LaCie has introduced a new Rugged Thunderbolt external drive, updating its lineup with a 1TB SSD. This is double the previous Rugged drive’s 500GB capacity, and is coupled with a rugged external housing able to withstand water exposure, shock, and dust. The inclusion of a Thunderbolt connection, meanwhile, enables fast transfer speeds compared to typical external hard drive speeds. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Earlier this year, storage manufacturer LaCie launched an upgraded version of its Rugged hard drive that features improved damage resistance and a built-in Thunderbolt cable. The new Rugged Thunderbolt drive is available with either a hard disk or an SSD, and also has a USB 3.0 port for universal connectivity. Is it a good storage option for photographers who need something that can handle the bumps in the road? Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
For the past month or so I’ve been testing out one of the 8TB Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duos
I was interested to see what the performance would be like with Western Digital’s large storage solution and I have to say I’m a fan.
What I like about it:
1. It’s quiet. So quiet. My Drobos are not bad, but the Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo is even quieter. You don’t even know it’s on or there, except for the tiny little pinhole light that is on in the front, and of course you see it on your Mac. For some reason one of my Drobo 5Ds feels like it almost goes to sleep sometimes. When I try to access it in the finder I have to wait a few seconds and I hear it powering up a bit. This doesn’t happen with the My Book Thunderbolt Duo.
2. Thunderbolt is sooooo fast. Whoever invented Thunderbolt should get a Nobel prize for speed. I can’t believe how quickly I can copy hundreds of gigabytes of photos around.
3. The Duo is a bit cheaper than the Drobo for those who may be on more of a budget and need less storage. To get 4TB of replicated storage on a Drobo 5D I’d have to buy about 6TB worth of drives. This would cost me about $ 800. You can buy an 8TB My Book Thunderbolt Duo for about $ 650 or so. You can mirror the drives so that you get two copies of everything or about 4TB of replicated storage. Because the Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo doesn’t rely on a proprietary format for replication, if one drive fails, you would always have a perfect backup copy on the other. I haven’t had a problem with Drobo’s proprietary format before, but it’s something that some folks have criticized in the past.
4. Primary data is automatically backed up. I can’t use a backup strategy that requires my manual contribution. With both the Drobos and the My Book Thunderbolt Duo your primary versions of photos are more secure.
5. The Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo is smaller than the Drobo 5D and much lighter.
Setting up the My Book Thunderbolt Duo was easy. It’s just plug and play. Similar to my Drobos.
I know a lot of people will probably comment on this post about how they are doing things even cheaper by building their own solution with their own replicated in home RAID servers, etc. That’s just great, but I’m not a very technical guy when it comes to computer hardware and I’d wayyyyy rather pay a little bit more and have a Thunderbolt solution that is just plug and play, without me having to do any work, or do any coding, or manually buying and installing drives into a server body and all that. Different strokes for different folks though and each person should do whatever works best for them.
There is also a 4TB and 6TB version of the My Book Thunderbolt Duo. You can learn more about them including all of the technical specs on Western Digital’s site here.
A HUGE disclaimer on any device like the Drobo or My Book Thunderbolt Duo. These solutions may protect you against hard drive failure, but they will not protect you against fire, theft, etc. For that reason you may also want to incorporate both offsite and/or cloud storage to whatever your backup strategy may be. I see replicated hard drives really only as a first line of defense. In my own case I also purchased a large fireproof gun safe and when I’m out of the house or on a trip or something I usually lock my drives up in there. I also have off site backup storage for my images and I’m actually working on a plan this year to begin moving my offsite storage into a bank security deposit vault.
The book next to the My Book Thunderbolt Duo by the way to compare size is the excellent expanded edition version of Robert Frank’s The Americans
Thomas Hawk Digital Connection
Western Digital have just announced a new portable storage solution for photographers and digital content creators! The My Passport® Pro Thunderbolt Raid, the first portable, Thunderbolt™-powered dual-drive solution, comes in a 2 or 4TB flavour and has the cable built into the drive as you can see in the photographs below.
SYDNEY, Australia, – Mar. 28, 2014 – WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company, and world leader in storage solutions for the connected life, today introduced My Passport® Pro, the first portable, Thunderbolt™-powered dual-drive solution, providing creative professionals and enthusiasts high performance and capacity in a truly mobile solution. For Mac systems, My Passport Pro has user-selectable RAID functionality to deliver needed performance for the most demanding applications in the field, without the need for power adapters or extra cables. My Passport Pro is available in 2 TB and 4 TB capacities.
