Advice on configuring disks

[Maarten18]

Hi everyone,

Can you guys give me advice on how to configure my disks? I'm switching from a windows workstation to a mac pro 5,1. Currently I'm running two 3TB drives in Raid0 and two other 3TB drives in Raid0. Both Raids are used for storage and backed up on two other systems. As I have to format all four disks I now have te opportunity to configure them in a different way: One Raid0 containing all four disks or Raid5 containing all four disks, leaving me with less storage space, but I also won't lose time rebuilding the Raid in case of a one disk failure (right?). Or should I stay with the current setup (two separate Raid0's?).
The system will be used for (heavy) video editing including high resolution footage. If I choose the Raid0 with all four disks in it, I assume I will get the fastest read and write speeds if I were to work on one project only at the same time. But on a regular working day I'm not doing just one project, meanwhile I'm also say exporting another project, copying/ingesting files and so on.

Looking forward to your advice!

 

[nigelbb]

You cannot rebuild a RAID0 disk set. You need to restore from backup.

 

[leighrk]

Not true. I have multiple raid volumes, up to 16Tb, and use Disk Warrior to regularly rebuild, repair and monitor my raid's.

 

[nigelbb]

Not true. I have multiple raid volumes, up to 16Tb, and use Disk Warrior to regularly rebuild, repair and monitor my raid's.

In that case they are not RAID0 disk sets. RAID0 is disk striping where disk IOs are split between the members of the set & performed simultaneously so in the simplest case of a two disk set the RAID volume looks like a single disk that is double the size & double the performance of a single disk. There is however no redundancy or parity disk (as with RAID5) so if a disk dies then the whole disk set is destroyed with no way of recovering the data.

 

[leighrk]

Again not true - all of my RAID arrays are RAID0 without redundancy. I only store movies and music that I keep backed up elsewhere so I can use them with PLEX or iTunes for replay. Disk Warrior will chug through all of them quite happily and repair them.

 

[mcnallym]

Your talking about different things.

Diskwarrior can sort out directories, permissions etc on RAID0 volumes. If the RAID0 volume fails as in the Disk Fails, then you won't be able to rebuild the actual RAID0 itself by inserting a replacement drive.

Take Disk out and replace with a fresh disk. Disk Warrior won't rebuild that RAID0 for you which is what nigelbb is talking about.

 

[ixxx69]

Hi everyone,

Can you guys give me advice on how to configure my disks? I'm switching from a windows workstation to a mac pro 5,1. Currently I'm running two 3TB drives in Raid0 and two other 3TB drives in Raid0. Both Raids are used for storage and backed up on two other systems. As I have to format all four disks I now have te opportunity to configure them in a different way: One Raid0 containing all four disks or Raid5 containing all four disks, leaving me with less storage space, but I also won't lose time rebuilding the Raid in case of a one disk failure (right?). Or should I stay with the current setup (two separate Raid0's?).
The system will be used for (heavy) video editing including high resolution footage. If I choose the Raid0 with all four disks in it, I assume I will get the fastest read and write speeds if I were to work on one project only at the same time. But on a regular working day I'm not doing just one project, meanwhile I'm also say exporting another project, copying/ingesting files and so on.

Looking forward to your advice!

The best performance is RAID 0. RAID 5 is still pretty fast these days compared to the old days. Whether a few extra MB/s is worth giving up the RAID 5 redundancy is something only you can decide.

Keep in mind that the more drives in you have in a RAID, the greater chance you'll end up with a bum drive. This is especially noteworthy with RAID 0 where you can't "rebuild" the RAID.

RAID 5 offers some protection, though also keep in mind that performance is generally pretty bad while a RAID is rebuilding, which may be unacceptable performance for video editing in the event that a rebuild is necessary.

I would suggest checking out SoftRAID for setting up your RAID (regardless of the RAID you decide on) - I understand that they offer some features that AppleRAID doesn't. (that's just from my readings over the years - I haven't used the product myself).

Good luck!

 

[leighrk]

Your talking about different things.

Diskwarrior can sort out directories, permissions etc on RAID0 volumes. If the RAID0 volume fails as in the Disk Fails, then you won't be able to rebuild the actual RAID0 itself by inserting a replacement drive.

Take Disk out and replace with a fresh disk. Disk Warrior won't rebuild that RAID0 for you which is what nigelbb is talking about.

That is rebuilding after a hardware failure, and Disk Warrior will not do that. SMART status will often give warning re impending hardware failure and then restoring the content after backing it up elsewhere will allow it to be maintained.
So RAID0 is still a reasonable data storage device for non-critical files. I would not trust critical files on any drive unless it was saved elsewhere as well in case of loss or damage.
Given the original poster's preference for speed, he would be better off going for RAID0, or if money is no object configuring SSD's as a RAID. Bit expensive though, but for a scratch drive, may be worth it.

 

[ixxx69]

That is rebuilding after a hardware failure, and Disk Warrior will not do that. SMART status will often give warning re impending hardware failure and then restoring the content after backing it up elsewhere will allow it to be maintained.
So RAID0 is still a reasonable data storage device for non-critical files. I would not trust critical files on any drive unless it was saved elsewhere as well in case of loss or damage.
Given the original poster's preference for speed, he would be better off going for RAID0, or if money is no object configuring SSD's as a RAID. Bit expensive though, but for a scratch drive, may be worth it.

Why not just admit that you spoke as an authority about something which you did not understand, and apologize for that, rather continuing to speak as though you are an authority on the subject?

 

[Bytehoven]

Just a note on SoftRAID... we have been test driving it, making comparisons to 10.10.5 disk utility raids as well as hardware raids thru an ATTO R680 on our Mac Pro.

SoftRAID does provide some additional features compared to raid built under disk utility, and in that sense it's worth it.

However, the $150 spent on a full boat SoftRAID could really be better spent on a PCIe RAID controller card. In our case we are using the R680 with an external 8 bay SAS enclosure, but there are other build options using the internal drive bays. The speed difference is sick, even with traditional HDDs. The R680 also offers a ton of RAID tuning features to dial in raid performance to meet your use.

So, now that your switching to the Mac Pro and all of that expandability and flexibility, think long and hard before you spend any more money.

Let me just add, something I did not know until I tested it... you can BOOT OS X off a HDD mounted on the ATTO R680. YES. The boot volume can be a pass through drive or a RAID built from any number of HDDs, including SSDs.

Just to add another twist... I also have the Sonnet Tempo Duo PCIe card which has 2x USB 3.0 ports and 2x 6G/s eSATA ports. An OS X volume can boot from either of the eSATA ports. This is a cheaper solution if you can live with the 6G/s speed of eSATA and one or two 5 bay external eSATA enclosures. (ps... the miniSAS is way faster but more $$$)

You have tones of options with the Mac Pro. Good luck and feel free to pick my brain.