Reviews for Promise Pegasus R4 4TB (4x1TB) RAID System

I've owned my Pegasus R4 since 12/01/2011
Why I love it:
1) Quiet
2) Fast. Amazingly fast.
3) Value for the quantity, reliability and speed of the storage.
4) Good support.

There was a huge problem with this product losing Thunderbolt connectivity when it first shipped. Boards all over the US and UK lit up reporting the problem. It took a few weeks but Promise was responsive, sent out new firmware and I haven't had a problem since.

It's sitting 8 inches from my display and has been running 24/7 since Dec 2011. Did I say it is quiet?

Yes RAID 5 yields 3T from 4T of physical drive space. This is a known fact of any RAID system. You have to give up something to get redundancy.

42 of 42 people found this useful

So I've read a lot of complaints about this device online. However, I feel much of the disgruntled comments coincide with typical, Western Culture, impatience. Yes, the Pegasus Promise R4 really does take 10 hours to set itself up. You'll see blue lights flashing on the front until it's fully configured. Instructions are simple and accurate. 1) Plug it in, 2) Connect the Thunderbolt Cable [not included] to the upper right Thunderbolt port on back of R4 if facing the back of it, 3) Power up the RAID, 4) Do something else for 10 hours while it configures. The R4 is so quiet that you won't even know it's there save the pretty blue lights! It's blistering fast and very stable. I do a lot of AV work for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Writing to this drive takes care of the heavy lifting and shaves several days off of each project that I attend to.

38 of 45 people found this useful

We have had this product in use 24/7 since they first came out. To date we have had not a single issue with the device. We use it for server backup at our small business. Easy to use and flawless operation. Drive and device quality is top notch. Only downside is the high price as with all thunderbolt devices.

21 of 24 people found this useful

I use w/FCP X /Motion 5 and a new iMac. No lag time.
Very efficient/fast.

27 of 30 people found this useful

I've hooked the R4 to the latest mac mini (server edition) and it makes a really nice file sharing setup for the 35 people in our office. This and the mini replace an xserve and XServe RAID unit...I'm saving a lot of electricity and I haven't seen any performance issues for this sort of application.

34 of 37 people found this useful

This is an extremely fast drive setup! I will admit, I had my doubts about spending the money on something like this, but after doing some research, I felt comfortable and made the leap!

The R4 and the R6 come out of the box set at Raid 5, which gives you security in that if one drive fails, you will not loose your data. That being said, if you happen to have 2 or multiple drives fail...your out of luck. You can set it up for Raid 0, which would give your the fastest speeds, but you would loose the protection.

While the setup is painless, it does take some time. Unbox the unit, plug in the power cable and the thunderbolt cable and then...wait 10 hours. 10 hours is how long it takes to have the drive format to Raid 5. Why they don't do this before it leaves the factory, I don't know, but...? I would recommend that you install the Promise Software bundle that is actually located not the drive, not on a DVD.

After setup is finished, you are good to go!

I have been experiencing Write Speeds of 385MBs-624MBs and Read Speeds of 182MBs-320MBs, depending on the file format and size. It's hands down much faster than my USB 2.0 drive and my Firewire 800 drive!


I purchased this to backup my pictures files from iPhoto and Aperture primarily as well as my Music collection and my Movie Collection as well.

The $999 price tag made sense after I added up the cost of my Music, my Movies and My Photos.

If you are serious about backing up your computer and files, make a list of what you would spend to replace what you would loose and then buy a hard drive for that amount to use with Time Machine.

35 of 39 people found this useful

This is the fastest external storage device ever made available to consumers period! I transferred my entire iTunes library (182 GB) from my MacBook air (2011) to the promise Pegasus R4 model in 14 min which is crazy fast. Though the Pegasus did not heat up during the process thanks to the duel fans and remained quiet. Also promise kept Mac user in mind with a simple set up and a application to manage Pegasus Which is done for you. This application basically runs Ccheck ups on space, temperature, power, etc. With great power comes great cost, though its worth the money if your going to use pegasus to its full potentioal. Promise also announced they would eventually sell precofigured drives for pegasus- which makes upgrading an option down the road. Being a consumer who is using the Promise Pegasus to store my iTunes library and stream movies from it, it works great. I can watch an HD movie from the Pegasus without any lag, even when skipping around. Buyers be aware that it will take 10 hours to automatically set up/configure the pegasus drives. I just sat back and let it do its thing. All in all this is a product that lives up to its name and is lightning fast.

124 of 136 people found this useful