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Mac Pro RAID 5 Question
A few questions about RAIDs in a Mac Pro tower: I am interested in using the Mac Pro RAID card to stripe three internal 1TB SATA drives in a RAID 5 configuration. Has anyone done this and used it for HD video playback? I know RAID 0 provides the best performance but I would like the protection from disk failure and I’m wondering if RAID 5 is fast enough to use for editing purposes in Final Cut. Also, does anyone know how much actual storage would be available from the 3TB after the RAID 5 was configured? Last question – although I know it’s not recommended, has anyone ever striped all four drive bays together and run the Mac OS from the RAID? I’m thinking four 1TB drives striped together in a RAID 5 configuration would provide the maximum storage and maximum protection possible in a single tower. But obviously if there’s a potential for major problems with this setup then it’s not worth it. Just curious if anyone has done it and what their experience has been. Thanks!
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4 Replies
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Hi Eric,
If you stripe 3 of your internal drives under RAID 5, say if you have 1TB each. Instead of getting 3 TB, you will end up something close to 2 TB for you to use .
Using 3 regular sata drives under RAID 5 will let you edit 4 streams of ProRes HQ according to apple’s site. I think if you want to do 10 bit uncompressed HD, you will need to use 4 drives which like you said it’s not recommended.
Caldigit has a similar products call caldigit raid card which they claims to have external ports to connect more drives(more speed?). Maybe you can call them up or check out their website. https://www.caldigit.com
Good luck
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3 drives in RAID 5 will not be able to do do 10-bit HD. Each SATA drive is about 80MB/s, so 3 drives in RAID 5, the best performance you can reach is 160 – 170MB/s.
The 10-bit HD requires at least 165MB/s plus 20% safe margin, so you need to find a raid card that can support at least 220MB/s in RAID 5.
According to Apple, in order to playback 10-bit uncompressed HD, you need 4x SAS drives in RAID 5.
https://www.apple.com/macpro/technology/storage.htmlAnother alternative, in the lower price region, is CalDigit’s raid card. The performance test page is here
https://www.caldigit.com/RAIDCard/raidcard_performance.htmlIt appears robust and a bit more refined (supports 4x internal & 12x external..RAID6…), not to mention less expensive.
Rufus Jakobac
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Thanks for the helpful feedback. Not only were my suspicions confirmed but the CalDigit RAID Card is a great tip. I was only looking at the Mac RAID card and HighPoint RocketRAID. I’ll wait until the CalDigit card ships in June before reconfiguring my current – and woefully small – Huge RAID array. Thanks again!
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Gentlemen,
I have read through the thread here & thought I would help out with a link to a comparison that we did a little while back:
https://www.caldigit.com/support/RAIDCard.pdf
We believe that this chart will go a long way towards helping you make the best decision in your purchase.
Thanks.
Jon Schilling | Sales Manager
CalDigit Inc.
Storage Solutions that work for un-compressed SD & HD, Photography & Audio
http://www.caldigit.com
Tel: 714-572-9889 X234
Fax: 714-572-9881
e-mail: jons@caldigit.com
Skype me: cgijon
msn: mpujon
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