Promise Pegasus2 M4 (4x1TB) Thunderbolt 2 DAS Review
by Kristian Vättö on September 12, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- Thunderbolt
- m4
- Promise
- DAS
- Thunderbolt 2
- Pegasus2
The Pegasus2 M4: Software
Since my only Thunderbolt-enabled system is Windows based, our look at the software is limited to the Windows version, but our original Pegasus R6 review has screenshots from the OS X software.
For managing the M4 and other products, Promise offers WebPAM PRO software. It is web-based software that runs in the browser and upon launching it will ask for your Windows user's credentials before you are granted access to WebPAM PRO. The dashboard view just gives a quick overview of the device and its status.
The device tab offers a real-time graphical view of the device and its components. Clicking either the device graphic or the list on the upper right corner will give more details about the enclosure, controller, and physical drives. Below is a gallery with additional screenshots that shows what exactly the WebPAM PRO allows you to monitor.
Creating the array can be done under the storage tab and once again you are presented with a real-time graphical view of the device. To select the drives you want in the array, simply click the drive bay and it will turn blue. Once you have selected the bays you want, the submit button will lead you to the next screen.
The final step is to set the RAID level and other specific aspects. RAID 5 is the default RAID level in the M4 as it comes with a hardware RAID controller, but RAID 0 and RAID 10 are supported as well.
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joystone324 - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
no manjohnny_boy - Monday, September 15, 2014 - link
Why on Earth couldn't they make this thing use less than 10W? Each drive uses less than a watt so that leaves 6 watts left for the controller. It could be done entirely through software off an ARM SoC running linux!repoman27 - Monday, September 15, 2014 - link
This unit ships with 2.5-inch spinning disks that draw 2.5 W each when in use and over 3 W at startup. Even with staggered startup, you're at 10 W right there. Then there's the PMC-Sierra RoC, which judging by the heat sink might draw around 5 W without counting the SDRAM and NAND, and the DSL5520 Thunderbolt 2 controller which needs 2.8 W. There's also a rather large PLD and a Parade PS181 DP to DP++ converter that need juice. Since this is a two-port design, the PSU also has to be able to provide 10 W of power to the next device in the chain.Speaking of the 10 W power budget, that also has to power an active cable, which only leaves "up to 8.5 W" for the device. Since the original Thunderbolt cables could draw over 2.4 W all by themselves, and the lowest power Thunderbolt 2 controller uses another 2.1 W, you can really only count on roughly 5 W for your device design unless you use a tethered cable.
philipma1957 - Monday, September 15, 2014 - link
I own an r-6 and it has been a beast. One of the most important features of the r-6 is the drives are bootable. I own the smaller 2.5 inch 4 drive model the j4 and it is not bootable. the j4 fan was loud and whiny it sets in a box doing nothing. It was designed to stack under a mac mini and it was very disappointing purchase for me. I would hate to buy this unit and find it is not bootable. and has the same whiny loud fan. And if I was doing video since I have to plug this into a power source I would just get an r-4 or r-6 and use that. The r-6 can have a lot of setups that are fast and back up your info.mschira - Tuesday, September 16, 2014 - link
this is silly. Why would I bother with a RAID setup for 4 TB, when I can get a 4TB single platter in 3.5"?That's gonna be smaller than 4 2.5" drives, consume less power, and on goes the list of advantages.
Yea, it's somewhat less fail tolerant because I can't use RAID 5, but it will fail much less often because it is only ONE drive rather than 4 drives.
But seriously? RAID 5 will give you 3TB. How about using two 2TB 2.5" drives in RAID 1? Will be more compact, fail less often.
Now use 2TB 2.5" drives (i.e. 12mm ones) and the situation starts to turn. You can build a 6GB RAID 5 setup with good speed fault tolerance and a reasonable size.
May not be a magic bullet in many occasions, but at least in a few situations.
Cheers
M.
RedHunter2386 - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
Please keep in mind that PMC is part of Promise Technology and is also known at the "OEM"-brand of Promise. Therefor it is not that strange they would use their own chip in their devices, even if the specs are higher than the unit actually demands.On the Promise booth at IBC (in Amsterdam), they were showing the Pegasus M4 with 4x 512GB Samsung 840 EVO SSDs. This was a demo unit, as there is no official SSD version available (yet). The speeds in Blackmagic Speed Test were showing around 1100MB/s Write and 1150 MB/s read. That's quite a difference from the speeds mentioned in this review.
stux - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
I think this review needs an update or a ReduxFor a TB drive enclosure its absolutely imperative to test it on a Mac with TB2, or you might as well not bother, especailly with the reports for 1100/1150MB/s performance with 4x 840 Evo SSDs.
Drive noise is a very big concern with a product like this. I've seen dB meter apps for iPhones, and audio engineer friend of mine raves about one and how its with in point something something of his lab meter. Cheap, and cheerful and would help a lot with objectively quantifying the noise.
This drive sounds like its trying to compete with the Drobo Mini, which has 4 2.5" bays and an m-sata 5 bay which can act like a cache card, and is USB3 and TB
I'd really really like to see a performance comparison between the drobo mini and the the M4 with 4x 1 or 2TB HDs and also with SSDs. That would be very interesting, and very valuable to mac professionals trying to work out high performance or high capacity storage solutions for portable scenarios.
Thanks Kristian, I did enjoy the review :)
jonb8305 - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Someone should do an update with the official SSD version from Promise http://www.promise.com/promotion_page/promotion_pa...PeterBr - Sunday, May 3, 2015 - link
I just placed an order for a PROMISE Pegasus2 M4 4TB at $1500 (this is a 2.5" disk version), and now Im thinking I could have purchased a 3.5" version from another company with more TB installed for the same price. Could anyone recommend a better prices/deal and reliable 8TB or higher raid drive with thunderbolt for 4k video editing?