# Blackmagic Multidock vs. OWC Thunderbay 4.0



## PkCrumbs (Jul 4, 2017)

Hi all,


TL;DR at the bottom!


I’m wanting to upgrade my hard drive setup entirely, and I’m primarily deciding between getting a Blackmagic Multidock with 2 x Samsung 850 EVO 2TB and 2 x Samsung 850 EVO 1TB or a OWC Thunderbay 4. I’ve seen bits of comparison between the two in various threads, and it seems that most people go with Blackmagic. Is this mostly because of the noise that the Thunderbay makes?


On paper, it seems like Thunderbay has the advantage. On their website, the read speed listed for the Thunderbay (nearly 800mb/s) is much higher than speed listed for Blackmagic (>500mb/s). Also, if you get it configured to 20TB using drives that OWC provides, it’s roughly $1400 less than the Blackmagic setup I’m considering (along with providing a buttload more storage). Though, I couldn’t see anywhere which drives they use when you choose that option. Does anyone have any experience with the drives that come with the Thunderbay? Or know what they are? If they’re bad and I’d need to get the Samsungs anyway, then that price advantage for it disappears.


Also, this setup will be solely for sample streaming. I also readily welcome any suggestions on other equipment (drives, docks, or otherwise) that weren't mentioned here. Any help in this is greatly appreciated!


TL;DR:

Blackmagic with a bunch of Samsung EVOs or Thunderbay with 20TB of OWC-provided drives? This will be used only for sample streaming.
On paper, Thunderbay seems faster, cheaper, and greater storage, though most people seem to go with Blackmagic. Why?


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## Astronaut FX (Jul 4, 2017)

I do like the fact that the BM is fanless. Thus, it's quieter, and has less components that could go out. Second, I like the rack mount form factor of the BM. In my current set up, I had more free rack space than table space. And, that makes the drives easier to swap out if and when I need to. 

It really just depends on your needs. I don't think you could go wrong with either.


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## charlieclouser (Jul 5, 2017)

If you're looking at the OWC *Thunderbay-4* as opposed to the *Thunderbay-Mini*, you may have missed the fact that the Thunderbay-4 uses standard, full-sized *3.5"* drives, and NOT the *2.5"* form factor that SSD's come in. The Thunderbay-4 is intended for use with mechanical spinning hard drives (although it may be possible to kludge together a solution that allows 2.5" SSDs to fit in the 3.5" bays). The Thunderbay-4 can offer some decent RAID speeds for a spinning drive setup, and very high capacity, but.... it's mechanical, and therefore hot, loud, slow, and with the added risk and hassle of dealing with RAID. OWC only pre-configures these with up to four 5tb drives, but I have single mechanical drives in sizes up to 10tb each, so it might be possible to stuff it with four of these for 40tb of storage (if they don't overheat and are compatible).

Thunderbay-Mini has four 2.5" slots, so you could load it with four Samsung 4tb 850 Evo's for 16tb of all-SSD storage, and this would rock - and be basically equivalent to the same drives in the MultiDock. I don't know anything about OWC's own "SoftRAID Engine" software, nor do I want to. The last RAID setup I used was an Apple X-Raid - 14gb for $12,000 (!!!). If I were going to go back to RAID I'd just use the RAID facilities in Apple's own Disc Utility software - but I see no need. Today's SSDs are fast enough for me in normal operation mode.

Anyway, the reasons I went with the BlackMagic over the OWC Thunderbay-Mini are:

- No fan. The OWC has a fan, since the drives are enclosed and very close together, and maybe someone (?) might want to put actual spinning laptop 2.5" drives in there (but why?). My SSDs barely get up to room temp, so if I had the OWC with SSDs inside I'd disconnect the fan and take my risks.

- Standard IEC power inlet. The OWC uses an AC adaptor. I hate those things.

- There's some key-lock thing on the front of the OWC, I don't know if it's a power switch or it's to prevent unauthorized access to pulling the drives. Either way, I'd probably lose that key and that would not be good. Back in the days of the rack-mount SCSI hot swap drive bays which had a key to lock the drives in place, I'd just leave the key inserted in the front panel, which kind of defeats the purpose. Still, I had six or seven keys and it was annoying when out on the road to keep a key on my key ring, another in the rack drawer, etc. Don't like it.

