To Raid or Not To Raid ?

[Noah Kadner]

Is the question would a RAID improve performance- sure this is true in any NLE. Is it necessary to get the best out of FCPX- not at all. Though again it depends greatly on the system specs especially GPU and the media format/codec being used.

Noah

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[John Rofrano]

As Noah pointed out, it really depends on what you are cutting. If you’re working with a few streams of HD you can certainly edit in FCP X without a RAID. If, however, you’re cutting several streams of 4K then you’re probably going to need a RAID at some point. I have a RAID 5 with 4 drives on my Mac Pro and I edit on my MacBook Pro with only an SSD and external USB3 drive but I only work in HD. I have no problem editing on either system with or without the RAID because HD just isn’t that taxing on disk i/o.

~jr

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

[Joe Marler]

[John Rofrano] “HD just isn’t that taxing on disk i/o.
“

Yes and this is commonly misunderstood. The data rate just isn’t that high for typical long-GOP encoded material such as H.264. However if transcoding to optimized media, the data rate will be much higher. Multiple streams of optimized HD material will tax a single-disk, and 4k is higher still.

My main recommendation is don’t edit from a 5400 rpm bus-powered USB 3.0 drive. The 7200 rpm HGST Touro S is one of the fastest bus-powered USB 3 drives — you could probably get by with that but it’s not ideal: https://amzn.com/B00IVFDQ48

When you add up camera media, imported media (for AVCHD/XAVC), optimized media, render files, analysis files, etc, the data volume is much greater than first appears. So the issue is more than “can I edit on this?” If ingesting and organizing a significant multi-cam shoot, just moving the data around (inc’l backup) takes a lot of space and I/O, much more than the creative editing phase. RAID helps deal with this.

[Eric Santiago]

The 1TB local on nMP kicks most RAIDs via Thunderbolt 2.

I would use it if your in a bind but backup on something anything.

I had to work on 1100 R3D clip project off the 1TB.

It was temporary till I got my PCI Extender working again.

It was a smooth ride but would not venture in it too many times 🙂

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

Thanks everybody for fast answering.
The project I’m working in is digitalise and editing many VHS and VHS-C tapes and edit them with some HD material plus some effects, Texts and subtitles.
Since I will not need to join more than 4 tapes at time I had that question. I do have a OWC RAID Box that I used to use as RAID 5 but it is not a Thunderbolt device. I use it with a Sonnet adapter connecting the Thunderbolt OUT/Cable in my iMac to eSata IN of the RAID BOX. The question was because the Box is full of material that I would have to backup if I will use it.

Thanks again.

Fredy

iMac 2.7 GHz Intel 4 Core i5
16 GB memory

MacBook Pro 17″
2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
6GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

OS X 10.7.5
FCPX 10.0.8

[Doug Metz]

I have one of those OWC RAIDs as well… I use it at home, connected to my 2013 iMac through the same Sonnet adapter you’ve got. That RAID is limited to SATA II (3 Gbps), but the security of having at least *some* fault tolerance suggests that it’s a better option than a single spinning disk.

Doug Metz

Anode

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

” the security of having at least *some* fault tolerance suggests that it’s a better option than a single spinning disk.

Doug Metz ”

I totally agree with you ….

iMac 2.7 GHz Intel 4 Core i5
16 GB memory

MacBook Pro 17″
2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
6GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

OS X 10.7.5
FCPX 10.0.8