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MBP esata Express34 card/RAID confusion
Hi All,
After my Lacie D2 blew it’s power chip (causing me to think I’d lost a load of media – 250 gigs worth!), I’ve decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to a small RAID 5 unit.
I’ve narrowed it down to the ‘Lacie Biggest Quadra’ or the ‘GTech Gspeed es’.My confusion lies on how to configure these devices for RAID 5 – Is RAID 5 control in the express 34 card or is it inside the drive enclosure? If it is in the Express 34 card, which esata Express 34 card will work with my MBP?
The Lacie has the edge on the G-Tech at the moment as it’s got FW800, USB2 and esata, which means I can transport it to any machine and read the data… I pressume – again does that machine need an RAID controller on it??
Just so you know, I’m a professional Editor who uses this kit do to small jobs/offline stuff for clients. I’ve not got a ton of cash to throw about. I fully appreciate that I am looking at the bottom end of the RAID 5 market here, but having RAID 5 on the cheap is better than not… given what I just went through.
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
Many Thanks in advance.
Dave
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7 Replies
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Off the top of my head, I don’t believe the Mac itself does RAID 5 (and it’s certainly not in the eSATA card) so it has to offered as a hardware option on the array – but I couldn’t swear to this. Certainly that’s the way to go, it means that the array can be transferred between machines – I would not want to use a software RAID 5 solution on any system.
FWIW, I would go with the G-Speed. Although I have a number of Lacie arrays myself, they are not as well made as the G-tech gear in my experience, despite the rugged looks.
Ben
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Lacie has let me down so many times. You’re not the 1st to have one of their drives fail on you.
We use mainly G-Tech products now. Not 1 single failure in 2 years on a range of their products.
I’m a little unclear on how their G-SpeedEs works. Seems like it requires their Pci-e card to get Raid 5? But be aware the regular G-Speed is a scsi/fibre solution, not suited for a laptop.
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“Raid 5” and “small” are doable, but know that Raid 5 and inexpensive (sub $2000) isn’t there yet. I know that the CalDigit HD Pro has a Raid 5 solution that connects to the MacBook Pro. The cheapest option there is $3000 for 2TB. But this is true for most external PCIe boxes.
I think the Sidecar is a 4 drive eSATA RAID 5 solution…not sure what they cost.
Plenty of Raid 0 options out there…lots of eSATA boxes. Raid 5 on a laptop is a new thing that is coming.
Shane
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Dave,
SATA RAIDS, in most cases, depend on the host controller card in your computer for whatever level of RAID they deliver. There are a handful of SATA RAID boxes that have built-in RAID controllers, and they can provide you with RAID 5 or RAID 3 protection, regardless of what card is used to connect to your computer. These RAID enclosures may also offer USB2 or FW connectors along with the eSATA connectors, allowing you to plug them into systems that don’t have a SATA card.
Arnie
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Shane, the RAID controller on the Sidecar is in the PCIe card.
Arnie
Now in post: Peristroika, a film by Slava Tsukerman
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Ah….Arnie, that makes sense. The Controller card for the HD Pro is in the external unit…that is how you can get it to work with laptops.
Shane
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Thanks for all of the answers and advice!
It would seem that esata RAID 5 is not possible at the moment BUT that the Lacie Biggest Quadra does RAID 5 through FW800. Or am I REALLY confused? Raid 5 on FW800 would protect me for now is that’s the case.
I have to say that I would prefer the G-Tech as I have a G-Raid 2 and apart from some strange noises at the start (bearings in the fan I think) it’s been solid and the build quality is fabulous. However, if RAID 5 is built in on the Lacie then that’s what I’m forced to buy becuase i need that redundancy.
And yes I realise that I’m this weeks ‘I want this brilliant device but can’t afford it…. Tell me about a cheaper solution that does the same thing’ person, so don’t flame too hard 🙂
Thanks again Guys and Gals!
Dave
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