Need Storage Advice for Mac Pro 5,1 (Mid 2010)

[TheHerdForever]

Okay Mac Guru's:

Got a dilemma that I need to resolve ASAP and I was wondering if the experts here can help me out. So here goes....

With the help of various folks on this forum, I was able to purchase and upgrade a MP Mid 2010 (5,1) tower with 2 x 3.46 GHz CPUs, 128 GB of RAM and a nVidia Titan GPU from MacVidCards. The only item I did not purchase is storage.

The reasoning for not purchasing storage is simple...there are too many options out there to choose from and I'm not comfortable with some of the solutions folks has posted in this forum (it may be me though since I'm paranoid). I'm going to use my MP for the following:

1) 4K/HD video editing (I purchased a DSLR Pro drone for aerial footage)
2) Photo editing (I have FCPX and plan on getting Adobe Cloud Suite Apps)
3) Scoring to film or photo slides using Logic Pro X

From the looks of it, I would like to use an all SSD solution and was wondering what should I do in terms of purchasing SSD drives/RAID cards to give me the best speed, performance and scalability. Currently, I have the stock 1 TB 7200 RPM hard drive in the MP and it is ssssllllllloooooowwwww! Any help with this will be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[flatfoot]

There's no dilemma here (look up a definition ).

If I were in your shoes, I'd find the SSD that is the best bang for the buck in terms of price, speed etc., buy a bunch if them, and RAID them using OS X's software RAID.

 

[TheHerdForever]

There's no dilemma here (look up a definition ).

If I were in your shoes, I'd find the SSD that is the best bang for the buck in terms of price, speed etc., buy a bunch if them, and RAID them using OS X's software RAID.

Gotcha, but isn't hard RAID faster than software RAID? I would think so since hardware talks/communicates with the mobo firmware faster than software would.

 

[TheHerdForever]

There's no dilemma here (look up a definition ).

If I were in your shoes, I'd find the SSD that is the best bang for the buck in terms of price, speed etc., buy a bunch if them, and RAID them using OS X's software RAID.

Does anyone use the Tempo SSD Pro Plus? If so, how do you like it? And what about the OWC Mercury Accelsior E2? Any comments on these devices?

 

[h9826790]

What's your budget?

You can mount 6 SATA 3 SSD (e.g. Samsung 840 Pro x6) on 3 Tempo SSD Pro card, and RAID them all together. Which will give you more than 2500MB/s.

 

[flatfoot]

What's your budget?

You can mount 6 SATA 3 SSD (e.g. Samsung 840 Pro x6) on 3 Tempo SSD Pro card, and RAID them all together. Which will give you more than 2500MB/s.

Ah, yes, I forgot that the internal ports are just SATA 2. In that case it does make sense to get (a) SATA 3 card(s) and while you're at it you might get a RAID one, too.

 

[TheHerdForever]

What's your budget?

You can mount 6 SATA 3 SSD (e.g. Samsung 840 Pro x6) on 3 Tempo SSD Pro card, and RAID them all together. Which will give you more than 2500MB/s.

Keep it around ~ $1500-$2000. If I can do it for less, I would welcome that too if I can get performance and scalability out of what I purchase. To start off with, I think I would like to go with a 2 x SSD RAID PCIe card and put the OS/media apps on it. Then I would like to store the application data files internally on other SSD's; either using another RAID PCIe card, or using the existing MP internal drive slots. Back up of both apps and data files would be done externally in case I blow up the MP due to serious video/music editing and production.

 

[h9826790]

$2000 should be enough to get 3 Tempo SSD Pro + 6 Samsung 840 Pro 256G SSD.

It will give you total 1.5T super high speed storage. Speed up to 2880MB/s, but most likely will be around 2500MB/s.

Of course. It give you flexbility. This combination fit your plan (2 x PCIe card for OS / apps, and 1 x PCIe card for storage).

The Accelsior E2 is a good choice as well. It should be the least trouble option. (The Tempo card will break your boot manager and you can't install windows on it. For installing OSX on them in RAID 0 (as your plan), I think you need to mount all 4 SSD in your Mac Pro's SATA 2 port, install the OS, and then transfer the SSD back to the card.) However, the Accelsior E2 is much slower than the Tempo SSD Pro RAID 0 in OSX (680MB/s vs 960MB/s).

Another choice is the Velocity solo x2 card. It give you up to 800MB/s per card. It's much cheaper than the Tempo SSD Pro, but only has one slot for SSD, the 2nd SSD must place at somewhere with the cable.

 

[TheHerdForever]

$2000 should be enough to get 3 Tempo SSD Pro + 6 Samsung 840 Pro 256G SSD.

It will give you total 1.5T super high speed storage. Speed up to 2880MB/s, but most likely will be around 2500MB/s.

Of course. It give you flexbility. This combination fit your plan (2 x PCIe card for OS / apps, and 1 x PCIe card for storage).

The Accelsior E2 is a good choice as well. It should be the least trouble option. (The Tempo card will break your boot manager and you can't install windows on it. For installing OSX on them in RAID 0 (as your plan), I think you need to mount all 4 SSD in your Mac Pro's SATA 2 port, install the OS, and then transfer the SSD back to the card.) However, the Accelsior E2 is much slower than the Tempo SSD Pro RAID 0 in OSX (680MB/s vs 960MB/s).

Another choice is the Velocity solo x2 card. It give you up to 800MB/s per card. It's much cheaper than the Tempo SSD Pro, but only has one slot for SSD, the 2nd SSD must place at somewhere with the cable.

Thanks! Will give this some thought.

 

[OS6-OSX]

Gotcha, but isn't hard RAID faster than software RAID? I would think so since hardware talks/communicates with the mobo firmware faster than software would.

Software RAID is limited to RAID 0. Also, keep in mind if you use SSD's as your "storage" the total amount of space available. The trade off is speed v. size v. price. If using RAID 0 you will need a drive for backup. Maybe that slow 1TB HD you spoke of.

 

[funwithdesign]

Software RAID is limited to RAID 0. Also, keep in mind if you use SSD's as your "storage" the total amount of space available. The trade off is speed v. size v. price. If using RAID 0 you will need a drive for backup. Maybe that slow 1TB HD you spoke of.

You can do Raid 0+1 with software Raid. Gives you speed plus redundancy.

Regardless of what RAID level you choose, you will still need backup. Redundancy is not a replacement for backup.