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advice needed on hard disc purchase
hi,
i’ve had a browse through some of the related posts but i haven’t found the info i want.
i use FCP and AE with a MacG5 2 x2.3 powerpc and until now i’ve been using an external Lacie 1.2tb bigger disk extreme for storing my media, projects etc. i’ve had the lacie a couple of years but just recently it’s started to give me problems, it disappears! I’ve managed to get it going more or less and the files seem to all be there but now i want to create a new hard disk set-up.
my problem is i’m not sure what is the best system to use nor which brands to consider and which to avoid.
a lot of the people i know ( AV prof as well ) use lacie hard disks but after having problems with mine i’m wary of buying another.
i have been daft up to now and i don’t have a raid set up. i spoke to a guy in a specialist mac shop (not official but with a good rep) and he suggested a 1tb lacie consisting of 2 mirrored* 500gb drives set up as raid. does that sound good? will that give me protection? i’m initialy looking for 2 discs of 500gb each in raid.
*mirrored is my translation from spanish. i live in spain but i’m a native english speaker.
what about Samsung SATA 3,5″ 500 GB 7200-16MB? i see they are quite cheap but are they reliable?
my lacie was external but should i consider internal hard discs?
i now my post is a bit vague but any help would be appreciated.
thx -
5 Replies
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oh yeah, i forgot, the lacie i was recommended was the 2Big Quadra 1tb Raid/Firewire400,800, eSata.
it seems to be 2 500gb discs in RAID.
anyone got any opinions on this hard disc? -
I’ve seen many posts about troubles with LaCie drives. Checkout G-Tech, Dulce Systems, CalDigit, Maxx Digital. You’ll find most of them in ads to the left or right on the Cow. As far as specific drives used in the system I’d go with Hitachi or Seagate. You do not want a mirrored raod. That’s where both drives write the exact same data simultaneously. You’d be better off with a system with more, smaller drives, say 4 – 250GB drives to make your 1TB. This lets you have some redundancy (raid 5) so if one drive fails you can rebuild it from data on the other drives. Here’s a link about raid 5 https://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/singleLevel5-c.html
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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hi john and thx for the reply,
i’m not upto scratch with Raid but i read the link you posted.why don’t i want mirrored (raid 1?) discs?
if i want a Raid5 set up is it best to get someone to build it for me or can you buy this stuff off the shelf?
what is better about raid5 and why would i need 4 smaller disks? is it safer? quicker?i live in spain so buying from ad links in this forum is not for me.
sorry for my ignorance on the matter and thx again for any help offered.
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why don’t i want mirrored (raid 1?) discs?
Mirroring means the same data is copied to two drives simultaneously. This is great when you transfer P2 material in the field as you instantly create a backup. But for editing, you gain no speed advantage which is the point of a RAID array.
if i want a Raid5 set up is it best to get someone to build it for me or can you buy this stuff off the shelf?
The vendors I mentioned in my prior post all make off-the-shelf turnkey systems. You get a tower with the drives and a controller card for your computer. Some system have the RAID controller in the hardware and you simply connect to your computer via Firewire 800. You’d probably purchase this kind of system from a local reseller. They should know of all or most of these companies. If they don’t I’d look for another reseller.
what is better about raid5 and why would i need 4 smaller disks? is it safer? quicker?
RAID 5 gives you redundancy. What that means is if one of the 4 (or more) drives in the system fails, you put a new drive in the system and it automatically rebuilds and recovers the data that was on the failed drive. RAID 5 needs a minimum of 3 drives to work. More drives is always better as it increases the data rate of the array. If you’re going to edit HD, you need more speed.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE Enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
24″ TV-Logic Monitor
Final Cut Studio 2 (up to date)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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john,
thx again for help.
time to check out what’s on offer over here.
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