| Hard Drive | thunderbolt 3 |
|---|
Thunder3 Quad Mini (Thunderbolt3 4-Bay Enclosure Only) - MacOS and Windows Certified
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.
| Digital Storage Capacity | 40 GB |
| Hard Disk Interface | USB 3.1 |
| Connectivity Technology | USB, Thunderbolt, SATA |
| Brand | Akitio |
| Hard Disk Form Factor | 2.5 Inches |
| Hard Disk Description | thunderbolt 3 |
| Compatible Devices | Laptop |
| Installation Type | Dashboard Mount |
| Color | Space Gray |
| Specific Uses For Product | 4-bay storage enclosure |
About this item
- Thunderbolt 3 interface for lighting fast transfer speeds up to 40 Gbps
- Second Thunderbolt 3 port supports Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 (10 Gbps), and DisplayPort devices
- Power delivery provides up to 15W (5V/3A) of power to compatible laptops
- Dedicated DisplayPort for additional monitor to expand the workspace
- Holds up to four 2.5” drives with SATA 6Gb/s interface
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This item Thunder3 Quad Mini (Thunderbolt3 4-Bay Enclosure Only) - MacOS and Windows Certified | TERRAMASTER D5 Thunderbolt 3 Professional-Grade 5-Bay External Hard Drive Enclosure RAID 0/RAID1/RAID5/RAID10/JBOD Hard Disk RAID Storage (Diskless) | Syba 10000GB 5 Bay Tool Less Tray Hot Swappable 2.5" 3.5" SATA III RAID HDD External USB 3.0 Enclosure Windows MacOS SY-ENC50118 | TERRAMASTER D5-300C USB3.1 (Gen1) Type C 5-Bay RAID Enclosure Support RAID 0/1/Single Exclusive 2+3 RAID Mode Hard Drive RAID Storage (Diskless) | SABRENT USB 3.2 4 Bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Tray Less Docking Station (DS-SC4B) | |
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| Customer Rating | 3.4 out of 5 stars (31) | 3.7 out of 5 stars (151) | 3.9 out of 5 stars (152) | 4.0 out of 5 stars (705) | 4.5 out of 5 stars (13246) |
| Price | Unavailable | $699.99$699.99 | $139.79$139.79 | $219.99$219.99 | $229.99$229.99 |
| Sold By | — | TERRAMASTER | VirVentures | TERRAMASTER | Store4PC |
| Are batteries required? | No | — | No | No | No |
| Color | Space Gray | — | — | 5-bay USB3.1 (Gen1), Supports 2+3 RAID mode | Black |
| Digital Storage Capacity | 40 GB | 12.0 TB | 10000 GB | 0.00 TB | — |
| Item Dimensions | 11.5 x 9 x 5.4 inches | 10.5 x 9.9 x 6.4 inches | 6 x 10 x 7 inches | 8.94 x 8.86 x 5.35 inches | 9.1 x 5.8 x 5.9 inches |
Product information
Technical Details
| Brand | Akitio |
|---|---|
| Series | Quad Mini |
| Item model number | 130799 |
| Hardware Platform | PC, Mac |
| Operating System | Mac OS X 10.11 or higher, Windows 10 32 and 64 bit, Windows 8/8.1 32 and 64 bit, Windows 7 32 and 64 bit |
| Item Weight | 4.7 pounds |
| Product Dimensions | 11.5 x 9 x 5.4 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 11.5 x 9 x 5.4 inches |
| Color | Space Gray |
| Hard Drive Interface | USB 3.1 |
| Manufacturer | Akitio |
| ASIN | B0713VZW4H |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | April 30, 2017 |
Additional Information
| Customer Reviews |
3.4 out of 5 stars |
|---|
Warranty & Support
Feedback
Product Description
AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad mini
Features:
- Thunderbolt 3 interface for lightning fast transfer speeds up to 40 Gbps
- Second Thunderbolt 3 port supports Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 (10 Gbps), and DisplayPort devices
- Power delivery provides up to 15W (5V/3A) of power to compatible laptops
- Dedicated DisplayPort for additional monitor to expand the workspace
- Holds up to four 2.5” drives with SATA 6Gb/s interface
- Removable trays for easy SSD and HDD installation
- Large fan for active cooling with power switch
External Thunderbolt 3 Storage Solution for Mac and PC
This 4-bay storage enclosure is designed to house up to four 2.5-inch drives. With Software RAID, four striped SSDs can reach data transfer speeds of up to 1480 MB per second while the Thunderbolt 3 interface provides sufficient bandwidth for additional 4K video signal streams and data transfers at the same time. An ultra durable aluminum casing provides efficient heat dissipation, plus an extra large rear fan keeps your drives cool during long hours of operation.
