie drives, partly because they always come with Seagate HD's.

I use an Oyen Digital Thunderbolt enclosure (bus-powered) with a 2TB Samsung 850Pro in it (that's the latest in a series of SSD's I've had in that enclosure) and it works great. No discernible difference in load times compared to videos loaded from my Mac's internal SSD. Also, no worries about vibrations parking or crashing a mechanical hard drive with subwoofer next to the DJ booth.

I was actually just telling a friend that they used to be Seagates inside, but the last time I owned a LaCie was maybe 8 years ago.





Yeah I had thought about it after experience the difference between a Mac with an internal SSD after having one without, but I don't know if I can justify buying such a large SSD (at the accompanied large price) for something I'm just dabbling in at the moment.

What was the model number on that Oyen Digital?

I personally do not trust Lacie drives and have seen several fail prematurely ... I am strong believer of the G-Drives & G-Raids and have and use several of them for home and on the go ... Go to the website and buy a replacement power adapter or two and you're good to go I bought a few extra just in case as I had one fail on me as well after about 3 years

However if you're looking for a thunderbolt bus powered external look at the WD MyPassport Pro 4tb ... I've been using that one for over a year now and it's been great to me

I just checked their site and apparently they don't make Thunderbolt enclosures for 2.5-inch drives anymore...strange.

I also have a G-drive (purchased a couple years ago at an Apple Store) that has both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. It originally came with a 1TB mechanical drive, but I replaced that with a 2TB SSD (it's a backup). Since I've opened it up when changing out drives, I can verify that it has a certain amount of vibration absorption built in. The drive sits on four rubber "bumpers" inside the case.

www.g-technology.com

You probably already know that you'll come no where near to taking full advantage of Thunderbolt's speed potential with a mechanical drive, for that matter no SATA-3 SSD will do that either. But you get the advantage of freeing up a USB port for something else.

Shamann, FWIW, I have several LaCie Rugged drives that I've been using for years. They were given to me by a close friend who works in video production so they were used when I got them and although the firm bought them new, they probably had them for at least a year or two before my pal gave them to me. So they're pretty old in HDD terms. They're not the new ones you're looking for feedback about, but some of my experience might still be relevant to you or others so....

The largest ones I have are 1tb; the others are 300gb and 500gb. They all have a FireWire 400, a FireWire 800 and a USB 2.0 port, plus a 5v power port. They never came with power adapters and because I use the Firewire ports, I've never needed them. Even when I've used them on a PC (I keep a small FAT32 partition on each drive just in case I need it), I've been able to use them via the USB port without a power source.

They've been working flawlessly for me ever since I got them. They're 7200 RPM so again, they're old and slow compared to what you can get today, but I've had no trouble with them whatsoever. I've run both audio and video directly off of them with no noticeable issues.

The thing I like most about them (or my other Firewire drives) is the fact that I can daisy chain several drives if I need to and all without taking up any of my precious USB ports. However, I'll add that I have had a port blow before on a couple of my other Firewire HDDs (and 1 of my LaCies) which does seem to be an issue that happens from time to time. The fact they have two ports helps because the drive is still usuable but you have to keep it at the end of the chain if you're chaining them.

The only thing I wish they had is a Mackenzie lock slot because although it's never happened to me, I know some DJs have had their external drives stolen (or just forgotten) from the booth when they've been out and being able to lock the drive down would bring peace of mind. But that's been much less of an issue since I got a larger internal drive as I rarely ever have to take them on the road. Admittedly, I use them mainly for backup storage now.

I have the lacie thunderbolt 2tb. All files video and audio is on it.
No issues whatsoever. Every HD will fail at some point . I have a 3tb WD USB 3.0 desktop HD which I use for backing up.
The Lacie is my gigging drive, and I like it because it's yellow and the cable is attached to the drive, so I can't misplace it.
Frees up my USB slots for SP and 62.

The point is to have back ups. Set a regular schedule to back up. Even if it's monthly, worst case scenario if your main HD craps out you would have lost one month's files.

I even have it partitioned into two.

Music is 600gb Videos is 1400gb

I currently have 5 LaCie Rugged drives, I also own quite a few other brands:
Seagate, WD, G-Tech, Drobo, Samsung.
(I do animation and video work aside from DJing, loads of storage needs)

I got both the current 1TB thunderbolt version and the the 4TB raid version. (thunderbolt cable soldered on both, previous models had a thunderbolt port) I butchered the 1TB drive the same day I bought it, and installed a 1TB Samsung Evo SSD into the enclousure instead for speed. (It was the only bus powered thunderbolt enclousre I could find locally) Can't remember for sure, but I believe the original drive inside was a Samsung, not a Seagate in this case. I can check in my office tomorrow.

Far as I know, Seagate bought Samsung's hard drive business in 2011, and that would led me to think the brands are somewhat similar, with different badges at this point?
Seagate bought LaCie the year after.

Anyway, I have good experience with products from all the above mentioned brands.
To be honest, I had failures from all of those brands, but that is expected in the end. I have no problem recommending LaCie, although they have a slightly high markup compared to others (somewhat like apple and pioneer). So take that into consideration. LaCie has been strong in the media market for about 2 decades, so in general I would say they are trustwothy.

