Would really love some advice on a raid controller card..

Storage & Archiving

Would really love some advice on a raid controller card..

Posted by David Payne on March 2, 2015 at 9:26 am

hi all, I am rebuilding my premiere pro editing suite and want to set up my 4x WD Caviar Black 1tb drives in raid 5 and I understand I’m best to use a controller card for this.

The HDD’s are capabale of 6gb/s I believe and I have 1x PCI-e 8x and 1x PCI-e 16x port free on my GAx79UD5 motherboard.

I am totally stuck as to what controller card I need.. I only have a couple of days to get one ordered and the system built and I’m really stuck.

If anyone in the UK could offer any kind of advice of what card to go for I’d be eternally greatful!

Please feel free to ask any more info if I’ve not provided enough..

My intended final HDD config would be :

1x 1tb SSD system
1x 512gb SSD cache
4x 1TB Caviar blacks (showing as 1x 2TB) RAID 5 for video
1x Velociraptor for personal files

Thanks so much
David

Stephen Hopes replied 10 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 13 Replies
13 Replies

Rainer Wirth
March 2, 2015 at 12:12 pm

Hi,

Adaptec, Areca, LSI are all good controllers. Make sure the controller provides a raid 5 level and takes SATA HD’S. Some of them just take SAS drives. The array will show as a 3TB drive with Raid 5. The 8x lane is fast enough.

cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems
David Payne
March 2, 2015 at 12:40 pm

Thank you rainer. Are there any particular cards you have experience of? I’m after something simple to rebuild should a drive fail and also simple to set up. I assume most come with their own configuration software?
David Payne
March 2, 2015 at 1:05 pm

what would you say to this adaptec 6405 4 port card?
I think I’m right in saying it has everything I need and offers raid 0 as well as 5 should i decide to change in future

https://www.ballicom.co.uk/2270000r-adaptec-raid-6405–storage-controller-raid–4-channel–sata-6gbs–sas-6gbs-low-profile–600-mbps–raid-0-1-5-6-10-50-jbod-1e-5ee-60–pcie-x8.p626127.html
Rainer Wirth
March 2, 2015 at 3:51 pm

Yes,

this should do the job.
Don’t even think about Raid0. Raid0 is never a option,

cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems
David Payne
March 3, 2015 at 7:08 am

Because there is no redundancy you mean? I have we usb3 hdd’s that I use for sequential backups. I’m unsure of how a raid 5 works.. How can 3tb of data be backed up on 1tb? OK I’ll buy that one thank you
David Payne
March 3, 2015 at 7:12 am

Final question before I click buy on the adaptec.. Other than brand.. Why is this one so cheap!?

https://www.itinstock.com/highpoint-rocketraid-2314—sassata-6gbs-8-port-raid-controller-32789-p.asp
David Payne
March 3, 2015 at 12:31 pm

ah, ok cancel that. After reading only a handful of reviews on the rocket raid i’m put off for life! I’ll buy the adaptec now
Rainer Wirth
March 5, 2015 at 10:35 am

LSI is always cheaper,

apart from that it only works with SAS drives, not SATA!
I’ve never regretted the most expensive solutions.

cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems
David Payne
March 8, 2015 at 4:37 pm

Just setting up the raid5 using the adaptec and I’m a bit confused/scared about write caching.. It warns me if I enable it that data is more likely to be lost in a power loss. What would you do?

https://ask.adaptec.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8971/~/scsi-raid-controllers%3A-what-read-%2F-write-caching-options-are-available%3F
Rainer Wirth
March 9, 2015 at 3:49 pm

If it is Raid5 you can loose one disk and the raid’s still there

cheers

Rainer

factstory
Rainer Wirth
phone_0049-177-2156086
Mac pro 8core
Adobe,FCP,Avid
several raid systems

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