Reversible USB Type-C Connector with Power Delivery
The AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad Mini supports power delivery (PD) over USB-C, providing 15W of power to laptops like the MacBook Pro (late 2016) that support charging from a 5V/3A power source. This allows you to work with the external drive without the battery levels of your laptop dropping even though the laptop is not plugged into any other power source.
Faster Backup and Data Duplication
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Thunderbolt 3 ConnectivityThunderbolt 3 Thunderbolt 3 brings Thunderbolt to USB-C at speeds up to 40 Gbps, creating one compact port that does it all – delivering the fastest, most versatile connection to any dock, display, or data device. For the first time, one computer port connects to Thunderbolt devices, every display, and billions of USB devices. A single cable now provides four times the data and twice the video bandwidth of any other cable, while also supplying power to bus-powered devices. The AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad Mini has two Thunderbolt 3 ports. The second port operates the same as a Thunderbolt 3 computer port by supporting Thunderbolt 3 (up to 5 daisy chained), USB 3.1 (10 Gbps), and DisplayPort devices. DisplayPortThe dedicated DisplayPort connector makes it easy to connect an additional monitor to extend your workspace and it will free up the second Thunderbolt 3 port for other Thunderbolt 3 (up to 5 daisy chained), USB 3.1 (10 Gbps), and DisplayPort devices. |
4-Bay with Removable TraysDesigned to house up to four 2.5-inch drives, the tray based system allows for easy installation and replacement of the hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs). |
Super-fast PerformanceFor solid state drives (SSDs), the SATA 6Gb/s interface allows each individual drive to run at full SATA-III speeds (~520 MBs/) but the PCIe to SATA controller is limited to four PCIe 2.0 lanes (Gen2 x4). Due to this limitation, the maximum transfer rate for a striped RAID set with four SSDs is about 1480 MB/s, despite the fact that the Thunderbolt 3 interface is capable of speeds faster than that. |
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To hook it to a current generation Mac, easy. USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 cable included (but note that it's short, which I believe is typical for Tbolt 3 cabling). But if you have a recent but not very-recent device with the Thunderbolt 2, you need a Thunderbolt 2-T3 connector -and- a Thunderbolt 2 cable. About $80.
Did that. Hooked it up. Works great. But now, I hear the fan. Wait, what? I don't just hear it, I HEAR it. It's noisy. I have SSD drives in there, so maybe I don't need the fan, but really, in this day and age, you can't manage a quiet (even silent) fan? Given the cable lengths, you can't even stash this thing out of hearing range.
Sad and sorry to return this but those are fatal flaws. I am using USB 3 enclosures instead which are not nearly as fast.
Some minor points: the fan is a little loud (compared to dead silent); it is louder than the disks - but you can easily switch the fan on / off with a back panel switch. And, the cooling isn't all that great - the problem is that the disk backplane is a solid circuit board across all 4 drives, with only a very small slot to provide cooling airflow for each disk, and that small slot causes airflow turbulence / noise when the fan is running. There's a decent inter-drive space, and the drive mount bracket should help provide some heat conduction, so it isn't too bad. Lastly, the mount brackets have to be installed in the correct orientation; they really should be ambidextrous / invertable - alas, the screw holes are off the center line by ~1mm, so the rails have a definite correct / wrong orientation (which is not marked on them).
In short, there are some minor issues that the manufacturer should address (quieter fan / larger cooling slot in the backplane, put the fan switch on the front for easier access, make the rails invertable or at least identify correct orientation on the rails), but overall this is a great unit. And it is really nice to see T3 is finally maturing into a simple, reliable expansion technology!
