[Rainer Wirth]

you could also have a look at Axus SAS raids, they are expandable as well. We run a big AXUS Yotta 3 FC raid with good results. The Hardware is pretty solid.

cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

sounds good to me. SAS provides you with good speed, 7 plus one spare is fine, the Ultrastars would be my recommondation as well. We run a Sonnet SAS for years, it’s very good, but Areca should be a good choice too. Welcome to the world of fast and reliable arrays.
Just consider Alex’s advice with expandibility of the raid. Might be worth looking into.

Cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

Hi Alec,

first of all NTFS is a good choice, also for Mac. There are no problems, we format all windows world based HD’s in NTFS. There is a company called Tuxera you can format HD’s with NTFS on a mac. But if you want to stick to fat its okay as well. You are just limited to the max of 4TB files.
You need an enclosure which can hold up 2 HD’s and has a built in Raid controller. I recommend Lacie, but there are lots of other brands on the market. It’s not terribly expensive and you get a good backup level. The data is automatically backed up within one enclosure. If you buy two enclosures, both with raid 1 you are pretty safe. A FW 800 connection is wise to have, better would be a eSata connectivity but this might be a problem with your laptop.
You should use reliable HD’s, like Hitachi deskstars ore similar ones. Seagate barracudas are good as well. Spend another few bucks in good HD’s it’s worth it.

cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

Thanks for your input,

cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

Yes,

my conclusions are for an external raid system. Alex has given you good advice for an internal solution on a low budget Raid 0 level.

cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

Hi Mike,

1) Would a RAID config really speed up my system (Premiere, After Effects) or would I just be confortable with more drives and spreading the cache folders on them ?

Yes, a Raid increases your editing system dramatically. If you work with HD codecs above 100MB/s it is essential for real time editing. We talk about Fibre channel, SAS or at the lowest level eSata or Thunderbolt. This counts for Premiere.
Compositing programs such as After Effects require processing power, lots of Ram and a good graphic card.

2) Do I really need 200MB/s + read/write speeds since most of the codecs out there are not even close to these speeds, so are the drives keeping me away from achieving performance or the processing power ?

Yes, you do. Lots of the technical speeds are not achieved in practice, so you should look for a raid that says 400 MB/s at least. Theoretical speeds and practical achieved speeds are a different world.

3) Which are the specs that affect speed the most, the card’s processor, the RAM of the card ?

Your system should have around 16GB Ram minimum, a good processor, a two lane 2x4GB card (Atto for example) and a decent raid at least Raid5 plus spare. I would go for a SAS raid 8bay system for the beginning, depends on your storage needs.

All the big card manufacturers have loads of models with similar specs and I don’t know what spec controls what…some of the sites are just crap (on Areca’s website I personally can’t even understand which is their newest and greatest card and they have loads of models which as i’ve said are pretty similar).

I recommend ATTO cards.

4) Does the number of drives affect the performance ? For example could I attain better performance with 6 drives instead of 4 in a raid 0 config on the same card ?

Don’t work with Raid 0 level. It is harakiri, because it has no redundancy! Normally 8-16 drives work faster than just 4 drives. For the Raid I recommend Dulce, Sonnet, Axus, small tree, active storage.

5) Do I really need enterprise class drives ? From what I can make of it, it is more of a policy issue, some manufactureres won’t give you tech support unless you have enterprise drives installed.

Yes you do. The drives you use are a crucial point within your drive array. Always keep one as a spare. The drives must meet the technical specs of the drive system you use and must be identical by size and serial number. We just work with enterprise class drives and we only use Hitachi Ultrastars.

Remember: A Raid just works and works and works for years. You need to forget about it that it’s there.

cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

Is it the caldigit vr mini?
You have to follow the instructions of the manufacturer. It is hardware based and has nothing to do with the computer. Normally it would be enough just to switch the vr to Raid0 and reformat.
Or you change to new harddrives. What happens if you remove one HD? The caldigit device has hot swap ablility.

cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

Hi Bob,

what’re the advantages of Axle vs. Cat DV?

Thanks,

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

you should have a look on CatDV. From what I’ve read it works nicely with Avid MC6. There is a CatDV forum in creativecow. Post your thread there.
CatDV does work definitely with FCP.
cheers

Rainer

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

[Rainer Wirth]

Why on earth do you want to change from Raid 5 to 0?
Raid 0 is harakiri – in case of drive fairure.

Rainer

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