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Most bit for the buck Raid
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[jmf] “What company offers >2t with raid 1 configuration?”
All Apple computers have Raid 1 (aka “mirroring”) setup using Apple’s Disk Utility software, no special software or hardware is needed. So, if you buy a simple 4-drive SATA enclosure you can very easily stripe four inexpensive SATA drives as Raid 1.
Personally, I think that’s a mistake, that you’d be much better off striping those four drives as Raid 0 and then just backing up to an inexpensive firewire drive, but that discussion can and does go round and round circles forever, so just do want you think is right for you.
If I were purchasing today I’d get just what I have now, a Seritek 4-bay enclosure and 4x500gb Hitachi or Seagate SATA drives.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
MIrroring for video content does seem like an odd idea. Just make sure all the material on your drive is TC based and you can always recapture. Anything else I put on the system or another drive.
It’s actually the OTHER drives that you’d really want to mirror imo. The ones with project files, photoshop files, documents, emails, etc.
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RAID-1 will have write performance equal to only a single disk. It’s read performance will be comparable to a RAID-0 two-disk array. RAID-0 speed will outstrip it by far if more drives are added to the array.
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> MIrroring for video content does seem like an odd idea.
To each their own. For me, I want to be up and running absolutely ASAP after any drive failure. Without worrying about time code messups, tape problems, etc. I consider tape to be a secondary backup.
RAID 1 gives me a lot of peace of mind for very little outlay of money and energy. Having done it this way I wouldn’t go back unless a project required enormous amounts of space (like perhaps an upcoming project with 330 hours of source).
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[braker] “RAID 1 gives me a lot of peace of mind for very little outlay of money and energy.”
What are you editing DV?
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I agree with DRW. This morning there’s a 160 gig Maxtor in the Fry’s ad for 49 bucks, point is FW drives for backup are dirt cheap right now.
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> What are you editing DV?
Combination of 8-bit uncompressed and DV sources in uncompressed 8-bit sequence. All SD.
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[braker] “Combination of 8-bit uncompressed and DV sources in uncompressed 8-bit sequence. All SD.”
That’s why Raid 1 works for you, but may not be right for anyone doing 10-bit uncompressed or HD.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
Is the raid 1 speed and uncompressed requirements a show stopper for all raid 1 configurations, e.g. Fibre Channel RAID, etc.?
jmf
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[jmf] “Is the raid 1 speed and uncompressed requirements a show stopper for all raid 1 configurations, e.g. Fibre Channel RAID, etc.?”
Not necessarily a show stopper, but not what you asked for either. I think the title of your original post is throwing all of us off a bit. The most bit for the buck is not fibre channel or one of the expensive solutions that must be configured and populated with drives by a manufacture. The most bit for the buck is almost always gonna be consumer built.
Buying or building a raid is one of the perfect examples of “cheaper, faster, better — pick any two.” See my article on that subject in the new Cow Magazine issue coming out soon. You have to compromise somewhere, or else you can count on paying a rather huge premium. Mission critical can be worth the extar bucks for some, but if you’re smart, you can have everything you want and still have money in your pocket. As an indie that the kind of solution I’ve always sought out.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
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