I bought 4 Samsung 4TB 860 EVO SSDs and installed them in this device. I used macOS' builtin RAID0 capabilities to create a large 16TB drive. The results are astonishingly good, better than the internal drive that comes with the Mac Pro. This makes this kind of disk expansion a very good value indeed! It can potentially expand the useful life of your Mac Pro for many more years to come.
Below are some fio results showing the sequential read and write speeds, as well as random read and write speeds. I added to the comparison a Samsung 4TB 850 EVO drive that's connected over USB3 to the Mac Pro.
Sequential write tests:
Command used:
fio --size=100M --direct=1 --refill_buffers --norandommap --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=posixaio --bs=8k --iodepth=32 --numjobs=32 --group_reporting --name=8ktest --rwmixwrite=100 --readwrite=write
RAID0:
WRITE: bw=1702MiB/s (1785MB/s), 1702MiB/s-1702MiB/s (1785MB/s-1785MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=1880-1880msec
Mac Pro internal:
WRITE: bw=842MiB/s (883MB/s), 842MiB/s-842MiB/s (883MB/s-883MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=3802-3802msec
Samsung 4TB 850 EVO SSD over USB3:
WRITE: bw=346MiB/s (363MB/s), 346MiB/s-346MiB/s (363MB/s-363MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=9248-9248msec
---
Random write tests:
Command used:
fio --size=100M --direct=1 --refill_buffers --norandommap --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=posixaio --bs=8k --iodepth=32 --numjobs=32 --group_reporting --name=8ktest --rwmixwrite=100 --readwrite=randwrite
RAID0:
WRITE: bw=536MiB/s (562MB/s), 536MiB/s-536MiB/s (562MB/s-562MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=5975-5975msec
Mac Pro internal:
WRITE: bw=366MiB/s (384MB/s), 366MiB/s-366MiB/s (384MB/s-384MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=8736-8736msec
Samsung 4TB 850 EVO SSD over USB3:
WRITE: bw=170MiB/s (178MB/s), 170MiB/s-170MiB/s (178MB/s-178MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=18835-18835msec
---
Sequential read tests:
Command used:
fio --size=100M --direct=1 --refill_buffers --norandommap --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=posixaio --bs=8k --iodepth=32 --numjobs=32 --group_reporting --name=8ktest --rwmixread=100 --readwrite=read
RAID0:
READ: bw=135MiB/s (141MB/s), 135MiB/s-135MiB/s (141MB/s-141MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=23722-23722msec
Mac Pro internal:
READ: bw=125MiB/s (131MB/s), 125MiB/s-125MiB/s (131MB/s-131MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=25529-25529msec
Samsung 4TB 850 EVO SSD over USB3:
READ: bw=112MiB/s (118MB/s), 112MiB/s-112MiB/s (118MB/s-118MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=28525-28525msec
---
Random read tests:
Command used:
fio --size=100M --direct=1 --refill_buffers --norandommap --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=posixaio --bs=8k --iodepth=32 --numjobs=32 --group_reporting --name=8ktest --rwmixread=100 --readwrite=randread
RAID0:
READ: bw=146MiB/s (153MB/s), 146MiB/s-146MiB/s (153MB/s-153MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=21901-21901msec
Mac Pro internal:
READ: bw=140MiB/s (146MB/s), 140MiB/s-140MiB/s (146MB/s-146MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=22920-22920msec
Samsung 4TB 850 EVO SSD over USB3:
READ: bw=116MiB/s (122MB/s), 116MiB/s-116MiB/s (122MB/s-122MB/s), io=3200MiB (3355MB), run=27502-27502msec
The first one I bought seemed to work OK but after just a couple weeks, the second one is starting to randomly lose connection of certain disks in the enclosure and now none of them can connect. The light on the front is amber instead of blue.
I've swapped all cables and did other troubleshooting methods and nothing works. It's a faulty enclosure. I guess I wasted $600 and will have to just use the larger OWC enclosures and carry on.
Cons:
1. Drives keep disconnecting at random (connected to MacbookPro 2016 15) , this is a deal breaker. I have USB drive that stayed connected while disks from the enclosure were disconnected.
2. Cable detaches way too easy, I would like to see something like cable lock at the enclosure end.
Pro:
- It is fast;
- I like design and ease of changing drives;








