Is FCP X running a bit slow cause I’m using a OWC ThunderBay 4?

[Noam Osband]

Jim, I mean, given my scenario……is there any reason not to turn what i have into a RAID 5? I can’t think of a drawback. It’ll go faster and I dont need to worry if one drive dies. Any other potential downside? I plan on using the four drives in the bay together the whole time, so it’s not like I will ever need to take one drive out.

[Walter Soyka]

[Noam Osband] “More importantly….I’ve never heard of a RAID 5. So, from reading about it, it seems like that’s my best bet: if I don’t plan on backing up the 4 drives worth of exported files….but I don’t want a RAID 0 cause I worry about one drive getting hurt….I can do a RAID 5 so that even if one drives dies, I can easily replace it and have my information restored? It seems almost miraculous as I’m reading about it.”

Noam, one thing I’d mention: RAID is not backup.

RAID-5 protects you against the failure of a single drive in the set, but there are plenty of other things that can happen that will ruin your day: multiple drive failures (if another drive dies during rebuilding, everything is gone), RAID controller failure, file system corruption, accidental deletion…

The redundancy in RAID is nice, but it mainly counterbalances the increased likelihood of drive failure with multiple drives. It is not a substitute for a good backup policy.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Noam Osband]

I hear that. But to back up the 16 TB of data is going to cost me hundreds of dollars. I’d rather take my chances….since I have the cards I’m exporting backed up. I figure if something catastrophic happens, I can always re-export the cards. And those are backed up in two separate places.

That being the case….is there any reason not to do a RAID 5 over the JBOD I have now? It’ll be faster, right?

[Walter Soyka]

[Noam Osband] “That being the case….is there any reason not to do a RAID 5 over the JBOD I have now? It’ll be faster, right?”

Go RAID.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Noam Osband]

Wow. This thread was super amazing. I’d done research on RAID….but didn’t know about RAID 5. I was only thinking of RAID 0.

Two questions:

1 – Any useful things to know about setting up a RAID? I know I go through Disc Utility. Any random tips for a newbie on RAIDs?

2 – I already have logged lots of footage. I don’t want to lose that work. I figure I’ll save my FCP X library. I didn’t import media to the library, as I reference external clips. If I log and transfer the exact same clips with the exact same name, will I have any problem with what I’ve logged already? Is there any chance the keywords and markers I’ve laid won’t refer to the same frames? I don’t imagine so…..but I wanna make sure.

Thanks as always guys. I know I’ve been asking a lot of questions lately. I’m finally starting to get past the beginner stage of FCP X, and it’s in no small part due to this forum.

[Jim Wiseman]

You will need the SoftRaid software from OWC or direct download from https://www.softraid.com . It does cost $179 direct, but is well worth it. Mark at SoftRaid is very responsive via email support. A very trustworthy product. Disk Utility doesn’t do RAID 5, I believe only 0 and 1. OWC may have a deal, they bundle it with the Thunderbay. If safety is more important than speed, you can investigate a mirror setup where the data is duplicated on two or more drives at once, as well.

I’ve been using SoftRaid for about two years now.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1, Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.6, Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Blackmagic Ultrastudio 4K, Blackmagic Teranex, Avid MC, 2013 Mac Pro Hexacore, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, 2-D500, Helios 2 w 2-960GB SSDs: 2012 Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz, 24Gb RAM, GTX-680, 960GB SSD: Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 16GB RAM 250GB SSD

[Kiki Muchtar]

Hi Jim,

If concern more about safety than space, should I just use RAID 1+0? Is it true that the different between RAID 5 and 1+0 is the capacity (1+0 setting creates less space)?

Cheers,
Kiki