• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Mac Pro Disk Configuration Recommendations

  Posted by Jason Miller on December 13, 2009 at 7:01 am

  I am seeking input for the configuration of a Mac Pro (early 2008) 2.8ghz, 32gb of RAM. Disks available:

  – 4 x 750gb SATA drives (7200 RPM) in main chassis
  – 4 x 1TB SATA drives in Promise DS4600 external array (firewire, USB or eSATA)

  I am trying to configure the system with the best redundancy and performance. I understand RAID levels quite well, but I’m looking for ideas.

  Right now, what I’m thinking is:

  1 x 750gb RAID1 System Drive – Macintosh HD (internal drives 1 & 2), block size 32kb
  1 x 1.5TB RAID0 ScratchRAID for editing (internal drives 3 & 4), block size 128kb
  1 x 4TB RAID0 for capture (eSATA requirement) (drives 1-4 Promise DS4600), block size 128kb

  …on second thought, the Promise maybe should be RAID10, block size 128kb. However, this only provides 4.6 hours of uncompressed video capture… but would provide redundancy.

  possibly turn ScratchRAID into a mirror for redundancy as well (only 750gb drives though).

  …so, if Promise can run eSATA and RAID10 performs above 120mb sustained write, do this:

  1 x 750gb RAID1 System Drive – Macintosh HD (internal drives 1 & 2), block size 32kb
  1 x 750gb RAID1 for FCP Scratch – ScratchDisk (internal drives 3 & 4), block size 128kb
  1 x 2tb RAID10 for FCP capture – FCP Capture (Promise DS4600), block size 128kb over eSATA

  …purchase something for Time Machine backup or use CCC (external firewire800)

  …purchase BlackMagic Intensity card for capture
  …purchase 39 ft. HDMI cable

  …any advice or recommendation? This Mac Pro is for capturing and editing over Final Cut Studio (7.0.1). I do plan to do some green screen work.

  Thanks!

  Jason Miller replied 16 years, 8 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
• 0 Replies

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