Which hard disk to order ?

[Kurtis Post]

I’ve been happy using Rorke data Storage. Good product with good support.

[David Battistella]

I have been happy with the HUGE systems 4210. It’s 4gigabit fiber channel.

Solid.

David

[Steve Covello]

No problems with Xserve RAID via copper fibre. But check to see what slot requirements you will need for the K2, copper fibre or SCSI or SATA, graphix card, etc. based on the G5 you have. Recent hardware in both G5 and in K2 may require priviledge to the 133 port.

There was a string earlier this month I believe that measured the pros and cons of SATA, copper fibre and SCSI. Some of the major points I remember were that SATA arrays are great, inexpensive, but tough to troubleshoot if one of the drives doesn’t mount. SCSI seems to be a proven, solid connection, though its top-end performance is limited for future needs for 4:4:4, 2k, etc [I can recall being asked to cough up $60,000 for a Rorke Data SCSI RAID, which is about 5 times Xserve RAID]. Copper fibre can only be 3 meters from the CPU, so it would be an added expense to go fibre optic if the RAID and the G5 had to be far apart.

This is just a sample, so look in the index to find this string.

Or just page Bob Zelin, who I’m sure will fill in the finer points. I hope I got my facts straight as I recall, so don’t go by my gospel except to investigate a little more.

steve covello
double wide post

[Bob Zelin]

There are many solutions, including Apple XServe RAID, Medea, HUGE Systems, Rorke Data, Studio Network Solutions, StorCase, and homebrew solutions from Granite Digital and so many others including 8 drive SATA solutions.

But for UNCOMPRESSED HD (not dual link) – ya can’t beat the HUGE U320-RX for price/performance. What a great product. And HUGE support is similar to AJA – great !

Bob Zelin

[Alexander Serpico]

Mr. Zelin, do you have any opinion on the Facilis Terrablock?
That U320-RX is mighty fine… probably should have given that an honest consideration before purchasing an Apple Raid.

[Bob Zelin]

Facilis is a wonderful company – the ex AVID LanShare guys run Facilis.
I have never used a Terrablock on a FCP system, but I bet it works.
I just have no background with it on an FCP system.

Remember (to my knowlege, and I COULD BE WRONG) – it’s RAID 1, not RAID 5, so be prepared to buy a lot of storage.

bob Zelin

[Gary Adcock]

[alexander serpico] “do you have any opinion on the Facilis Terrablock?”

I am not Bob,
but I have had nothing but success with the Unit I have been working with.
disregard all of that avid stuff on their web site it works great with FCP also.

Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA

[John Ladle]

terrablock is raid 1 and 0, but you can do 3 uncompressed 1080i streams of realtime off of it as well as 2k, dual link, etc…. the real question is if you want shared. terrablock is a shared storage, where as XRAID is not. XSAN on top of XRAID is shared, but to get the same performance, you need to stack 3 xraids behind it. also there are some differences between file level and volume level sharing.

the terrablock works great with FCP, AVID and AXIO systems too, btw…