3.0 2g RAM w/ RAID or 3.2 4g RAM ATA

[David Roth weiss]

The difference between 2.8ghz, 3.0ghz, and 3.2ghz procs is minimal, but a raid makes huge difference.

8gbs of RAM is just $257 at OWC.

At a minimum, stripe three drives together inside your machine as a raid-0 and backup to inexpensive firewire drives if you’re concerned about protection.

The drives are SATA not SAS. 1Tb Seagate drives are available now for just $109 each from Tiger Direct.

It’s pretty hard to spend $5000 at these prices. right?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Soriano]

thanks

i have just been pricing at the Apple Store site. I wouldn’t know where to begin piecing together a system. The Apple store offers the RAID card and then says that SAS drives are needed if the RAID card is implemented.

[David Roth weiss]

The card isn’t needed. There are four internal bays in every MacPro with SATA connectors to the motherboard. One of those is taken for the sytem drive, the three can be striped together as raid-0.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Soriano]

that’s what i’ve been looking to hear from someone. Is the Raid 0 config something i do or something i would have to get a third party to do or soemthing the Apple store can do before they ship? Could i stripe just 2 drives for video and have the third(first) be the system drive? I have an IT dept to work with here but they don’t do Macs, they do PC. COuld they cofigure it? So, essentially, i would get a three drive system and config the 2nd & 3rd to be raid stripped and use those for video? Everything thing else can be standard Mac parts, correct?

thanks

[David Roth weiss]

[david soriano] “Is the Raid 0 config something i do or something i would have to get a third party to do or soemthing the Apple store can do before they ship?”

You do it. It’s very simple. You use the Apple Disk Utility. You can read the instructions in “Help” and come here. A chimpanzee without an IT Dept. could do it.

[david soriano] “Could i stripe just 2 drives for video and have the third(first) be the system drive?”

Yes, but that would reduce perfomance of the raid, thus reducing realtime performance of FCP.

Your IT guys can do this all very easily, as Macs are easier than PCs. Eeven better, buy the system through a VAR.

[david soriano] “So, essentially, i would get a three drive system and config the 2nd & 3rd to be raid stripped and use those for video? Everything thing else can be standard Mac parts, correct?”

Yes.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Soriano]

[David Roth weiss]

[david soriano] “Are saying i should RAID stripe all three drives, including the system drive?”

No!!! Put down that banana and focus. I told you orginally that my advice was to install four drives, one, which comes in the machine, as the system drive, and three additional as media drives.

Have your IT guys install three SATA drives, as you can buy them for a song now. You will pay dearly for them when buying through Apple, just as you pay dearly for the RAM through Apple. Your IT guys can easily install both.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Soriano]

OK, one last question. What third party drives do you recommend? I’ll get the system with one drive and 2G RAM and get two HDs and 2 G RAM afterwards. Where do you shop for hardware deals?

[David Roth weiss]

I recommend Hitachis, which are the drives used exclusively by CalDigit and many other raid manufacturers as well. And, I don’t think you find a better or cheaper dealer than Newegg.com. Here’s what you need: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145167 Too bad you missed the rebate that ended last month on 10/31, they were $20 cheaper.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.