Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID review: Rugged and speedy Thunderbolt 3 storage

Best Prices Today: Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID

Every time I review a product that features hard disk drives (HDDs), I sing the same tune: lots of capacity for a lot less than SSDs, and better performance than you might think.

I wouldn’t want to run my operating system off a box like the Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID (HDDs offers slothful random access), but I’d certainly use it for audio or video production where sequential transfer speed is paramount. 550MBps in RAID 0 will easily do the trick in most scenarios.

The HDD versus SSD conundrum

But there’s a caveat: the striped RAID 0 that delivers that 550MBps offers no redundancy. HDDs, while far more reliable than they used to be, are still mechanical and hence, more prone to failure than far faster SSDs. Operating HDDs in mirrored pairs is far safer, but half as fast and half the capacity.

The upshot is, that while HDD storage is cheaper, once you fully account for the higher possibility of drive failure, that’s not by as much as it might first seem. More on that in the cost section.

Note that while I feel compelled to point out the frailty of HDDs, I’ve had a pair of 16TB HDDs running 16 hours a day in a NAS box for almost seven years, with nary a hint of anything untoward. That said, I run them mirrored due to a couple of bad experiences back in the day.

This is not to say that SSDs never fail. They do on rare occasions, though most of the time recovery is simply a matter of a controller reset.

Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID features

A sturdily constructed (and then some) black metal box jacketed in silicone, the Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID is a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure sporting dual, easy-open 3.5-inch drive bays. It’s sold pre-populated in 8TB to 48TB capacities. Bear in mind that advertised capacity is the sum of both drives when operated striped or separately.

Including the silicone sleeve, the Blackbox Pro RAID measures approximately 8.5-inches long by 4-inches wide by 5.25-inches tall. By its lonesome it weighs 5.1 pounds, ballooning to a hefty 8.1 or so pounds when HDDs are added. The AC adapter, with its matching silicone jacket adds another pound.

On the back of the unit are a full-sized DisplayPort port, two Thunderbolt 3 ports (Type-C), mode switches, a RAID mode set switch, a Kensington lock port, and the DC power jack.

If you were wondering why 3GBps Thunderbolt 3 with 550MBps HDDs, the Display Port and an optional integrated USB/card slot hub are the reason. Or course, a couple more USB ports and ethernet on the back might have stiffened that rationale, in my opinion.

The Blackbox Pro RAID makes it super easy to switch modes (RAID 0 striped, RAID 1 mirrored, JBOD, or independent): simply reorient the twin mini dip switches according to the diagrams directly above them, then press and hold the reset button for four seconds.

Being ever so slightly paranoid (not without cause), it seems a bit too easy as the reset button isn’t recessed. But pressing said button has no effect unless you’ve changed the dip switches.

Glyph warranties the Blackbox Pro RAID for three years with a promise of data recovery for two years, and parts replacement for one. I didn’t see a shock rating, but never drop a hard drive enclosure, and never, ever move it about while it’s powered up.

Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID price

The Blackbox Pro RAID retails for $600 with 8TB, $780 with 16TB, $1000 with 24TB, $1100 with 32TB, $1400 with the 40TB that I tested, $1550 with 44TB, and $1900 with 48TB.

Those were discounted to $530/8TB, $680/16TB, $900/24TB, $1000/32TB, $1150/40TB, $1350/44TB, and $1700/48TB. Alas, the box isn’t available unpopulated so there’s no taking advantage of HDDs you might have lying around.

The Blackbox Pro RAID is also available with an integrated I/O hub featuring CFAST 2.0 and SD slots, as well as a 10Gbps Type-A USB port. Tack on $40 to $100 depending on the capacity you order. Why, that price variance for the same option I can’t tell you.

The enclosure is priced slightly lower than the OWC Gemini, though the Gemini has a couple more ports standard. The Gemini is also available drive-less for $300 and with 4TB version for $470 — configurations that the Blackbox Pro RAID doesn’t offer. The G-RAID mirror features a Pro-Blade modular NVMe SSD port and is a bit more than the Blackbox Pro RAID as well.

As I previously discussed, compared to SSDs, the Blackbox Pro RAID appears dirt cheap. A single 8TB NVMe SSD in an enclosure is around $600/$700, which is competitive at that capacity. But adding four of those together to get 32TB would cost you $2400 as opposed to $1100 the 32TB Blackbox Pro RAID sets you back.

And that’s before you pay $250 plus for an NVMe RAID box such as the OWC 4M2 — if you can find it. I went looking for the 4M2 and it’s apparently EOL, to be replaced with something faster in the near future. I might suggest the OWC Thunderblade, but that’s a whopping $800 for four slots, making even a pair of the Blackbox Pro RAID’s far more appealing.

To re-emphasize, HDD reliability is much better than it used to be, but you should probably run the Blackbox Pro RAID mirrored or in pairs for anything other than scratch storage.

That makes the cost $2200 for two 32TB Blackbox Pros versus $2700 to $3200 for 32TB of NVMe SSDs. Cheaper, but not nearly as much so. Considering the massive boost in performance SSDs deliver, well…

Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID performance

Though the Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID wasn’t quite as fast as OWC’s Gemini in our testing, keep in mind that I tested the OWC box with a pair of very fast, 24TB WD UltraStar DC HC580 HDDs. The 40TB Blackbox Pro RAID Glyph sent us used still fast, but slightly more mundane 20TB Toshiba MG10ACA20TE drives.

Regardless, 532MBps reading and 511MBps writing in striped RAID 0, as measured by Blackmagicdesign’s Disk Speed Test is a very good performance. So is 271MBps reading and 254MBps writing in mirrored RAID 1 mode.

AmorphousDiskMark 4 rated the Blackbox Pro RAID in RAID 0 as slightly faster 540MBps reading and a bit slower 490MBps writing. The 273MBps/259MBps performance in RAID 1 is almost exactly half as it normally is.

The story was pretty much the same (as expected) from ATTO Disk Benchmark. Note that the ruler to the left in the screen captures below changes from 1GBps maximum for RAID0 to 500MBps maximum in the RAID 1 test.

I also ran the Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID through PCWorld’s test quite with largely the same results. The OWC Gemini was faster, but the G-RAID Mirror was much slower in RAID 0. The latter’s low scores were a puzzler as that box used the same 24TB WD UltraStar DC HC580 HDDs as the Gemini.

I included the random performance numbers as a small dose of levity. Modern SSDs outstrip these results a hundredfold. If you’re young enough to not remember HDDs, this is what we oldsters had to deal with. After of course, upgrading from floppy disks.

The Glyph Black box Pro raid did very well in our 4GB transfers if not as well as the OWC Gemini in some tests. Again, the sloth-like performance of the G-RAID mirror, also a Thunderbolt 3 box was a mystery.

The pecking order remained intact after the 450GB write, the Blackbox Pro RAID a ways behind in second place.,

Overall, I was quite pleased with the Blackbox Pro RAID’s performance. Given the advantage of the slightly faster WD HDDs in the OWC, I’d call the boxes themselves roughly on par performance-wise.

Should you buy the Glyph Blackbox Pro RAID?

If you want maximum capacity for the least amount of dollars then the Blackbox Pro RAID is a great product. Largely on par with the OWC Gemini, and faster than the G-RAID Mirror.

But I’d consider running it paired with another or in mirrored mode for data safety, which cuts down mightily on the bargain aspect. Regardless, a great dual-hard drive enclosure.