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Topic starter
An encrypted Thunderbay 8 using either HDDs or SSDs on a Mac running Ventura is ridiculously slow. Unless SoftRAID solves this, the OWC units will be basically useless to me. Encryption is essential.
My Promise Pegasus unit runs fast even when encrypted.
Please fix this.
Posted : 23/08/2023 9:26 pm
SSD performance is fine on encrypted volumes.
There is an issue in MacOS that we are working on, that causes the slow RAID 5 performance.We hope to find a solution or workaround in the not far future.
Posted : 24/08/2023 2:00 am
Topic starter
I wanted to update this post. I have now installed 4 SSDs into bays A-D on a Thunderbay 8. This time I used Samsung 870 EVO 4TB SSDs. The Samsungs are clearly better drives than the Fanxiang SSDs I used before.
I created a 4 disk RAID 0 formatted as APFS in SoftRAID. Then using Disk Utility I formatted the new RAID volume as APFS encrypted. The speed was great, over 1400 MB/s read and write (black magic disk speed test 1gb) (Full 16TB available as RAID 0). If this volume is created as RAID 5, formatted as APFS not encrypted, then BMSDT gives 950-1050 MB/s read and write. As a RAID 5 formatted APFS encrypted, the BMSDT drops to 260 MB/s Write and 640 MB/s read. If the volume is RAID 10 unencrypted APFS, the Write is 750 MB/s and Read is over 900 MB/s. When RAID 10 is encrypted APFS the speeds are 600-700 MB/s Write and 1200-1400 MB/s Read.
For comparison: the internal SSD on a Mac Studio Ultra (APFS encrypted) using BMSDT 1gb is over 5400 MB/s Write and over 5400 MB/s Read.
A Promise Pegasus3 R4 hardware RAID 5 using 4 x 7200 RPM IronWolf 8TB drives (APFS encrypted) speed with BMSDT was variable from 500-1300 MB/s Write and 450 - 700 MB/s Read.
So in conclusion, APFS encryption on the Thunderbay 8 using 4 SSD drives (bays A-D) works great in RAID 0, acceptable as RAID 10 for write speed, but write speed is too slow in RAID 5.
I hope SoftRAID/OWC can work with Apple to fix this RAID 5 APFS encryption speed slowdown soon. Encryption should be an essential feature of all RAIDs at this point.
Posted : 27/08/2023 10:32 pm
You need to use AJA System for more consistent results. (select the max video resolution, 64GB file size, RGBA codec and in settings, use dual DMA engine for standardized results you can compare with others.)
You should get close to non encrypted performance on M1 style computers on flash media.
HDD's are where the issues are.
Posted : 27/08/2023 11:54 pm
I can confirm that enabling APFS encryption severely impacts SSD performance in M1/SoftRAID configurations, reading speed drops from 2600MB/s to 500MB/s. Details here.
Posted : 16/09/2023 7:07 am
You are correct. We expect at some point MacOS will enable faster speeds. We do not know if this is our bug or MacOS's, but there is a problem. We have been waiting for a solution for a couple years. At least on flash media it is a tolerable speed.
Posted : 16/09/2023 5:26 pm
Is there any update on this? I'm using macOS Sonoma 14.3.1 on an M2 MacBook Pro. I have ordered an OWC ThunderBlade X8 which I plan to use with APFS encrypted volumes in RAID 4 or 5 configuration. Unless fixed, I am concerned the speeds will be unacceptably slow.
Posted : 12/02/2024 10:46 am
On RADI 5, you will get 700MB/s writes on an encrypted volume. If that is not enough, try RAID 0, with frequent backups.
Posted : 12/02/2024 4:24 pm
Does anyone know if I will experience similar issues with a Raid 1 encrypted volume?
Posted : 06/12/2024 3:34 pm
I do not think anything but another 6 bay will work. I have never taken one apart for this, but might try this weekend.
Posted : 06/12/2024 6:56 pm
