Is Raid 1 fast enough to edit in?

I just purchased Final Cut Pro Studio to run on my MacBook Pro. I will have some HD to edit and some DV in 720X486. After reading multiple reviews on various external hard drives capable of Raid 0 and Raid 1, I'm a little confused. My basic understanding is that Raid 0 is fast enough to edit in however, by doing so you have no back-up. Raid 1 gives you one copy of a back-up however, does it give you enough speed with the e-sata to not cause editing problems?
Yes, I would like to purchase a unit capable of Raid 5 but, my budget for this purchase is only about $600 and noticed that the Caldigit VR 4 TB, was on sale for that amount.

If you are doing 720x486 Raid 1 is more than fast enough. Especially from caldigit.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Can I also edit HD?

yep

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

What sort of HD?



www.strypesinpost.com

I do not have that answer at this time as it belongs to another person. I will get more information.

I edit ProRes & ProRes HQ on my CalDigit VR in RAID "1" with no issues. Love it really

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

That's weird, cuz yesterday I was specifically warned off of buying/ using any sort of RAID due to the risk of media lost when crashing. They suggested (daisychained, if nec) FW TB drives instead.

It was the Mac Mall techs themselves who were adamant about this, cuz they get the dead RAIDs in - apparently, while it's plenty fast, RAIDs have more areas where parts of the unit can go south, and as striped drives, the rest of the unit/ media become unsalvageable.

Feedback?

> yesterday I was specifically warned off of buying/ using any sort of RAID due to the risk of
> media lost when crashing. They suggested (daisychained, if nec) FW TB drives instead.

Whoa! Who told you that?

Daisy-chained drives without a RAID configuration is known as "JBOD" -- "Just a Bunch of Drives". Which means no data redundancy, which means no protection. It's not an unusable configuration, but it means that whatever data gets corrupted/lost is lost, period. You should only use this configuration if you're prepared to back up everything that isn't expendable (and in this "tapeless" age, that's practically everything).

And if you were going to backup everything anyway, one might ask why you don't just get RAIDed drives in the first place.

I strongly recommend against daisy-chaining drives that are each over 500GB in size. The larger the drive, the higher likelihood of failing. And in a daisy chain, if one drive fails while all of them are in operation, it affects the other drives, resulting in, well, a chain reaction that could cost you more than one drive at a time.

The faulty information above is in the term "any sort of RAID". A RAID 1 or RAID 5 has data redundancy, which means if one drive out of two (or five, or eight) dies, the other drives can re-create the contents of the dead drive. A RAID 0, on the other hand, increases data transfer speed, but offers no redundancy (protection). And it's been argued legitimately that a RAID 0 is more dangerous than JBOD, because if one drive out of the RAID 0 pair dies, you can't get the data back. Two drives = Double the likelihood of lost data.

By the way, you really shouldn't be getting products or advice from MacMall. Read this:

[www.resellerratings.com]


www.derekmok.com

Who you gonna believe Jewel...a "Tech" in a computer superstore, or Moderators on a Post Production forum (world famous, if I may add ) that have been using RAID for over 14 years (for me since 1996)? You are getting Bad advice from an inexperienced source. Daisy chaining G-Raids for instance DECREASES PERFORMANCE. Daisy chaining anything is not wise. If you have a RAID "1" (2 drive set-ups like the CalDigit VRs I use) or RAID "5", you are protected from a one or two drive failure respectively.

Usually someone following advice from Comp USA or Mac Mall end up coming to the LAFCPUG to fix it ;?)

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Totally agree that RAID is better than daisy-chained firewire drives. The whole point of a RAID 1 or 5 is to prevent data loss.

And it looks like we're in for some big game-changers soon, like working in uncompressed HD or ProRes 4x4 on USB 3.0.

Or LightPeak.

I wouldn't put any money into firewire drives at the moment unless absolutely necessary. It's all gonna change, hopefully with some new MacPros.

Hi Derek

As my earlier post said, "It was the Mac Mall techs themselves who were adamant about this, ..." That was at the Mac Mall in Santa Monica, on Wilshire.

I hear you on the redundancy - what my clients normally do (sans RAID) is: dupe their media on a second, stand-alone drive, not connected to the project except when duping. Other than that, the project gets backed up (autosaved) every 20 mins or so, often to the main/native drive (settings), and any new media gets duped to the aforementioned second, stand-alone drive, daily.

