Incredible reliable sata raid 400+ mb/sec, 8- 320 gig drives for $2000.

[Shane Ross]

Eight 320GB drives will get you 2.5TB of storage. The same amount of space on a CalDigit unit will cost $3000…not $6000.

Not saying your solution is bad….it looks like a very good one. Just correcting the amount.

Although I will have to look into this…as MacGurus has the 1.25 TB unit at $1299, making two of them for 2.5TB $2600 ($2400mif you take one WITHOUT the card) , LESS than the single 2.5TB unit. Interesting….

So…it still isn’t the disparity that you mention…but yes, it is a less expensive and reliable option.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Arnie Schlissel]

The question is, do you want to build your own (and provide your own tech support)? If you don’t mind, then, yes, you could save a few bucks.

Here in NYC, you can buy a 3.75 TB S2VR for around $4k. That’s not bad for RAID 0. If you have a problem with the box, it’s only one tech support line to call for help.

You might be able to save yourself $1k or $1.5k if you build your own 5 drive RAID using the 750 GB Seagate drives, the Sonnet card & a 5 drive enclosure from PC-Pitstop. And if you have a problem with this setup, you then go round & round between the tech support of all 3.

Bear in mind that I built a 3.5 TB RAID 5 array for around $2500 recently, so I’m willing to take the chance, but not everyone is.

Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
https://www.arniepix.com/blog

[David Roth weiss]

[Arniepix] “And if you have a problem with this setup, you then go round & round between the tech support of all 3.”

Arnie,

Sounds logical, but its not.

I keep hearing this argument over and over. Your car probably has tires that were made by somebody other than the people who built the chassie too, but, are you overly concerned? Setting up a reliable SATA aray is not rocket science. All you have to do is buy a SATA enclosure and the controller and drives recommended by the manufacturer. If the setup doesn’t work you only have to make one call.

DRW

[John]

While RAID 5 is nice for protection I prefer to stay with
SATA PM. You could simply backup your work each day to another
striped RAID set or to individual 750GB-1TB hard drives. Another
option would be to use four SATA PM enclosures with 16 drives
in a RAID 10 configuration. This would actually provide the
most redundancy. In this setup, each hard drive in the 8 drive
striped RAID set has a mirror of itself in the second group of 8
hard drives.

tech support at sonnet is very good, they know their stuff, and building your own raid is not as stressfull as you are making it sound. Go to amug.org and check out the exhaustive testing that michael bean has done with many configurations using Sonnet tempo sata e4p card for pci-e 4x slot and sonnet fusion 500p 5 drive enclosures with built in port multiplication, which he has proven beyond any doubt that this system is dependable, cost effective, and super easy to put together. Caldigit quoted me $2999. for one five drive enclosure and their 8x pci-e card, and to do uncompressed hi-def, they said i need 2 of those setups and one 8x card that they manufacter. Users might
think that an 8 lane card would be faster than a 4 lane card
but the reality is that you only tap the extra bandwidth
of 8 lanes when 4 SATA PM enclosures are connected. You
don’t realize this until you test the setups side by side.

When using 1-3 SATA PM enclosures with 5-15 hard drives the
Sonnet E4P provides faster performance than the 8x Silicon
Image SiI-3124 reference design. In addition, you lose SMART
support with the 8x card because the Silicon Image Mac drivers
have never been programmed to support it.

You can use either of these cards with a direct connect setup
too. In this configuration each port on the 4 port card is
attached to a single hard drive. If you utilize 4 Seagate 250GB
7200.10 model hard drives with direct connect you can get
300MB/sec and stay above 250MB/sec all the way until the striped
RAID set is 70% full. However, you have a lot more speed with
10 hard drives installed in two SATA PM enclosures using only
two ports on the E4P.

D0).

Tables showing the performance of all of these configurations is
provided in the AMUG E4P review found here:
https://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/mac-pro/

My point is i am not a computer engineer, far from it, but this system is cost effective, easy to put together, great suport, awesome performance. The facts speak for themselves. Things change quickly. again, dont believe me, check out michael beans exhaustive testing at amug.org and decide for yoiurself, then save money and get over 400 mb/sec for $2000 or build it with whatever drives you want and you still get a reliable, supported and totally cost effective system no matter what anyone says.