For my Evo equipped rugged, I have about 380mbs read, and 350mbs write speeds via thunderbolt. The original drive was around 100-130mbs I think, but I need to recheck to make sure.

I'd forgotten about the "permanently-attached cable" on the recent "rugged" drives...to me that's much more a liability than a feature. When the cable goes bad for whatever reason, you can't just pop on another one.



They started out strong, making high-quality SCSI drive enclosures in the early 90's. When I was working at one of the remix services in that era, LaCie drives are what we bought (something like $5,000 for a 1.2gb drive offering barely enough throughput for real-time 2-channel audio record/playback). Later on as external drives became more "mass market", they and some other vendors started cutting corners...lots of cheap plastic with underpowered fans (or no fans at all) and failure-prone power supplies. The "Porsche" enclosures became pretty infamous for high failure rates, both because of the unventilated plastic cases and cheap power supplies that frequently failed. The higher-end LaCie products (metal cases, better-quality power-supplies) seem to have a lot less issues.



That sounds a bit slower than I'd expect, though obviously way more than enough for video DJ-ing. Are you measuring with Blackmagic or some other tool?

Yeah, I guess time will tell how "rugged" that permanent cable really is, at least there is a USB 3.0 connection too, if I would need to salvage the data on the drive. That said, I have had connection ports on all kinda enclosures go bad, both usb, firewire400 and 800, both on LaCie, Seagate, WD and G-Tech. So external cable or attached could go either way IMO.

As a side note, I had G-Tech drive fail completely (data loss, not able to rebuild), that has never happened for me with LaCie.

True, I have only experience with their "higher end" drives: D2's Rugged's, 2Big Raid, Little Big Disk SSD Raid. I would not get those lower end consumer drives myself.

Yep, a little, it's the 840 evo model, not 850, and not the pro one. It did perform slightly better in my Thunderbolt Sata dock. Measured with Blackmagic. Still, its the best use I could have for that particular drive. (I bought the evo a long time ago, to go into my 17" mbp, but the machine was sadly stolen...)

Unrelated but i felt i can post here. Looking to get a thunderbolt dock, just saw an elgato dock online. Its a thuderbolt 1, i dont do 4K videos or anything just need a dock to connect extra peripherals, should i get it?

its 100 UK Pounds, the cheapest Thunderbolt 2 is 170gbp

Personally, I don't see the attraction for those thunderbolt docks, as they have way to limited connections IMO. When referring to "Thunderbolt Sata dock" above, I was talking about this one -> www.bhphotovideo.com

I'd rather use that one and a USB 3.0 hub for the rest of my stuff, but I get that you probably have different needs. Sorry I can't be more helpful. I would probably go Thunderbolt 2 for future compatibility myself though. Here is a roundup -> www.macworld.com

When it comes to TB docks I use the OWC thunderbolt dock 2 and it's been amazing ... When I DJ that's the only thing plugged into my laptop and I have zero issues doing so

I have the drive and LOVE IT. I will buy another one once I need another HD".

You do know Serato recommends the soundcard to be plugged directly into the computer right?

Yes I do and I did very extensive stress testing at home before ever attempting it at a gig and have not once had a single problem doing so even when running the 62 2xCDJ 2000's in HID 2XReloop Neons iPad for Lemur & TB External through it but normally it's only the 62 Dicers iPad & TB External

Kool BB, good info right there.

I have had this dock for almost 3 years now. Works like a champ and I LOVE it!! Saves me at a LOT of my shows

Is it the Thunderbolt 1 version you have or Thunderbolt 2?

Trying to save 70 bucks. Hell when I had a simple powered USB 2 hub it worked fine with Cdjs in HID and external HD.

Come to think of it

thewirecutter.com

Elgato gets love from this review of docks.

That Artical is amazing.... No BS digging thought to the end to find there choice. BAM 1st paragraph you get the info you where looking for and then if you want more info you can keep reading. I wish All tech reviews where done this way.

I got the 2.0 version, since I have 2.0 on my MBP

Ran into mucky waters last night trying to connect my 2014 MBP HDMI to the house projector at my gig. The MBP sees the connection but the projector didn't bring up any pictures.

I had a couple of monoprice kinda thunderbolt to HDMI and VGA adapters which I tried but none worked.

The venue loaned me an Original Apple Thunderbolt to VGA adapter and that worked.

I'm guessing the on board apple HDMI port doesn't provide enough power for long passive HDMI cables. How is the Elgato Thunderbolt dock with long HDMI cable runs?

Yeah, I think that 5v isn't going to travel well if you don't have a powered splitter or distribution amp to something longer than 9-12'. Could be the projector is hyper sensitive too which sucks.

Tested the generic adapters I had when I got home with a 15feet passive hdmi cable and it worked.

With regards to using a signal repeater, can I place it closer to my mac than the projector? For example the venue I played at had a fixed installation and I'm sure there is about 40-60 ft of hdmi running in the wall. They just pointed me to the socket (hdmi + vga)

put a signal repeater close to you mac. like right ont he table with you.

Thanks. Just ordered a bunch of random repeaters from eBay. Self powered, Active ones and also the Elgato TB 2 dock.

Maybe in some situations I can reboost the signal just before the wall socket. Hope that's possible.
One repeater close to my Mac and another just at the wall.