MP All Models To Raid1 or - ?

[cosmichobo]

G'day,

Sorry, I know it's a bit of a nubie question.

I have 2 x WD "Green Cavier" 1TB 7200rpm drives that I set up as Raid1 inside an external FireWire800 enclosure about 6 years ago for use with my iMac - acting as a scratch drive for video editing.

When I upgraded to my 5,1 tower, I decided to keep them as they were, however I've now decided to put them inside the 5,1, and use the external box for my backup drives. (Easier to grab the box in case of emergency... goes the theory.)

Question therefore - should I keep the 2x1TBs in Raid1? Or stop using Raid? Or use a different Raid?

When I moved them into the MacPro I was expecting they would need to be reformat in order to use them (so copied over all of their data to another drive). I found however - they have retained their data, and simply appear as exact duplicates of each other. (Yes, I know that's what Raid1 is - I just didn't expect once they were "unplugged" and not set up as Raid, that the data would be accessible.)

I've read the Wiki on Raid1... but - what do people here think?

Is Raid1 advantageous for video editing? Should I do something different?

Cheers and thanks

cosmic

 

[Gr1f]

If anything I would use Raid 0 instead of Raid 1 as Raid 0 will give you all 2TB and be theoretically twice as fast. Raid 1 is safer as it mirrors the 2 drives so if one fails you have the other.

With the relative low cost of SSDs I personally would demote those 2 spinners to backup drives either as separate drives or added security as you have it in Raid 1 and go for an SSD solution for scratch. NVMe variant being the fastest solution.

There's a super thread here on SSD solutions.
PCIe SSDs - NVMe & AHCI

 

[cosmichobo]

Thanks for the reply!

I might give Raid0 a go - be interesting to see how it compares, though even just being inside the MacPro instead of connected via FireWire800 should hopefully see improvement. I tested the drives in DriveDX - both are without failure/warnings, though at about 85% overall.

Ultimately I'd love to chuck my existing 500GB Evo SSD (startup disk; connected in lower optical bay) - plus another similar size drive for video editing onto a PCIe card... but I'm currently debating the move to an M1 Mini / NAS, so trying not to spend too much money on the beastie. (Even $150 for a new 4TB WD Red back up drive was pushing things, but at least it could end up in the NAS, if that's the way I go...)

Cheers

 

[Gr1f]

Well consider that you can get a cheapo PCIe M.2 SSD NVMe card for about $15 and a 1T NMVe SSD for about $130 it would give you significant speed increase for under $150.... best bang for buck in a 5,1 imho. I'd leave the system on the old Sata SSD if it's purely scratch speed you need. Think a PCIe Sata card from Sonnet is ~$125?

When I did this to my 5,1 I almost instantly got another NVMe such was the difference.

M1 Mini would make it all redundant though.

 

[cosmichobo]

Seems the Raid question has become a moot point - 1 of the Green Caviars is going bad. Drive DX has updated its status - 1 of them is throwing up a "Reallocated Sector Count" warning, and the other has dropped from 82% to 78%.

Because I have a 2.5" SATA SSD, I was looking at PCIe cards for that format. Cheapest I've seen was $65 for a card that takes 2 drives - only "x1" however, so not great speeds.

Thinking on it... I will have a 128GB NVMe SSD from a MacBookAir that I could use as a scratch... and as you noted - I see on eBay there's $15 PCIe cards for them. It wouldn't give me a lot of space, but at least as a test...