Need advice on HDD configuration (a.k.a RAID 5: The Debate)

[Jarrod Fay]

Just don’t fall into the trap of assuming RAID5 is bullet proof. A few years ago we had an external (4 drive) RAID set at RAID5 and 2 drives failed. We lost everything. Whatever setup you end up with, in a professional setup it pays to keep additional backups of your raw footage and daily backups of your projects.

—> Jarrod

[Bret Williams]

Yep. Raid 5 for in production stuff with project backup on internal with footage backed up elsewhere. My risk would probably be AE / Motion additions which are also in the raid 5. But those get backed up to internal periodically. Most elements for graphics are emailed or dropboxed, so that generally exists elsewhere. IOW, if something catastrophic happened, things could be put back together.

[Craig Alan]

“It’s a different way of thinking about projects. What’s a project without the media? It’s a useless metadata file really. A collection of edit decisions without the media does not a video make! So keeping projects with the media makes a lot of sense when you think about it. ”

When video was shot on tape, it made sense to keep the small project file on the system drive. The tape served as the archive and the project file could after reimporting the media recreate the edits/timeline if the digital media got corrupted or the media drive died.

Now u need to back up completely digital media.

I like to keep copies of my p2 cards in their own folders and then import them into FC assigned locations. Then the entire project has to be backed up on a different physical drive.

I wonder if I had the original card copies and just the project file if my projects could be brought back as they were. That would keep the back up archives smaller.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Walter Soyka]

[Bret Williams] “6 drives is sweet as you get full backup but it only eats up 16% of the space if my memory serves me.”

A pendantic point to be sure, but I prefer to use the word “redundancy” instead of “backup” when discussing RAID arrays. RAID levels other than 0 give varying degrees of protection against disk failure, but no protection against the other sorts of failures that “backup” implies protection against (corruption, deletion, overwrite-tion, etc.).

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Bret Williams]

I would agree. Redundancy is a much better term. So yeah, redundancy of Library & AE/Motion projects & assets on the RAID, and auto backups of AE, Motion, FCP X on the internal, plus backup of the footage at least on a portable usb 3 drive if not elsewhere. When complete, it’s all archived to a RAID 0.

[Herb Sevush]

I have both a standard SSD and the PCI SSD, both from OWC on MY 2010 Mac Pro. The standard SSD gets around 250/200 (Read/Write) the PCI SSD gets 600/375 — using the Black Magic speed test. I find the esata inputs on the PCI card helpful as well. I’m very happy with that purchase.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[John Rofrano]

[Herb Sevush] “I have both a standard SSD and the PCI SSD, both from OWC on MY 2010 Mac Pro. The standard SSD gets around 250/200 (Read/Write) the PCI SSD gets 600/375 — using the Black Magic speed test.”

Herb, Thanks so much for that feedback. I’ve been using the Blackmagic Designs Speed Test as well. I’ve been configuring my RAID in different configurations and testing the speed of each. RAID 0 has been pretty linear. A non-RAID single 2TB disk is giving me around 121/118 Write/Read for a single disk, 228/243 for a 2 disk RAID 0 and 324/353 for a 3 disk RAID 0 (which is faster than my SSD which tops out around 257/270). A RAID 1 is giving me 123/177 which is the same write speed as a single disk and 1.5x read speed. I haven’t built the RAID 5 yet but that’s my next test.

It’s great to see that the OWC is giving better results than the SSD which is constrained by the 3GB/s SATA II speed of the older Mac Pro motherboards. I seriously considering getting one now. Thanks again!

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com