Mac’s Disk Utility RAID maker…

[Cameron Clendaniel]

I’ve used Disk Utility to setup many internal RAID 0 arrays – never had a problem (although of course RAID 0 carries obvious risks).

Cameron Clendaniel
film editor, NYC
http://www.camclendaniel.com

[David Roth weiss]

[tad newberry] “My plan was to do a striped RAID for speed using (2) of my internal Seagate 1.5 TB Barracudas (7200 rpm), and then maybe down the road put this first RAID set into a redundancy mode going to an external (USB 2) 2TB Seagate Barracuda LP (5900). How does this sound?”

Striping two or more drives together at RAID 0 is always a good thing, but it’s really just a good start in the right direction. You’ll probably kick yourself for taking this long once you start to really appreciate the benefits and you’ll soon begin to covet the real deal, at which point you’ll graduate to a truly fast array. And, you’ll thank your stars for Thunderbolt soon enough…

The redundancy thing via a USB connection sounds a little odd to me… It will most likely just slow down your primary RAID. I’d say, either do manual backups or go with a full-blown RAID 5 or 6 setup, which requires at least 3 drives (preferably 5 to 8) and a hardware controller.

Keep in mind, backing up media files most likely is not something most of us need to do every single day. It’s most important right after you ingest new material. So, it’s not like manual backups are so time-consuming and labor intensive that you need to sweat about them.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Tad Newberry]

is the “obvious risk” that there is no redundancy no redundancy? if so, that would’ve been the point of the concatenated RAID with the external USB drive (or, i could move stuff around and use a FW800 drive as well)

thanks for helping out a bonehead!
__________________________

FCS3
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
…and a few TeraBytes o’ storage
(then it’s on to PetaBytes, ExaBytes and MosquitoBytes!)

[Tad Newberry]

Thanks David…yes, i’m sure i’ll be kicking myself quite soon! : ) I guess i’ve just been hesitant to lose actual drive space for speed, but prices do keep dropping and sizes keep going up. Rather than using a USB (2, haven’t gone to USB 3 yet) drive, i could use a FW800 or go get an eSATA card and go that route for an external redundant drive.

thanks for helping out a bonehead!
__________________________

FCS3
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
…and a few TeraBytes o’ storage
(then it’s on to PetaBytes, ExaBytes and MosquitoBytes!)

[Tad Newberry]

And another RAID-newbie question: do i put ALL types of “media” files on the RAID? still images, QT’s rendered out of Motion, etc? And if a Motion project was on the RAID, would Motion run a little smoother or is that completely a RAM consideration?

thanks for helping out a bonehead!
__________________________

FCS3
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
…and a few TeraBytes o’ storage
(then it’s on to PetaBytes, ExaBytes and MosquitoBytes!)

[Cameron Clendaniel]

Yes, the risk of RAID 0 is that if one drive in the array goes down, you lose everything. And it does happen – and I’ve lost system drives too so backups are of course critical in any workflow. I use my internal RAID 0 for media only – footage, stills, outputs, etc (and only if I have backups elsewhere) – and as a scratch disk for FCP renders, etc. Anything that needs speed. Project files I would not put on a striped RAID and I doubt you would see any speed boost doing so. The speed of Motion is largely dictated by your video card.

Cameron Clendaniel
film editor, NYC
http://www.camclendaniel.com

[Tad Newberry]

Thanks, Cameron!

thanks for helping out a bonehead!
__________________________

FCS3
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
…and a few TeraBytes o’ storage
(then it’s on to PetaBytes, ExaBytes and MosquitoBytes!)

[David Roth weiss]

[tad newberry] “I guess i’ve just been hesitant to lose actual drive space for speed”

You don’t lose drive space with RAID 0. And, when you graduate to RAID 5 or 6 the security factor is so high that the space you lose is not really a concern, because you just sleep better.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Tad Newberry]

thanks, ya, i will look forward to graduating soon. thanks again for your and cameron’s pointers…

thanks for helping out a bonehead!
__________________________

FCS3
2.66 GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro
6GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
…and a few TeraBytes o’ storage
(then it’s on to PetaBytes, ExaBytes and MosquitoBytes!)

[Jason Brown]

I have this type of setup, 3x 1TB internal 7200rpm. All striped as raid 0. My redundancy is a time machine backup to an external lacie big quadra (6 TB) in raid 5.

I originally had apple raid card installed, then setup raid in disk utility. Found out later that raid card wasnt even being used. All research I did lead me to the result that a software raid was just fine.

-jason