- No moving parts whatsoever. The BlackMagic is a solid ingot of technology, with no moving parts at all - no little plastic latches to keep the drives in place, no switches, no hinged front grille to protect the drives. It's a brick.

That said, for some users the size and form factor of the OWC will make a lot more sense than the rack-mounted MultiDock. If I was toting around a portable rig with a laptop and wanted 16tb of SSD online, the Thunderbay-Mini might make more ergonomic sense than a MultiDock or eight Samsung T3 2tb drives.

In terms of what brand of SSD to get, Samsung is ruling that segment of the market. They have by far the most experience, highest number of units in the field, and largest manufacturing capacity. Here and there folks will chime in with endorsements of Crucial, Micron, SanDisk, or OWC drives, and in fact I own six OWC Mercury Electra 1tb SSDs (in my old silver Mac Pro towers). The reason I own those OWC's is because at the time they were the only ones selling 1tb SSDs and I didn't want anything smaller. I have had no problems with them, but these days I prefer to go with the market leader, Samsung - and now Samsung has the 850 Evo in sizes up to 4tb, which is the biggest anywhere. Samsung has 3 and 5 year warranties on the Evo and Pro series SSDs respectively, the same as OWC, although I've never had occasion to make a warranty claim on either. I will say that OWC has great, responsive customer service and support, possibly quicker and easier to deal with than trying to deal with a multinational juggernaut like Samsung, but that's for you to decide.

But for me it's Samsung and BlackMagic all the way.


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## PkCrumbs (Jul 8, 2017)

charlieclouser said:


> If you're looking at the OWC *Thunderbay-4* as opposed to the *Thunderbay-Mini*, you may have missed the fact that the Thunderbay-4 uses standard, full-sized *3.5"* drives, and NOT the *2.5"* form factor that SSD's come in. The Thunderbay-4 is intended for use with mechanical spinning hard drives (although it may be possible to kludge together a solution that allows 2.5" SSDs to fit in the 3.5" bays). The Thunderbay-4 can offer some decent RAID speeds for a spinning drive setup, and very high capacity, but.... it's mechanical, and therefore hot, loud, slow, and with the added risk and hassle of dealing with RAID. OWC only pre-configures these with up to four 5tb drives, but I have single mechanical drives in sizes up to 10tb each, so it might be possible to stuff it with four of these for 40tb of storage (if they don't overheat and are compatible).
> 
> Thunderbay-Mini has four 2.5" slots, so you could load it with four Samsung 4tb 850 Evo's for 16tb of all-SSD storage, and this would rock - and be basically equivalent to the same drives in the MultiDock. I don't know anything about OWC's own "SoftRAID Engine" software, nor do I want to. The last RAID setup I used was an Apple X-Raid - 14gb for $12,000 (!!!). If I were going to go back to RAID I'd just use the RAID facilities in Apple's own Disc Utility software - but I see no need. Today's SSDs are fast enough for me in normal operation mode.
> 
> ...




Thank you so much! You explained this really well and with enough detail to answer any followup questions I would've had


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## charlieclouser (Jul 8, 2017)

There's also that Akitio box - basically the same as the OWC Thunderbay-Mini, but with a switch on the back to disable the fan (yay!) and also a DisplayPort pass-through / peel-off so you can connect it to a computer, daisy-chain to another Thunderbolt device, AND connect a display right to it. Pretty cool. An interesting alternative to the OWC perhaps? I've never seen one in person though.

https://www.akitio.com/portable-storage/akitio-thunder3-quad-mini


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jul 12, 2017)

What are the main differences between multidock 1 and 2?
Is it only the extra thunderbolt port and thunderbolt 1 vs 2?
I cant find enough data on the older multidock.

Addition to OP's considerations: I use Angelbird SSD's work for Mac.
VSL recommended.


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## synthpunk (Jul 12, 2017)

The first Multidock only had speeds of up to SATA 2 standards.



Silence-is-Golden said:


> What are the main differences between multidock 1 and 2?
> Is it only the extra thunderbolt port and thunderbolt 1 vs 2?
> I cant find enough data on the older multidock.
> 
> ...


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## Silence-is-Golden (Jul 12, 2017)

Thanks synthpunk


synthpunk said:


> The first Multidock only had speeds of up to SATA 2 standards.


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