Thunderbolt 3 Storage:
AKiTiO TB3 Duo Pro
Originally posted March 18th, 2016 by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
Recently we benchmarked on the Razer Blade Stealth which is one of the first laptops to support Thunderbolt 3 . AKiTiO is one of the first to offer Thunderbolt 3 storage: The Thunderbolt 3 Duo Pro. We benchmarked with a pair of SSDs against some legacy Thunderbolt storage products.
GRAPH LEGEND
TB3 Duo Pro = AKiTiO Thunderbolt 3 Duo Pro with Dual Samsung 850 EVO 500G SSDs in a RAID 0 set
TB2 Duo Pro = AKiTiO Thunderbolt 2 Duo Pro with Dual 850 EVO 500G SSDs in a RAID 0 set
TB2 LBD (RAID) = LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 with dual Samsung XP941s in RAID 0 set
TB1 LBD (RAID) = LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt with dual 512G SSDs in RAID 0 set
TB1 Palm RAID = AKiTiO Thunderbolt Palm RAID with dual mSATA 256G in RAID 0 set (the only Bus-Powered enclosure in mix)
The Thunderbolt 3 Duo Pro was connected to the USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) port of the Razer Blade Stealth. All other Thunderbolt storage devices were connected to the Thunderbolt 2 port of a MacBook Pro.
LARGE SEQUENTIAL TRANSFER TEST
We used AJA System Test to benchmark file level sequential transfer speed using a 4GB test size. LONGEST graph bar means the fastest overall in Megabytes per Second.
ANALYSIS and DETAILS
The AKiTiO Thunderbolt 3 Pro Duo does not have 'nose bleed' speed. The Samsung 850 EVO SSDs are capable of an aggregate speed of 1000+MB/s. The Pro Duo hit the wall at 742MB/s with them in RAID 0 mode.
To get close to the 40Gbps theoretical speed of Thunderbolt 3 will require RAID storage devices that support four or more SSDs or RAID storage products with two or more PCIe based flash blades (like the LaCie Little Big Disk). Stay tuned because we will be benchmarking other Thunderbolt 3 storage products which will soon hit the street.
The design of the AKiTiO Thunderbolt 3 Pro Duo is solid and friendly. The enclosure can be opened easily without tools. Drives can be installed without screws or tools. The RAID mode is selectable with a dial on the back using an enclosed dial turner. Plug in the drives, set the RAID mode, connect the USB-C cable to the desktop or laptop, connect the power cable, flip the power switch, and the RAID set automatically initializes. Once initialized, your system disk utility will 'see' it and be able to format the resulting volume.
The Windows 10 based Razer Blade Stealth did successfully format a pair of 2TB Tiger SSDs in RAID 0 set, but it would only format the first 2TB of the 4TB volume.
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WHERE TO BUY AKITIO THUNDERBOLT 3 PRO DUO
- Order the Thunderbolt 3 Pro Duo (empty) direct from AKiTiO
- See other Thunderbolt products at AKiTiO
WHERE TO ORDER SSDs FOR THE AKITIO THUNDERBOLT 3 PRO DUO
- 960GB and 480GB Enterprise SM863 SSDs are sold by Trans International
- 1TB and 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro 6Gbps SSDs are sold by OWC
- 2TB, 1TB, and 512GB Samsung 850 EVO 6Gbps SSDs are sold by NewEgg
- 2TB Tiger 6Gbps SSDs are sold by Trans International
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