RAID 5 formatting for PROMISE Pegasus2 R6 12TB (6 x 2TB) Thunderbolt 2 RAID System for FCPX 10.1?

[Peter Dunphy]

HI Gary

Are these maybe the kinds of drives the supplier I’m dealing with was referring to? (e.g. PROMISE 2TB Pegasus R Series SATA Drive Module)

https://store.apple.com/uk/product/HA019LL/A/promise-2tb-pegasus-r-series-sata-drive-module

[Gary Adcock]

[Peter Dunphy] “Are these maybe the kinds of drives the supplier I’m dealing with was referring to? (e.g. PROMISE 2TB Pegasus R Series SATA Drive Module”

Like I said, I have 5 units I know what is in them, I am not guessing by reading incomplete info on the Apple store.

[Peter Dunphy] “Are these maybe the kinds of drives the supplier I’m dealing with was referring to?”

If you power down and open a unit up you will see the drive Mfg or you can look in the Promise Utility under the “Physical Drive” and it will list the part number

Like – ST3000DM001 where a quick search called up the fact that these are Seagate (Hitachi) 3TB barracuda drives.

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

Follow my blog at https://www.garyadcock.com

Or follow me on Twitter
@garyadcock

[John Davidson]

I was going to get a Promise2 8 bay, but then I saw on the Promise website the the 8 drive array version uses 5900rpm drives.

Here:
https://www.promise.com/promotion_page/promotion_page.aspx?region=en-global&rsn=101

At the very bottom:
*Pegasus2 R8 32TB model is populated with 5900 RPM SATA drives. All other Pegasus2 models are populated with 7200RPM SATA drives.

So instead of dropping $4300 on a Promise with reduced speed drives, I ordered the Areca TB2 8 bay empty chassis and am populating it with eight 4TB Hitachi Deskstars. Total cost – $3500. Bob Zelin has tested these and confirmed they’ll get about 1300 MB/s. Pretty ample for a backup array.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Peter Dunphy]

Thanks for the info Gary, will delve deeper, appreciate it

[Joe Marler]

[Jason Jenkins] “My Pegasus R6 (6TB) took around 24 hours to get through the setup, which was waaaay longer than the instructions indicated. No problem, just unexpected and disconcerting.”

On an 8TB Thunderbolt Pegasus 1 R4, I did extensive tests on this and reported my results to Promise. It appears the initial RAID 5 synchronization time is heavily influenced by stripe size. At the default of 128k, my 8TB R4 took over 83 hr (3.5 days) to sync. 256k and larger stripe sizes were much faster to sync. At 512k or larger, it took about 10 hr.

I tested three different R4 chassis and two different four-drive sets. I don’t know if the Pegasus 2 is any different. R4 chassis firmware: 5.02.0000.98. Drive sets were 4 x 2TB Toshiba DT01ACA2, with firmware of MX4OABB0. Using Promise utility, background sync rate was on “high”.

Details and data graph: https://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=18576138&postcount=1

[Craig Alan]

After it took all day to finish on the first one I set up, I was on the fence about this. I decided to back up any important original P2 files (and other) media on a separate raid 5 drive and backup any important library upon completing an important project. I formatted the raids as 0. That leaves more space and a faster system on the editing computers.

But as this is a school there is no money on the line if a drive fails.

Raid 5 really only helps if one of the drives fails within a raid. While this can happen, the drives are all fairly new and the same age. I think I’d be more conservative as the drives age. Also if this was mission critical storage, I’d replace all the drives after three years, give or take. Use them in some other capacity.

Maybe I’m just lucky but I’ve never had a drive fail before 3 years. File corruption … rare but has happened. My feeling is media drives need to be wiped clean and reformatted when possible. Keeps the speed up and less likely to get corrupted.

All that said our raids only have 4 drives which means I’d be loosing 1/4 of total capacity.

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.

[John Davidson]

Hard drive failure rates by brand.

https://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Gary Adcock]

[Craig Alan] “Maybe I’m just lucky but I’ve never had a drive fail before 3 years.”

Please be forewarned.
Drives fail, they are designed with a specific lifespan at manufacture. What happens in the school when the content is lost and students are not able to complete their assigned tasks?

Some drives fail much more than others.
https://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

Follow my blog at https://www.garyadcock.com

Or follow me on Twitter
@garyadcock

[Gary Adcock]

[John Davidson] “*Pegasus2 R8 32TB model is populated with 5900 RPM SATA drives. All other Pegasus2 models are populated with 7200RPM SATA drives.”

I have the 24TB P2R8 and it uses 7200 RPM Barracuda drives.
It is ONLY the 32T model that uses the slower drives (not currently shipping due to a issue with drive performance)

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

Follow my blog at https://www.garyadcock.com

Or follow me on Twitter
@garyadcock

[Craig Alan]

Yes I know and I am on the fence. But like I said we back up important projects and the in class projects have a quick turn around. However, when this semester is over I’ll most likely back up stuff worth keeping and reformat the drives to raid 5. First time for me learning a P2 workflow and organizing this much media. In the past I was tape based and used 2 gig G-techs raid 0. Never had drives of this size or speed.

Do raids put more stress on the drives or is life span life span regardless? A will say the that pegasus runs very quiet and very cool to the touch.

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.