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New Mac! How should I configure drives?
Just upgraded to a new Mac Pro Quad 4
It came configured with 4 (Apple)SATA 500Gig Drives and the MacPro Raid Card. (Also: Upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2) My IT guy has asked me how I want the RAID configured for the 4 drives. 1) Should I do a RAID 5 across 3 and leave 1 alone? Or… 2) Should I do a RAID 5 across all 4 drives?My older setup has a RAID 0 on 2 SCSI drives for video with an internal drive for OS/Apps/Project Files.
With the faster new MAC, should I worry with separating the video and the OS/Apps/Project Files? Apple FCP support said there is no real advantage with the separation of video scratch drives from the OS/Applications. Is this true? (I must be old school) I want to exploit the best performance from these 4 drives… but need redundancy
Thanks,
-mj -
14 Replies
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[Michael Jones] “Apple FCP support said there is no real advantage with the separation of video scratch drives from the OS/Applications. Is this true?”
No, its not… And, I would venture to say that the people at Apple FCP support would probably be using FCP rather than supporting it if they really knew what they were talking about.
You have a slight problem Michael, because you’ll have only three free drives for your raid. Unless you put a fifth hard drive into the spare optical disk slot your concept of redundancy ain’t gonna work.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[Michael Jones] “With the faster new MAC, should I worry with separating the video and the OS/Apps/Project Files?”
Always worry about this. NEVER use a system drive as your media drive. So don’t Raid all the drives together and then install the OS on them AND use them as media drives. Do as David says, either raid only 3 of them (Raid 5 is a great option), or install your OS drive in the spare optical drive bay.
[Michael Jones] “Apple FCP support said there is no real advantage with the separation of video scratch drives from the OS/Applications.”
Have they? Sorry to be snarky, but do they make their living editing? No. Do not install the OS on the media drives, or use the OS drive to capture Media. Please note that not ONE professional editing setup does this. Not one set up by ProMax, not ones set up by individual pros. Don’t do it.
[Michael Jones] “Is this true? (I must be old school) I want to exploit the best performance from these 4 drives”
Old School? What old school? Avid is the old school and you never capture to that system drive either. I don’t recall people doing that with Media 100 either. iMovie, yes. CONSUMER application.
Again, sorry to be snarky…just want to make sure you don’t capture media on the OS drives, nor install the OS on the four raided drives.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD now for sale!
http://www.LFHD.net
Read my blog! -
Yup Shane,
Even with my old (but still fabulous image quality), M100,
we captured to SCSI drives.How anyone at Apple could recommend using the home drive for
capture is ‘way beyond me.(old school and loving it)
David
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Thanks (David & Shane) for the quick response… I’ve been with my old G4 so long, I figured what was conventional wisdom 6 years ago might have been thrown out the window by today’s standards. Anyway, I’m glad I checked in with you. Long live Creative Cow!
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I have a similar setup.
1Tb system drive and 3 750Gb drives on the raid card.
System drive is exactly that…. use it for anything else and you’re courting major trouble.
I’m getting 240mb/s read/write times on my raid. Solid for everything standard def, almost ok for HD but a little to close for comfort. Absolutely killer for Pro Tools sessions.
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Just set the new box on my desk!!! Strange… I see 3 disk icons. “Mac. HD”, “Raid 1”, and “Raid 0”. They said they did a raid 5 accross 3 of the 4 drives, but I see these two raid drives? I thought there was going to be only one drive (as an icon). Is this the way raid 5 works? (Showing only 2 but really there are 3 sharing the load?)
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I am in the same sort of situation. I had a RAID 0 set up with 3 500 gig drives. My machine was running quite weird for a few days; when finally disk utility came back with an error saying one of my RAID drives was on its way out and to pull all data off the drive.
My new drive arrives today and was wondering if I should stick with RAID 0 “scary raid” or would I still see the speed benefit along with the redundancy of RAID 5?
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Kris, I’m only getting up to 128 mb/s on the 3 drives set as RAID 5. Is yours a RAID 5 or 0? Am I missing something here? I would like see if I can get closer your numbers. (BTW, I edit SD… I use the BM Decklink SP card (8-10 bit))
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His is clearly Raid-0.
Also, keep in mind Michael that this entire Raid-5 protection thing that everyone is gaga over these days comes at a price, one way or another. Its either gonna cost you money or performance. Either you pony up the big bucks and invest in good hardware with eight drives, or you pay the performance price and do something less. You can’t have it all.
Frankly, if budget is your number one concern, you should opt for performance over safety, and simply backup to inexpensive firewire drives. You will appreciate the performance every minute while you’re working.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Budget is never my concern… it’s my Boss’s and Client’s. David you’re right… RAID 0 accross the three drives is probably the way to go. This Apple RAID CARD is odd to me… no cables. Does having all 4 drives working off that card cause issues? Is their a way to separate the system drive? Does that even matter? If it is a RAID card, why is it controlling (or should it be) the system drive?
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