Customer Reviews and Ratings

3.5 out of 5 stars

Based on 35 reviews

  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Good Technology, Very Poor Reliability

    • Written by from Tampa

    49 of 55 people found this useful

    Pros: Very Fast when it works, even in degraded mode since i've yet to experience a fully functioning unit... :(

    Cons: Drives fail faster than Promise can ship replacements.

    I'd give it zero stars if I could but it doesn't seem to be an option. Bought the R6 unit in early December to dual purpose as photo/video editing and as a home office file server. It reported a bad drive after finishing the factory preset RAID5 sync. I received a replacement drive after about 3 weeks and during the RAID rebuild one of the other drives failed. Seems the Hitachi Drives that Promise uses have quality issues (based on drive reviews found on web) so I'm wondering why Promise doesn't actually test these things in their factory to screen out bad drives before they ship it to the end customer, very frustrating.

    I don't have enough faith in this product to run RAID5 anymore. Bummed out to be loosing both speed and size performance to run RAID6.

    Was this useful? Good Technology, Very Poor Reliability

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    A total game changer with blazing fast data transfer rates

    • Written by from New Holland

    20 of 23 people found this useful

    I am a pro photographer with incredible storage needs, and so far over the past four months, this has met all of those needs. I use the Pegasus R6 12TB as an onsite redundancy system with a 1.8 GHz MacBook Air i7, and this configuration has dramatically improved my workflow. I actually work off of the Pegasus more than I ever anticipated with Aperture libraries up to 2TB - no issues. Initial configuration took under eight hours. Set up with an industry standard of RAID 5, so if this enclosure goes down, I'm not sunk, as with other proprietary solutions. I plan on ordering a second Promise RAID next year, and will daisy chain the two via Thunderbolt. Quiet, blazing fast, reliable.

    Was this useful? A total game changer with blazing fast data transfer rates

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Amazing

    • Written by from Columbus

    15 of 18 people found this useful

    Worked right out of the box. Simple to connect using thunderbolt cable and unbelievably fast. Very impressive. Typical speed using mid 2011 MBP is around 179 MB/sec although iv seen +375 MB/sec peak many times.

    Highly recommend

  • 3.0 out of 5 stars

    Bad drive after 2 days

    • Written by from Concord,

    40 of 52 people found this useful

    After paying what I consider a premium price for a RAID 5 server solution, (R6 12TB Pegasus), I never expected a drive to go bad in less than 2 days after plugging it in... initialization took 8 hours roughly, and then I started transferring all my data to the server, luckily I did it in chucks instead of all at once, because 48 hours after plugging the box in I had a drive go bad in slot 5. I am now awaiting Promise to fulfill the RMA for the replacement drive. I think the overall system is great, but to pay this amount and have a Bad drive basically out of the box is disturbing... I asked PROMISE if I could just run to Best Buy and get a replacement drive so I can get back up and going, and the answer was NO, the drives have to be Apple Certified... Well, that is very inconvenient, understandable, but none the less, that means I have to wait 5-7 days to replace a drive, and if another drive goes bad during that time, I loose the entire server...

    We will see if the replacement drive works, if not, then I will be returning this for a FULL REFUND... As an Apple Business partner, I can't blame Apple because its not their product, but there is little excuse for so many Bad drives...

    Only 2 Stars right now... if it works better later I will give it more, if not, then I will return it and give it 1 star.

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Reliable, fast, quiet. Zero issues.

    • Written by from Menlo Park

    17 of 21 people found this useful

    Solid. Heavy video use (FCP 4:2:2 1080i 59.97, 1080p 24fps). Quiet, but you are going to want an enclosure of some sort in your edit bay, it's not loud, but rather it emits more of a case conducted hummm (fans?drives?). Elastic feet from audiophile store helped, but it's around 50Hz, just enough to be noticeable. Before using it we nuked a disk to test, rebuild was around 10hr, not bad at all. If I had a new one, I'd hot spare one drive, as it makes auto rebuilds happen, so pleasant to come in and simply toss the bad drive in the trash (we plasma cutter melt dead drives for privacy) and carry on. Next step is 2 of these in 5+0, then we are thinking of one in a Hardigg case as "carryable" storage, pulling takes off CF cards (FW reader) from NanoFlashes.
    Beautiful job Promise. Now if only you made a PCIe Thunderbolt card !

