Promise Pegasus 12TB (6x2TB) R6 RAID System

Reviews for Promise Pegasus 12TB (6x2TB) R6 RAID System

Customer Reviews and Ratings

3.0 out of 5 stars

Based on 41 reviews

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Bad value, in many respects.

    • Written by from Hove

    The main theme for this review is to comment on the value, both in storage volume given and thus money, being offered here in this 12TB unit, following my usage.

    The total storage volume is 12TB, spread over 6 x HDD's. Since its release nearly a year ago the R6 has always been sold with a maximum individual drive size of just 2TB drives. 3TB drives have been common during all this time, and 4TB drives are appearing now too. Hence I really felt the R6 should have at least 3TB ones by now, but it doesn't: why, I asked?

    This relates directly to the 1900 quid I paid. This has been priced at a very high price-per-terabyte (1900 quid/12TB) of 158.33! In comparison non-Thunderbolt storage is less-than 50 quid, so they are basically asking more than three times the price, but even when comparing to other Thunderbolt ones, such units are charging around 65 quid price-per-TB.

    Sure I expect a mark-up for the newer Thunderbolt technology and better RAID options, but the Thailand floods have been and gone (normal production or sourcing elsewhere), yet this has been out nearly a year so now holds bad value for money for Thunderbolt users.

    It's got fairly satisfactory performance, although another secondary reason for return is that it's got to be quieter for my liking, as well.

    For me this has meant that given a unit such as this which I expected to be expensive, but realising I would need at least those 3TB drives *now* to make the cost benefit work for a decent period of time; I felt I had no choice but return it.
    As a temporary measure I've just bought a much cheaper USB3 unit at a fraction of the cost of this unit, until improved sizing happens.

    While this may be better than other Thunderbolt units (being either 4 or 6 drive enclosures they can offer RAID levels available like R10 and R5; offering both speed and data redundancy), but the price-per-TB should still be much better (I'd suggest around 75 quid per-TB).

    Bit of a shame really. Roll-on R6 mark II, I say. ;-|

    33 of 39 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    When it works...

    • Written by from Lake Forest

    When it works, it works, but when it doesn't it's a doozy. I'm sure that some have had great luck with it, but I haven't- and based on the other reviews, it's a real toss-up whether you'll get a good system or not. You're welcome to take your chances, just hope you don't end up in the 50% who got a bum product.

    About me: I've worked video compositing over 12 years now, on a variety of platforms. I am currently running a 17"MBP, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM; 2x27" Thunderbolt Monitors, and I bought a Promise Pegasus R4 8TB raid, and configured it carefully and correctly.

    Day 1: Drive fires up. Faster than greased lightning, and pretty darn quiet overall. Quite impressed.

    Day 2: Regional power outage, enclosure comes back up with 4 disks marked dead- I'm under a deadline, and the site was significantly less than helpful. Finally (the next day) get a tech to help out, and get all drives online (*the extra star is for him, he was helpful, polite, and knowledgeable.) Test, and all is well; copied a handful of files over to make sure.

    ...then I go on vacation for 3 weeks. No work, enclosure sits perfectly still the entire time.

    Day 3 (of being used, first day back from vaca): Copying files- progress bar stops, hangs for an eternity... and a drive gets marked dead. Really? I checked the Promise Utility, this enclosure has 9 hours on it- no more. How does a disk get bad sectors after 9 hours of non-constant use? At this point, I'm uncertain that I care.

    I run a Mac because I work for a living, and I want a machine that does likewise- I don't have the time to do unending maintenance when there's a job to do. None of the rest of my system ever slows me down; this raid enclosure has cost me almost as much time fixing it as it has run, and frankly my time is too valuable to keep using this enclosure- a shame, considering that for the brief time I had it working, it was smoking-fast.

    41 of 52 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    So far, so bad...

    • Written by from Northport

    The last thing I want to convince me this is a bad purchase is a bad drive right out of the box, but lo and behold mine has one. I'm trying to decide whether I want to test fate in possibly losing a drive of my footage in the future or just returning this for a refund...wish someone else would put something out there, because I could really use the space and speed.

    45 of 65 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Was happy, but...

    • Written by from Marietta

    I was happy at first. Seemed fast enough, but now, not so much. I've had the device for a month and at times it is slower than my Western Digital FW800 drive. iMovie with content on the FW drive is snappy. iMovie with content on the Pegasus, not so much. Just seems to lock up. Now I have a bad drive. Pretty red light on it though. Not worth the hassle factor. I bought it thinking I would have fast, redundant capacity that I wouldn't have to worry about. That's all I seem to do. I'm so displeased I don't know if I should try to get a new drive, or get my money back.

    75 of 106 people found this useful

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Pegasus As billed

    • Written by from Stowe

    I read the reviews on the Apple site about buying this. One user had a bad drive. Well that's how mine came too. Must be how they ship them Drive is a great idea but it just does not work. Bought this to run FCP X so I had a fast drive FCP doesn't see it, won't store on it. If you try to run FCP off it, it won't allocate any memory. Just a disaster Hoping Tekserve takes it back. Maybe 2.0!

    65 of 93 people found this useful

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