It might be worth a chat with the techs I mentioned to find out why they were so clearly anti-RAID. They had no problems with the RAIDs functionality - they were remarking on the RAIDs' tendency to be unsalvagable when some component went south. That was their experience as repairmen.

haha!

Right - I just really wanted to ask you guys since these repairmen were adamantly anti-RAID - both of these guys were shaking their heads NO.

They weren't anti-RAID in function - they were anti-RAID in relation to being unable to salvage the 2nd RAID unit if the two were striped & one of the two went down, or the controller/box blew - which to me seemed to be the whole point in having a RAID...?

A RAID 0, on the other hand, increases data transfer speed, but offers no redundancy (protection). And it's been argued legitimately that a RAID 0 is more dangerous than JBOD, because if one drive out of the RAID 0 pair dies, you can't get the data back. Two drives = Double the likelihood of lost data.

Ah - I think I see the intersection here - I can imagine the techs were talking about a RAID 0. That sounds quite like what they were talking about....

thanks a lot for answering my question!

Re not using Mac Mall - I can't speak to using their website, since they're local to me, and I just go there in person.

They've turned around everything I've brought in there on the spot / while I waited. Usually it was just something like swapping out the drive box or the cable. I've been pretty lucky with hardware (knock wood!)

Of course, when I've been working on bigger shows/ equipment, all that tech was in-house at the production house, so I can't speak to that re: Mac Mall...

Hey do you have link to the game-changing hardware you mentioned? I'm not in the market right now, but I'd like to be up on what's coming out, in case I have a client who's thinking of buying...

Thx!!

what about the wireless / WiFi drives?

There's nothing game-changing about USB 3. It's just USB, only faster. Maybe it'll work fine for real-time applications, maybe it won't; nobody knows yet.

Light Peak is five years away from widespread adoption, minimum.

Wireless is very close now to its theoretical limits right now, and it's not nearly fast enough for real time. That may mean we need new theories, obviously.

Just Google for USB 3.0 and LightPeak. There's plenty of buzz out there, has been for awhile. USB 3.0 is showing up on the market already for Windows users. Mac shouldn't be far behind. BlackMagic Design already has some devices on their site. The specs are pretty impressive.

LightPeak is farther away, although in all due respect I'd question whether it's 5 years away as Jeff Harrell mentions. If Intel and Apple want to do something brilliant, they may just surprise everyone and get it out to the users fast. Specs are outstanding. Jury's still out though, remains to be seen...

check out the recent BlackMagic products to see some col USB3 goodies:
[www.blackmagic-design.com]

I elaborated on my rationale for my five-year prediction elsewhere on the forum recently; sorry for making it sound like I was trying to speak ex cathedra. The short version is that Light Peak as currently designed is a multiplexing technology. It takes existing protocols like Display Port and USB and SDI and runs them through sophisticated electro-optical converters, and puts them on a high-bandwidth optical cable. Which is neat, but it's hellishly expensive. Because you still have to have all the same infrastructure you need today for electrical interconnects, plus new infrastructure to handle the optical-electrial/electrical-optical conversions. And it really gains you nothing except the ability to run several signals in parallel on a single optical fiber free of electromagnetic interference.

Which, of course, is not inherently new either. We've all seen, and probably used, those optical KVM extenders. You plug in DVI, USB, serial, Firewire, whatever, and an optical cable comes out. You demux on the other end. Same idea, just not miniaturized.

So that's problem one: Light Peak right now is just a technology demonstrator with no real practical application.

Problem two is that it's only optical. The spec should call for parallel strands of optical fiber and copper in order to carry data and power at the same time, but it doesn't.

So as of right now, Light Peak is a non-starter. That doesn't mean it has no value; it's a very interesting technology. It's just that right now, it's a technology without applications. So I'm guesstimating two to three years until it's marginally practical, and five years at a minimum to widespread adoption.

I previously asked if I could edit HD with RAID1. I just found out the HD is 1920X1080 that was shot with a Canon HV20. [www.usa.canon.com]

Quote

I just found out the HD is 1920X1080 that was shot with a Canon HV20

That means you will be transcoding it via Log & Transfer to ProRes files so YES...via a Firewire800 or eSATA connection you can edit in RAID "1"

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Joey, thank you for answering to my question.