    Was this useful? Reliable, fast, quiet. Zero issues.

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    crazy fast transfer rates

    • Written by from Lansing

    22 of 26 people found this useful

    I've been working with this unit for 3 months, and I have nothing but positive things to say about the unit and the company. I'm a pro photographer and need reliable storage, and I've elected to use the R6 for all of my image databases. Transfer rates are very fast, and simply do not compare to other technologies (USB, FireWire, etc). Offloading images from camera goes so fast that I sometimes wonder if the images were actually transferred - the progress bar zips by! Bottom line, this unit has made a huge improvement in my work flow and should pay for itself within 12 months. Also, I called Promise about the best RAID configuration to use for my business and the tech was more than helpful and efficient. I will be purchasing another for backup.

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    So far, so bad...

    • Written by from Northport

    45 of 65 people found this useful

    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.

  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Well, I had to return this unit

    • Written by from Quebec

    78 of 102 people found this useful

    It came with 1 defective HDD. I asked support from Promise. No answer.
    And, anyway, it's so noisy. I've just moved from MacPro to iMac to get some silence. For this price, I expected more than this.

    Was this useful? Well, I had to return this unit

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Was happy, but...

    • Written by from Marietta

    75 of 106 people found this useful

    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.

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Pegasus As billed

    • Written by from Stowe

    65 of 93 people found this useful

    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!

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Fast

    • Written by from Parker

    39 of 44 people found this useful

    I have it set up with an iMac 27 3.4 SSD config with 16Gb. Reformatted the array to support RAID 10 for speed and redundancy. I figured 6Tb of storage were more than enough to satisfy my needs. I have huge library of photos (over 30,000 RAW), and I was annoyed my 2009 iMac 27 was not reacting kindly to the huge library in its internal 2Tb drive. iPhoto was slow and Aperture was near useless. With the new setup I have now, navigating through my photo library is a breeze and nearly instantaneous. Sure I dropped some coin, but nothing is as satisfying as nearly zero wait times for working with my photo libraries. The SSD drive is a great system drive too. The 2Tb drive in my iMac is quite useless. I think I will use it as a TM drive.

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Brilliant, works without a hitch

    • Written by from MONROE

    122 of 142 people found this useful

    Absolutely superb storage solution. Mine is running on a 2011 iMac 27", it's exceptionally fast throughput, easy setup, diagnostic tools are robust and easy to use. I highly recommend a quick tour through the instructions before beginning a copy or removing a disk -- it requires roughly 8 hours for optimizing the pre-configured RAID 5 setup, and removing a disk will stop the process. I also recommend that if you order the R6 online, get the Thunderbolt cable from your local Apple retailer (the shipping for the cable takes longer than for the R6 itself, mine was shipped out of Hong Kong). Otherwise, standard shipping had it to me in a week and data copying from multiple sources is very quick, stable and easy. Well worth the investment!

    Was this useful? Brilliant, works without a hitch

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Simply Awesome!

    • Written by from Los Angeles

    27 of 44 people found this useful

    I recently got this and tested it out and it is so awesome! The transfer rate is so fast and this helps me meet deadlines faster than ever expected!

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Stunning

    • Written by from Raleigh

    176 of 190 people found this useful

    I've put it through the testing grounds and I could not be happier with my purchase.
    Initially, my Pegasus 12TB shipped with a bad drive in the 6th bay, but Promise support was able to replace it within just a few days of contacting them. However, during that time I was able to use the remaining 8TB (due to my Raid 5 configuration) with smooth operation. Thunderbolt meets and exceeds the hype surrounding it. I'm a professional editor with particular needs and the Pegasus meets all of them, cutting film has never been easier or more accessible on my own system. Gone are the days of pricey rentals of fiber connected rooms at post houses. This technology changes everything for everyone with digital media and storage needs.

  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Awesome product!!

    • Written by from Aspen

    228 of 256 people found this useful

    I'm running a 2011 MBP with the Thunderbolt Pegasus R6 and it's showing a reliable 650MB read/write with a RAID5 configuration on 256MB files using Digaloyd's sequential test suite. I'm impressed. BTW, I'm running Hitachi's 3GB Ultrastar enterprise HD's in the R6 with no apparent hiccups.... that means 15TB useable RAID5 on the R6 with 3GB drives.