[John]

Hi Ross,

one thing about this sonnet 500p system- it includes two enclosures that hold 5 drives each, and the sonnet tempo card and 10- 320 gb es barracuddas all comes to $1900 incl shipping for 3.2 Tb system setup as a SATA PM raid. with that you have no redundancy, but it is easy and safe and cost effective to backup onto 500gb unraided sata’s every so often and you have one ass-kicking system for the lowest cost. with this, you can achieve 400 mb/sec. With one unit from caldigit for $3k, you only get one tower that holds max 5 drives, and that system will never write or read at 400+ mb/sec, which is a significant issue if you are editing uncompresed hi-def 4-2-2 or 4-4-4. Also, caldigits pci card does not have SMART support and the sonnet does. this system absolutely rocks. Michael bean of AMUG did more actual testign with various products and configurations than anyone ever has. I just joined the amug. Its like $29 a year and anytime i need support for my G5 quad and raid etc, i get answers quickly from people that know their stuff like no one i have ever met. No need for expensive conslutations, these guys rock in my book. I could not recomment them more. Thanks, john rogers

[Shane Ross]

[john] “one thing about this sonnet 500p system- it includes two enclosures that hold 5 drives each, and the sonnet tempo card and 10- 320 gb es barracuddas all comes to $1900 incl shipping for 3.2 Tb system setup as a SATA PM raid. with that you have no redundancy, but it is easy and safe and cost effective to backup onto 500gb unraided sata’s every so often and you have one ass-kicking system for the lowest cost. with this, you can achieve 400 mb/sec.” With one unit from caldigit for $3k

As I pointed out, you can order TWO CalDigit units with ONE card (as Walter pointed out, you do not need two cards. That is unnecessary) totalling 2.5TB for $2400. You don’t need to get the one unit. And these two units can get speeds upwards 450MB/s.

But as I said…get what you want. No one is telling you not to. We are saying that CalDigit units are another option. The expensive nature of the units are due to the amount of detail and components that goes into them, and the world class tech support. AND…they cater to the people who don’t want to build their own…who just want a system that works. That comes at a slightly higher cost, because they are doing all the assembly for you. THEY ARE BOTH GOOD SOLUTIONS! Sorry to shout, but I want to get that point across.

Do you have an IKEA in your town? They sell good furniture cheaper than most competitors. Why? YOU ASSMEBLE IT YOURSELF. If you don’t want to assemble it yourself (and let me tell you, IKEA furniture can be QUITE challenging) then you go to another store and pay more for furniture already assembled. Is one better than the other? Superior quality? Not really…depending on the skill of the person assembling the Ikea furniture. Same thing here. Separate components you assemble opposed to a unit that comes with everything included, tested and assembled.

Thank you for pointing out the Sonnet option. Many people would like to know about that. Several of us point out the CalDigit units.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Will Salley]

Installation and operation of any one of the options mentioned is a piece of cake compared to the old SCSI systems. Terminators and LUNs! – I don’t miss them at all.

[John]

that is a good option at that price. when i called caldigit, they quoted me $6k for two 5 drive towers and one 8x card, not 2400. maybe the guy i spoke with gave me the wrong price? That 8x card is fast but you need a lot of drives to get the full potential out of it. If that is the price, 2400, that is a good option i guess, but i like the smart funtiionality of the sonnet, and i prefer to backup as i go, it actually works really well. if you did lose a drive, the most you would lose is maybe an hours worth of files, and drives dont go bad that often. you just drag and drop onto another non-raided drive. Did you read what michael bean said about all the functionality of the sonnet vs the caldigit, the smart capabilities of the sonnet?

on another subject- i am getting a jvc gyhd 250u camera. Is anyone working on a drive system to record from the hd-sdi port on the cam? it is uncompressed 4-2-2. I believe someone did it with a computer system but i was wondering if it is even possible to make a d/c portable drive that can record to disc that fast, that would be really awesome. right now, jvc has an 80 gig drive that runs on d/c and it records native HDV, which is a lot cleaner than the signal recorded to tape. I am thinking about getting that, but its $1800 and i hate to get it and spend that much cash and something comes out that can run circles around it, you know what i mean? Aloha, john rogers

[John]

Amen to that! I must say, scsi was not too bad for me, when a drive went wacky you sure knew it right away and it wasnt too hard to pinpoint- wont mount on desktop etc, but yes, sata is fast and cheap and reliable!

[Arnie Schlissel]

[David Roth Weiss] “Your car probably has tires that were made by somebody other than the people who built the chassie too, but, are you overly concerned?”

My ‘car’ is the New York city subway, but your point is well taken!

For people like you or I who are not afraid of putting these things together, there are lots of advantages. I’ve built a couple of RAIDS & put together some other external drives, and the more I do so, the more likely I am to do it again. I get to choose all the components for whatever reason (price, reliability, performance, etc) suits me.

OTOH, not everyone can handle a screwdriver well, and putting a RAID together for an edit system that’s going to see heavy use may not be the best 1st time project…