Tried and tested Orico Matrix hybrid data storage for Mac

Are you a freelance photographer, content creator or graphic artist working from home or a small office? What do you currently do for storing all those large photo, video and Illustrator files? You can use an external hard drive, especially if you’re a Mac user and don’t want to pay Apple’s exorbitant storage prices. You could try storing everything in the cloud, but that can be slow and the costs soon add up.

An alternative to this conundrum might be a hybrid solution with hot storage on a fast SSD for your current projects and cold storage on slower drives for your archives. The advantage of this solution is that you get the speed of an SSD for files you’re currently editing, plus you get the low cost of a hard drive for files you might only need to access once a week.

The device that provides this hybrid solution is the Orico DMM Series. Available in the same form factor as a Mac mini or Mac Studio, the DMM Series is available in several configurations. The basic Data Matrix Elite 2Big model I reviewed is the entry-level version, while the more expensive models offer extras like RAID stacking and Thunderbolt speeds of up to 40 Gbps.

Data Matrix Elite is available in 6TB/ 10TB/ 18TB/ 24TB capacities depending on the configuration you use. The design perfectly matches the Mac mini or Mac Studio and is small enough to place a Mac mini on top or, if you have a Mac Studio, you can place the two units side by side. The power supply is an external brick which is about the same size as a laptop charger for an old computer.

Inside the Data Matrix Elite 2Big I reviewed, there are two bays for 3.5-inch hard drives. The review unit was packed with two Western Digital Red 4TB drives linked together to appear on a computer as a single volume. These aren’t the fastest drives on the planet, but they’re durable and quiet, and they’re extremely reliable. They’re perfect for long-term archive storage, but you wouldn’t want to edit video on them.

On the bottom of the Data Matrix Elite 2Big is a small key that opens and reveals an M.2 pin for installing an NVMe SSD. The version I had was equipped with a 1TB Orico SSD with supported speeds of up to 1500MB/s. The sample I tested was labeled “Engineering Prototype” but the quality and finish seemed fine.

If you want more “hot storage” in the form of a larger SSD, you’ll need to upgrade to the Data Matrix Pro model which offers a 2TB NVMe SSD storage option. SSD is where you’ll edit and store your hot projects, because solid state technology offers the best data speed.

On the back of the Data Matrix Elite 2Big, there’s a power button and two Thunderbolt ports for connecting to the host computer and daisy-chaining other devices, be it Orico DMM units, an external drive or an iPhone USB -C. You can chain up to five devices to the Data Matrix Elite 2Big. There’s also a DisplayPort for outputting to an external monitor with support for resolutions up to 8K, making it ideal for video editing. The only thing I’m missing is an Ethernet port. I would like to see this device usable as a NAS.

On the front of the Data Matrix Elite 2Big are three activity LEDs to indicate power status and data activity for the HDD and SSD. The front also has a slot for CF Express memory cards, a 10 Gbps USB A port, a 10 Gbps USB-C port and slots for SD and microSD memory cards with transfer speeds of up to 1500 MB/s.

The Data Matrix Elite 2Big has a built-in fan that flows air over the hard drives to ensure everything stays cool. NVMe SSDs have a heatsink to passively cool the memory, which can get very hot when in use.

Setting up the unit is easy. As soon as I plugged the Data Matrix Elite into a Thunderbolt port on my Mac mini M2 Pro, I was offered the option to initialize the drives. The two hard drives showed up as one and I chose to format them to GUID macOS Extended while formatting the SSD as GUID APFS. And that was all I had to do.

When the Data Matrix Elite 2Big is powered on, two drives will appear on the desktop, and you can choose to change the drive icons to, say, a red color for the SSD and blue for the HDD to show the difference between hot and cold. cold. storage bays.

The speed of WD Red hard drives is not very fast. My Blackmagic speed test showed read and write speeds of around 207MB/s. That’s fine for cold storage, but you wouldn’t want to edit video at those speeds. The 1 TB SSD returned a read speed of 1457.9 MB/s, which is very close to the 1500 MB/s promised in the device’s technical specifications. If you want faster SSD speeds, then the larger Data Matrix Pro model goes up to 3,000 MB/s, which is pretty good.

The basic Data Matrix Elite 2Big has no RAID option, but the Data Matrix 3Big and 6Big models do. This would be a good option if you want your storage to run 24/7 as a backup, and WD Red drives are certainly certified for 24/7 operation.

Verdict: Orico Data Matrix Elite is a smart storage solution that offers the speed of SSD and the economy of HDD. The only major difference between the models is storage capacity and the addition of RAID in the Pro and Ultra versions. With a starting price of $999, the Data Matrix Elite 2Big gives you 6 TB of storage space and the option to scale the system using Thunderbolt/USB4 chain. I wish Orico had added support for Ethernet so the unit could be accessed over a network, but perhaps that will come in future versions. If you’re looking for a non-NAS storage solution with Thunderbolt compatibility and style that’s compatible with the Mac mini and Mac Studio, the Orico Data Matrix Series is ideal.

Price and availability: The Orico DMM Data Matrix Elite 2Big comes in capacities of 6TB/ 10TB/ 18TB/ 24TB, while the Data Matrix Pro 3Big offers 10TB/ 18TB/ 34TB/ 46TB of storage space. Finally, the Data Matrix Ultra 6Big can be ordered in 22TB/ 72TB/ 82TB/ 112TB options. You can find more information at oricotechs.com.

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