“The only Thunderbolt dual-drive solution that’s bus-powered, WD’s My Passport Pro enhances the workflow of mobile creative professionals by providing fast transfers and data protection for the large amounts of digital content they generate outside the studio,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president of branded products and worldwide sales, WD. “From photographers, videographers and musicians to graphic designers and architects, people who depend on portable storage for their livelihood will find My Passport Pro defines a new level of performance, reliability and especially portability.”
“Thunderbolt™ technology makes new approaches possible for high-performance workflows,” said Jason Ziller, Intel’s Director of Thunderbolt Marketing. “By combining dual storage drives on a portable, bus-powered device, the My Passport Pro from WD is a uniquely powerful storage solution with high capacity for today’s demanding users.”
Directly powered via the integrated Thunderbolt cable — a design unique to WD — performance of My Passport Pro clocks in at speeds up to 233 MB/s, providing super-fast transfer, edit and backup capabilities. Another key feature of the dual-drive My Passport Pro is its user-selectable RAID function, which lets users choose data striping (RAID 0) for high performance or mirroring (RAID 1) for data redundancy, depending on the user’s needs. Superior to both FireWire 800 and USB 3.0, the integrated Thunderbolt technology of My Passport Pro makes video manipulation quick and easy—with the ability to copy a 22 GB high-definition video file in half the time typically required by a USB 3.0 drive working in RAID 0 format.
Consisting of two 2.5-inch hard drives housed in a sleek aluminium enclosure, My Passport Pro is thoroughly shock-tested for extra durability to perform reliably when working on the go.
I’ve had the “My Passport Pro” for a few days now and this is by no means enough time to fully get used to working with a new device, but having worked with storage of all different kinds for so long, it’s enough to get a good feeling about something. Now I just want something to fulfill a certain storage need that I have, so I was very impressed when the WD team pulled out this little beast and handed it to me over a nice chicken schnitzel sandwich (yes, really). The build is solid with little rubber feet to keep it steady, and a fan that’s built in to keep the temperature within its working range. The fan doesn’t come on much – I’ve had the drive sitting running for a couple of days, and even under a lot of load it hasn’t activated – nice and quiet.
I have it configured to speedy Raid 0 for now, checking out the performance of the drive. The 2TB version is going to be more than enough for almost any shoot, even when setup in Raid 1 (mirrored) giving you just under 1TB of useable space. The real test of this device will be in a couple of months when I take it to Israel for a week long photo tour with Kinetis (and our very own dPS writer Oded Wagenstein) and will be writing about the drive and how it performs along the way!
The My Passport® Pro has filled a gap in my workflow and has filled it nicely – time will tell in terms of drive stability and build quality, nothing beats three copies of important content, but a mirrored raid disk in the field is a great start.
You can buy one of these little beauties on Amazon:
The post Western Digital announce My Passport Pro Thunderbolt Raid storage by Sime appeared first on Digital Photography School.
I am reviewing my old forgotten paddling video clips and posting them to my YouTube channel. Here is one from March of 2007. First paddling that season with Thunderbolt-X kayak on Beaver Pond in Arapaho Bend Natural Area. I was just playing in a small area of free water and pushing the kayak through a soft ice.
I bought Thunderbolt designed and built by Doug Bushnell from West Side Boat Shop in December of 2006. You can find a lot of pictures of Tbolt, trip and race reports in this blog and in Fitness Paddling.
Camera: Pentax Optio W10 mounted on a front or stern deck with the single suction cup
paddling with a camera
September 16, 2012. 1 hour evening paddling with WSBS Thunderbolt-X kayak on the Beaver Pond in Arapaho Bend Natural Area near Fort Collins. Camera: Pentax Optio WG2
Related posts:
3 Pictures from My Paddling Pond in Fall Colors
7 Pictures from Fall Paddling in Colorado Featuring Thunderbolt Kayak
September 18, 2012. Another evening with WSBS Thunderbolt-X kayak on the Beaver Pond in Arapaho Bend Natural Area near Fort Collins.
Thunderbolt provides for me the fastest way to go for a paddling workout – just a few seconds to load a kayak into V-racks on my car. And, in a small pond, I don’t even need to mess up with a sprayskirt.
I was playing with the GoPro Hero camera mounted on a kayak bow and set up in the interval shooting mode. This time I was using my two suction cup mount based on Sticky Pod.
Related posts:
10 Minute Double Suction Cup Camera Mount for a Kayak Deck
3 Pictures from My Paddling Pond in Fall Colors
7 Pictures from Fall Paddling in Colorado Featuring Thunderbolt Kayak
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