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Best Hard Drive Setup…
Hi everyone! I am currently getting ready to build a new, dedicated video editing machine as my last build was 2017. I know, ancient in computer years, but I’ve built “everyday” machines along the way. Since the m.2 drives are now widely in use, I’d like to use those. I’ve always used a RAID 0 editing drive, along with a separate cache drive, and separate export drive. Of course I also had internal backup drives as well as external drives. My question is this. Is it true that the m.2 drives are as fast, or faster than two drives setup as a RAID 0? I see the numbers saying yes, but was wondering if they hold up in the real world. If so, do I still need to have separate cache and export drives for maximum speed? I’m still with HD and my current i7 processor and 64 gigs of DDR3 memory is actually fine, but I may go to 4k at some point, so I’d like to upgrade. Just curious to how others have their system set up, regarding what I asked above, as well as how you are all backing up internally and externally. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! #computerbuild #videoediting
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8 Replies
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Using any RAID system will increase r/w speeds because you’re basically adding an extra software layer between your program and the drive. For instance, if you have several hard drives of any type, you can either mount them natively in the system and access them individually which is always the fastest way, or you can add a RAID layer in which is like an extra algorithm on top of what you already have, and will only increase i/o speeds.
Having said that, RAID has come a long way and it’s so quick that personally I don’t think the difference is noticeable on most of today’s platforms.
M.2 drives are very fast but quality matters and you get what you pay for. Buy a proper brand like Samsung, Seagate or Sandisk. Remember that although there’s no moving partys, having a good cooling system will still increase their lifespan.
I’m not a big fan of RAID 0 myself, disk striping has it’s own problems with file fragmentation and you can get increased read/write times if the location cache gets distro’d. My editing machine runs on a fast 500GB SSD for system files, but for project files I have a 2x drives set up in RAID 1 so I’ve got local redundancy and backup, and then that whole drive gets backed up to the cloud. That way the OS can run fast, and project files don’t clog it up.
I edit 4K and I have 32GB DDR4 ram – less buffer, faster speed, so 64GB DDR3 should be fine, at least to start with.
Just some various thoughts, hope that helps!
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https://creativecow.net/forums/thread/sharepoint-cloud-storage/
Just thought I’d also post a link where I previously discussed my setup if you’re interested…
creativecow.net
Sharepoint cloud storage - Storage & Archiving - Creative COW
Sharepoint cloud storage - Storage & Archiving - Creative COW
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Thanks so much Tom. Very useful info. I wanted to make the final decision on how many, and what types of drives to use in this new build.
I like to keep all my archived stuff available and “in the box,” so that I can access it right away without digging through external drives.
Of course I always have backups on external drives in two other separate locations. And I do edit a lot of audio too.My idea for all the internal hard drives are below. My system will support 5 m.2’s and 6 SSD’s.
1 Terabyte m.2 Boot Drive
4 Terabyte m.2 Video Editing Drive
4 Terabyte m.2 Video Editing Drive Backup 1
4 Terabyte m.2 Video Editing Drive Backup 22 Terabyte m.2 Audio Editing Drive
2 Terabyte SSD Audio Editing Drive BU4 Terabyte SSD Frequently Used Resources Drive (*can double as a Cache Drive?)
4 Terabyte SSD Archive 1 Drive
4 Terabyte SSD Archive 2 Drive
4 Terabyte SSD Archive 3 Drive (my current system’s Archive 3 is only 10% full now)
4 Terabyte SSD Archive 4 Drive (will be empty, so will store incremental system Images here)*Wondering if the Cache directory should be on an m.2 drive instead of a SSD drive so there’s no slowdown. I could probably if it on one of the other m.2 drives if I’m advised to.
Also, on this new system, M.2_1 shares bandwidth with PCIEX16(G5)_2. When M.2_1 is enabled, PCIEX16(G5)_2 will be disabled and PCIEX16(G5)_1 will run x8 only. So I’m wondering if and why I should be concerned about this for best performance of everything involved.
I’m hoping for any feedback as I’m curious to know if this sounds like the super system that I hope it will be.
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Thank you, will check it out now.
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Sounds good to me Gerry, a lot of stuff is personal preference of course but if you have put as much thought into the rest of the system as you have into the hard drive arrangement then you’re off to a good start.
Just off the bat, the first thing that came to mind is that an M.2 is probably faster for a cache drive, but depends on specs of the drives – also motherboards tend to have slightly higher bandwidth capabilites for M.2. Personally I don’ t think the bandwidth sharing shouldn’t be an issue, I think you’ll rarely be in a situation where you’ll see any noticeable difference.
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Tom, again, thank you. I think you’re right about using the an m.2 drive for the cache instead of that ssd. That’s helpful! Have a good week.
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As Tom stated, its also a personal pref for some of us.
I am stuck with a 2019 Mac Pro so I loaded one slot with M.2s in a Sonnet M.2 4×4 Silent PCIe Card. No limits here as far as high resolution videos on all NLEs.
I work with mostly Panasonic EVA1 4K DCI clips for day job but at times I’ve had a chance to work with RED files as high as 8K and man I love how the NVMe handles them 🙂
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Hi Eric,
Thanks. I appreciate the info. Sounds like I’m a bit future proofed!
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