Raid settings for Pro Tools

[Bob Zelin]

none. Pro Tools doesn’t like RAID’s or “dynamic disks”. They like a single basic disk. The only way to avoid this is with iSCSI, which is something I bet you will not be willing to spend the money for.

RAID 10 is simple disk mirroring, it is not a modern protection scheme like RAID 5 or RAID 6 (which can’t be used with Pro Tools).

Bob Zelin

[Mike Hartung]

Hi Bob,
I have read a lot of your posts and your enthusiasm for shared storage is inspiring. PLUS I have learned a lot! So, i guess i should say, ” thank you.”

I failed to mention that I am definitely going iSCSI. I am going to demo an infortrend 16 bay appliance with four Gb Ethernet ports when it arrives within a couple weeks. Im hoping to get a little insight from some of the more experienced techs here so that I can get it set up to as close to optimal as possible. I have some experience with SNS products and they worked great while I had them on demo. With the economic climate I am faced with, I am forced to go it alone and bear the headaches of setting it up myself. Shared storage has been a dream for a long time and, in my tireless pursuit I am finally going to try to get it to work. My bets are also on SNS sanMP for all the clients. Any further help and/or insight is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mike
Oslo, Norway

[Bob Zelin]

then why not contact Studio Network Solutions. They are the industry leader in Pro Tools shared storage, they are all great guys (even though we compete in certain markets), and their product is what you are looking for. You wont’ figure out how to use any shared storage system on a web forum. You need to contact SNS.

Bob Zelin

[Caspian Brand]

Hi Mike,

Pro Tools doesn’t care if the RAID is iSCSI or Fibre Channel, whta Pro Tools doesn’t like is a RAID 0, Software RAID or network share. Hardware/External RAID is fine.

Personally, with any RAID 5 (audio or video) I don’t like to create RAID sets larger than 8 disks. With a RAID 10, you “could” have that created across all 16 disks, but that can make it more difficult to lock out performance to a subset of disks if desired.

There is definitely some discovery that needs to take place regarding the best balance of RAID protection and performance options for your workflow. As Bob also mentioned, there can also be an advantage to JBOD or single disks in some cases as well, even in a networked array.

-Caspian

Product Specialist
Studio Network Solutions

[Mike Hartung]

Hello Caspian,

Thanks for that info. I will take that into consideration. I wonder though if you had any insight as to when a particular RAID type becomes better for audio when you consider the amount of disks in the RAID? For example, will certain RAID types perform better/worse with more/fewer disks? Is there any benefit disk IO-wise to do always have more disks (up to 8) in the system when it comes to audio? I remember being very impressed when I demoed your now discontinued X-4 unit. Now Im hoping to take it a step further. Again, thanks for the feedback.

Mike