Optimal Setup for Hard Drives for Video Editing & Design

[Norman Willis]

>>Steve, I am looking at RAID 5 for the redundancy aspect.

OK, I just got off of tech chat with Dell, and they told me that RAID 5 for video editing is a bad deal. Apparently the CPU has to work hard to ‘distribute parity’ (i.e., decide what information gets written where). It takes up to 36% of a quad core; so even if the RAID 5 array might write fast enough, the additional load on the CPU would be an issue, as the CPU is already the bottleneck in my system.

They recommended RAID 10. It won’t be as big an array as RAID 5, but it should still be big enough, and it won’t tax the processor nearly as much. And one still gets redundancy.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Nigel O’neill]

As I use RAID 1 (mirroring) for my projects drives, it gives me automatic redundancy without having to remember to make regular backups of my projects, plus offers good read performance during renders. In my experience as a network admin, RAID 1 offers better read than write performance, hence why I place my media on it.

My output drive comprises of 2 x 10,000 RPM Western Digital drives in a RAID 0 configuration. RAID 0 offers superior write performance as you are spreading the load across multiple disks and drive spindles. Of course, if 1 of the 2 drives fails, ALL data is lost, hence why I only use it for output that can easily be regenerated.

I also configure Vegas to use this drive for its prerenders e.g. scratch drive.

The data transfer rate I am referring to is not the same concept as the video acquisition data rate.

I personally would not edit with a USB drive, especially during renders. Perhaps in emergencies, but not as a main drive. The maximum data transfer rate (which during renders is independent of the video data rate) of USB 2.0 is 60MB/s half duplex whilst eSATA and SATA are 300 MB/s.

There are a number of variables that contribute to overall system performance: 64 bit applications such as Vegas x64 running on a 64 bit operating system will outperform their 32 bit equivalents, the speed of your CPU and the number of cores it supports, the number of drives (and optional RAID set up), the speed of your RAM and your choice of motherboard that supports the above. With Vegas, high end video cards don’t make much of a difference.

Once USB 3.0 becomes main stream, it will challenge what I have said as it supports data transfer rate up to 600 MB/s.

With Solid State Drives coming down in price, they too will one day replace spinning platters, offering next to no latency and no moving parts. The current limitation on SSD is the controllers they use to support the drives. Plus they are very expensive.

In closing, I would like to state that I would not rely 100% on RAID 1 redundancy as my only backup strategy if I was running a video business for a living. In that instance, I would employ tape backups and store them off-site.

Intel i920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 9 (X64), Vista x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S 4.1

[Norman Willis]

Nigel, you might be just the man to ask (I hope Ryan does not mind).

I’ve got five hard drive bays. I want to put C:\ as a stand alone 7200 RPM 1TB hdd and back up externally. Then I want to put D:\ as four 7200RPM 1.5TB hdd’s in RAID 10. I would put two 1.5TB drives together for a 3.0GB RAID 0 array, and then that array gets backed up to another identical array in RAID 1 (making it RAID 10). Backups are external to a Drobo (4.06GB capacity) and also USB 2.0.

I would store all stock footage and media on D:\, and also use it for output and rendering (D:\Temp). Is that fast enough? I like the idea of the redundancy. (As I see it, my other option is to put all four drives in one massive RAID 0 array, but then there is no redundancy.) Can you or Steve please comment?

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Ryan Taylor]

Thanks for the detailed reply. That helps a lot!

[Ryan Taylor]

Thanks for the responses and detailed replies. I think what I’ll do is…

C (SATA 350gb/8mb): OS/Applications
G (SATA 1tb/64mb): Video Capture, Stock Photos/Music/Footage for Projects
H (SATA 1tb/64mb): Output Files, Renders, Page File/Temp/Scratch Disk Location
I: (Old PATA HD) I’ll use for personal, less frequently used files: music, picutes, documents

Finally, Drive J for Backup (Sata 750gb/32mb)

All drives are 7,200 RPM

Does this setup look alright? I’m guessing the old PATA drive shouldn’t effect performance, but I could be totally wrong – that’s just the assumption I’m making since they’re not files that require much resources and (being on a separate drive) shouldn’t interfere with video production/rendering.

Also, I’m just using the 8mb cache SATA for the OS/Apps assuming that it doesn’t really need anything more (sine the other drives are the ones really doing the work). Am I on track here?

Thanks again!

[Brandon Laureta]

I’ve also been looking for this kind of solution.

In my searches I found this product:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1184474-REG/qnap_tvs_871t_i7_16g_us_tvs_871t_8_bay_thunderbolt_2.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjwtO2wBRCu0d2dkvjVi5cBEiQAMEIVGaWH6BSrYQbJhaT1Kt8kBVkEJkkIHBRtKiv-xwYO2aEaAu0z8P8HAQ

After talking with QNAP support over the phone they claim it is able to allow multiple editors to connect and simultaneously edit.

I know very little about networking and have only recently been trying to learn about 2k/4k workflows and solutions.

The price tag stings, but it does give hope that maybe they’d release a smaller model (2bay/4bay) in the future.

What are your thoughts? Is it too good to be true?

[Jakub Gołąb]

I have a question I need help with, I built a Post production PC with a c drive that’s is a 120GB ssd, and 4 4TB drives in raid 5 soon to be raid 0 because I plan on adding a raid controller and 2 3TB drive for raid 1.

Question is I use Cyberlink Power Director 14 with HD and soon 4K video, how do I set this up so as I am working on my projects the raid 5 drives handle the load and not the c drive. ok and of you are curious after rebates the PC cost be under 1,400.00.

Thank you for your time and expertise.