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Do i NEED to raid?
I have a MacPro, and, other than the boot drive it came with, I installed two 500 GB hard drives. So I have 1 TB of storage (which is sufficient for every project I edit), and I edit DVCProHD 720P.
Of course, I have an external drive, a 1 TB drive, where all my current media is backed up.
The question is: should I transform the two independent 500 GB drives into one 1 TB raid 0 array?
I dont really fear losing a drive (its never happened to me+I have, as I said, an external backup drive), but of course, were I to decide to raid 0 the drives… If I lose one, I lose everything, and have to rebuild from my backup. So thats a minus.
I use P2, I dont need to capture any tape, and I always stay native, never go to ProRes or 8bit or 10bit. So thats not a reason for me to go RAID. Also, I dont want to spend the money on Raid5. I mean, not for the time being.
Would I gain enough real time for it to justify to RAID 0 the 2 drives? What else would i gain by RAIDing the 2 drives? -
7 Replies
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By RAIDing the two drives, you gain speed. When they are empty, it’s no problem, but when they start getting full, they slow-down considerably. And they you get playback errors. Or, if you have a complex project with multiple layers of video & audio, you need the speed.
If you ask any of us, all have our drives at least in a RAID 0. And it’s good that you have a backup. I’ve only had my RAID go down (one drive failed) in 5 years, but it will happen.
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[paris_ntz] “Would I gain enough real time for it to justify to RAID 0 the 2 drives?”
Yes!!! You nearly double the throughput. Your entire computer will sing and everything you do in FCP will happen smoother and faster. If you stripe three drives together it will even be better, nearly tripling the throughput. YOu can always backup to inexpensive firewire drives if that concerns you.
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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I edit DVCProHD 1080p without RAID, and it works just fine. I used to have 2 disks RAIDed at RAID 0, but then one started to fail. Was able to restore all the data, but I decided to give non-RAID a try. Didn’t really notice much difference in speed.
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well, thats just exactly what I was fearing: not much gain, but clearly more risks. David, can you tell me if you have personally compared final cut with RAID-0 and Non-Raid-0 drives, and if the difference is really as huge as you say it is?
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Raid throughput is not just about anecdotal observation, its science. Below are some numbers for comparison from a single drive partially filled, and from partially filled two and four drive raid-0 stripe sets I have in use currently. Do you notice a trend?
1 SATA drive = read: 50 MB/s write: 50 MB/s
2 SATA drives = read: 97 MB/s write: 110 MB/s
4 SATA drives = read: 180 MB/s write: 226 MB/sDavid 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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There is absolutely the same amount of danger (if you will) of a RAID going down as you have for a single drive with your media crashing. So, you might as well get all the speed you can. I back-up my 2 RAIDS nightly to Firewire drives.
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[santellavision] “There is absolutely the same amount of danger (if you will) of a RAID going down as you have for a single drive with your media crashing. So, you might as well get all the speed you can. I back-up my 2 RAIDS nightly to Firewire drives.”
Good points all…
And, SATA drives are also so robust compared to all previous drives that anyone living in fear because of prior bad experiences is really missing out.
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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