Can you recommend a raid controller for a simple RAID0 video editing setup?

[David Roth weiss]

You’ve not mentioned whether you’re on the Mac or PC platform – not that it matters for the top two Raid controllers, as they are cross platform, but like many questions, the answer is a tad more complex than you seem to think.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Payne]

Sorry, I don’t really know anything about them. I’m a pc user, Intel i7,windows 7 64bit,32gb ram

[David Roth weiss]

I understand…

The two best RAID controllers are Areca and ATTO, but they are a bit pricey, at about $950 to $1100 each. They both come in a variety of flavors, depending upon how many ports you need internally and externally. The Areca 1882 series are a bit easier to deal with typically.

There are less expensive controllers by LSI that aren’t bad, but don’t be tempted by RocketRaid cards, as their support bites.

One more very important fact is, no RAID protection scheme is foolproof, so don’t think that RAID 5 means no backups are necessary. The RAID 0 issue you had should not have been a disaster, as you should have had a backup. So, with that being said, maybe you really need more backup drives, not a RAID controller?

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Payne]

Nope it was not a disaster, hence wanting raid0 again. I want it solely for speed. I’m under the impression that 1x drive is slower than 2x identical drives raid0’d together, is that correct?

[David Roth weiss]

Every time you double the number of drives in a RAID array you virtually double the throughput. So yes, two drives striped together as RAID 0 will have twice the thriughput of a single drive. The reason many buy an 8-drive RAID is that it has enough throughout and space for most users for a long, long time, allowing one to grow over time without making a new major purchase for a long time.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Payne]

If I go for 8 port, do I need to use all 8 or can be I just use 6 for the time being?

Are any of these not awful?

https://www.scan.co.uk/search.aspx?q=%20%20%20%20Lsi%20raid%208%20port

[Sonic 67]

You can use how many you want. RAID options will be different (like RAID5 needs minimum 3 drives, RAID 10 minimum 4…).
However, The more drives you have in RAID 0, the more increase the chances for a disaster. The probability of a failure is multiplying accordingly.
For long-term storage try at least a RAID 5 (for redundancy) – with three drives it will have 2/3 capacity of a single drive, with 4 drives will have 3/4.

I am using now a controller that I got from eBay – 3ware AMCC 9650SE-4LPML.
It’s performance during video rendering is above and beyond what my Intel ICH10R could do (with the CPU used at 100% by video software).

[David Payne]

thank you, one recommendation is all i need as I’m really keen to get one asap. Unfortunately I can only find your one for sale in the states so may have to go down that route

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/9650SE-4LPML-AMCC-3WARE-4-PORT-PCIe-SATA-II-2-RAID-CONTROLLER-256MB-CACHE-/131205513867#shpCntId

Can you confirm that’s correct?

Also excuse the silly question but I don’t see 8 ports on the card.. how do the HDD’s connect or does just one connect to it?

[Sonic 67]

The 9650SE-4 is just a 4 port card. The -8i is the 8 port card (couldn’t find in UK ebay.
Example link on US ebay
Another example link.

[David Payne]

would you mind taking a look on here and telling me if any stand out as doable?
https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hdd-controllers/all