Speed and Mirroring

No, it's not about that stuff!

It's about RAIDS.

Apple Disk Utility Help says I can hybrid a RAID as 0 + 1. Has anyone done this and how's it working?

I'm especially interested in those using their new MacPro tower internals as RAIDS. Shane R., I know you did a very clever hack which gives you 4 drives to RAID. Are these striped or striped plus mirror, or how are you using them?

Any issues with the boot drive in the second optical bay?

Love to hear from anyone using three (if possible) or four internal SATA's in this manner, performance comments, and relevant links.

- Loren
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For RAID 0+1 you need 4 drives obviously. 2 drives each to set up a striped set. The 2 striped sets then will be mirrored.
Performance will be a bit less than the performance of a single 2 drive stripe set.

Andreas

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Loren,

Using a software RAID 0+1 is about 30% slower than just a RAID 0, in my experience. Now, if you have a hardware controller, such as a Highpoint Rocketraid for SATA set up a 0+1, the transfers will only lag around 15%.

Mirroring is computer intensive process of writing two data streams at the same time to two volumes. For normal computer operations this is not a problem but for streaming audio or video, it is a big problem.

Any issues with the boot drive in the second optical bay?

Cooling!

Reiterating what John said...from my own research talking to manufacturers (not personal experience), RAID 1 takes a significant performance loss unless a hardware RAID card is utilized. Do not use Disk Utility to RAID drives together if you are in RAID 1 especially with video. That's a lot of data to pump and the words "sustained transfer rate" are most important. Pumping 2 streams of HD audio / video takes a lot of computations. A RAID card takes the pressure off the CPU.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Loren,
Your thread is about RAID 0 and mirrors but I think maybe RAID 5 is a better solution. I just purchased an octo mac and I am trying to decide how I want to configure the hard drives. Shane Ross recently mentioned the new CalDigit RAID card. On their website CalDigit claims 4 SATA2 drives will yield 245mb/s under RAID 5. Enough for one stream of uncompress 10 bit HD.

There are several reviews on Barefeats covering different RAID cards and internal hard drive combos. They are actually recommending a RocketRAID card as having the best price/performance value and it is under $200. The Apple RAID card is a bum deal as far as Barefeats is concerned.

I spoke to a rep at CalDigit yesterday about their card which just started shipping. He mentioned that Barefeats is testing their card and a review should be up on their site by tomorrow (7/18/08).

Also, Barefeats recommended putting the boot drive up in the second optical bay and there are a couple of inexpensive kits you can buy to do that.

Now, I have never cared much for Western Digital drives but Barefeats likes the new Velociraptor 10K drives as a fast boot system drive. They also mention using two Velocirpators in a RAID 0 pair in the optical bay for super fast operation although I worry about RAIDing the system drive. Plus that would be expensive.

Sprocketz,

Here's what we recommend for drives internally.

CalDigit Recommended Hard Drives with the CRC or CalDigit RAID card.

[www.caldigit.com]

[www.caldigit.com]


Jon Schilling | Director of Business Development
CalDigit Inc
RAID Storage Solutions for Uncompressed SD to HD, Content Creation, Photography & Audio Applications
phone 714-572-9889 X234
fax 714-572-9881
web www.caldigit.com
email jons@caldigit.com
skype cgijon
office 1941 Miraloma Ave. #B Placentia, CA 92870

I have the drives set up as two RAID 0's. When I finish this gig and can yank out the Fibre card I'll be getting the CalDigit RAID card to raid all four of these drives as Raid 5.


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Jon,
I am curious about the battery situation on your card. You have an optional battery for sale separately. Does the card come with a battery? Is the optional one just to have a backup on hand?
Do you really need batteries if the system is powered off an APC?
Thanks for any info on that.

Sproketz,

The battery can be added later.....frankly the only reason we offered as an option is because "others" have it on theirs. If you have a good UPS, then you're good.

If you do want the battery back up, it's $99.00 MSRP & will be available the week of 7/28/08


Jon

No Maxtor / Western Digital drives on Jon's list... GO FIGURE!!

Jon,

What is the MSRP of your RAID card?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Joey,

Since you asked, I'll put it out there.

MSRP is $549.00 without the battery backup, MSRP $649.00 with.
You can find the product under the MSRP if you do a little looking.

[www.caldigit.com]

A plethora of fine dealers can be found here:

[www.caldigit.com]

I've also been in communication with Rob Art Morgan of Barefeats

[www.barefeats.com] will have some test results tomorrow I understand.

& since also since you mentioned it, ?All hard drives are not created equal for the rigorous demands of doing video?

Thanks all, FCP users rule!

~ Jon

GREAT Idea... THAT I would love to see. I personally make all hardware purchasing decisions based on Rob's testing.

Thanks. Jon!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Ah, this thread has been a motherlode. Thanks to Andreas, John, Joey, Sprockets, Jon@ of course, and last but not least, Shane.

One question hanging out there-- Shane, is there a cooling issue with the system drive set up in the second opt bay?

I got me research to do, including RAM's site.

So wee can't trash Maxtor any more either-- they're Seagate!

- Loren
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No cooling issue. No fan there, but plenty of airflow. I have been using this setup for 6 months with zero system drive issues.

COuple of adaptor brackets from Fry's for $3 and I was set.

OH, that and yanking out the fans...no easy task.


www.shanerosseditor.com

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Hi Shane,
Did you leave any information on a thread regarding how you mounted the system drive in the second optical bay? Maxupgrades.com has a kit for it but it is $129.

[OH, that and yanking out the fans...no easy task.]

No warranty either, I gather!

Hmm.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:

Cycle bin views with Shift - H !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
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www.neotrondesign.com