RAID 0 Internal Drives a good idea?

I'm still figuring out the setup for a feature I'm starting in October. I'm going to need 3 tb of storage, just to be safe. We are going to be capturing DVCPROHD 720p and I was thinking of just buying cpu with 3 1TB media drives from Apple (we'll have at least 15TB of dailies and I like to have extra room) rather than external esata or fw drives. We'll be working with duplicate systems (my assistant will capture on his system and copy to mine) so we can go RAID 0 without any worry about lost data. Does this seem like a good solution?

the difference in speed between Raid 0 and raid 5 with most solutions such as CalDigit is so negligible why go with Raid 0. Keep it Raid 5 and feel good about life.

Michael Horton
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But won't I be spending a bunch more money for 3TB raid 5? I'm buying the system myself and renting it back to the production. We've used the redundant system method on a few films with great success using external drives, although never HD before.

If you go RAID "0"...and you lose a drive...you lose everything. With that much media, I would definitely invest in the RAID "5" for the protection. This is not the time to pinch those pennies.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

We all have used raid 0 and most of us with no problems. But....one of these days....

Michael Horton
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And how about the difference between the internal drive and FW800? Is the internal drive setup less likely to drop a frame? Is it faster?

internals will be faster,
and here's a controversial viewpoint:

with DVCProHD 720p on internal drives,
there would be no pressing need for RAID of any kind.

your playback will be plenty fast enough, even if you have a few streams.


nick

The only bad idea is:

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I was thinking of just buying cpu with 3 1TB media drives from Apple

Get you HDDs from another supplier - google shopping will throw up the best deals usually.

Look at the new Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB HDDs - they are my new favourites.

They are also cheaper, faster, generate less heat and quieter than the other 1TB HDDs I have!

This I have read is due to manufacturing a 1TB on 3 Disc platters rather than 4 in other 1TB HDDs.


I'm running 8 in a RAID 5 (Plus 1 spare making 9) and 2 internally on my MacPro.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

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We all have used raid 0 and most of us with no problems. But....one of these days....

I had "one of those days". Lost 168 gigs on a sneakernet RAID once upon a time. RAID "0" terrifies me now. No thank you very much.

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with DVCProHD 720p on internal drives,
there would be no pressing need for RAID of any kind.

...and no protection...unless you are Time Machining overnight every night.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I dunno, I guess I'm just not that averse to striped framestores because I grew up in the days of Stone+Wire. It was nominally a RAID filesystem ? software RAID 3, maybe? ? that supported all the normal stuff, like hot spares and automatic rebuilds. But you were far more likely, in those days, to suffer data loss due to a framestore corruption or some kind of software fault than you were to a lost drive. I've gotten into the habit of never trusting any storage system, no matter how fancy-schmancy. Everything important (like project files) gets backed up. Everything that can be re-didged from tape just isn't worth stressing over, because it'll have to get re-didged from tape sooner or later anyway.

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automatic rebuilds

Exactly. RAID "0" is flying by the seat of your pants until you run out of gas...and there's no reserve tank.

I hear you Jeff...in those days, mass production of drives wasn't as prevalent. There are many more failures today just from the odds created by the massive number of drives in the industry. Drives WILL FAIL...it's WHEN, not IF. The better companies (Seagate / Hitachi) have had smaller incidences in my experience which is why I use / recommend those 2 companies.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

>RAID "0" is flying by the seat of your pants until you run out of gas...and there's no
>reserve tank.

My point too. RAID 1s on portables drives that you may use someday for editing/storing footage, RAID 5s or combination RAIDs for everything else. And back up when you can, where you can.



www.strypesinpost.com

I have lost 2 drives at once on a RAID 5 (Ultra320 SCSI 5-drive array) and I was able to get it all back via rebuild. I lost 3 drives at once...that was too much for the array to handle.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

>I have lost 2 drives at once on a RAID 5 (Ultra320 SCSI 5-drive array) and I was able to
>get it all back via rebuild.

I won't bet on it being able to happen all the the time, but yea, that's security of RAIDs for ya. Get good quality drives, RAID them and regular back ups to data tape and you'll never worry about losing stuff.

Larry Jordan's newsletter this month talks about the dangers of archiving to hard disks, the rate of magnetic fading on the drives.. Pretty good read up, and why you should always have multiple copies.

[www.larryjordan.biz]



www.strypesinpost.com

On a MacPro: Could the OS & FCS2 be on internal drive #1, the captured DVCPRO HD 720p & edited footage on drive #2, and the backed-up edited footage on drive #3? (a sort of "manual" RAID 1 for the edited footage).

Jack

That's not a RAID, Jack. That's JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). A RAID is an array of disks striped to write simultaneously to all disks at once...which is why RAID configurations move a lot more data faster both on & off an array.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

The RAID drives must be of the same size, and speed for them to be RAIDed. Usually they come from the same manufacturer.

Hmm... Haven't tried this myself, but can the OS/FCP be installed on a RAID?



www.strypesinpost.com

Probably...but why on earth would you want to install the OS & NLE on a RAID? That's meant for the media. My rule of thumb: Keep apps on separate drive units from media. Boot drive = OS / apps only.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hmm... true... was thinking along the lines of a faster NLE...



www.strypesinpost.com

Hmmm...no.

The NLE will be faster on a 7200 RPM boot drive where there is no media.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Not trying to RAID the three internal drives, just could a MacPro be configured in this way?

On a MacPro: Could the OS & FCS2 be on internal drive #1, the captured DVCPRO HD 720p & edited footage on drive #2, and the backed-up edited footage on drive #3? (a sort of "manual" RAID 1 for the edited footage).

Jack

Yes

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.