Resolved Velocity x2 or no?

[NOTNlCE]

Hello all,
With Black Friday rapidly approaching, I'm upgrading my existing 320GB HDD in my 3,1 to (hopefully) a 1.1TB Fusion Drive, with a WD Black and either a 90 or 120GB SSD. I've read quite a bit into this, and to be quite honest, I am not at all displeased with the performance of even my current drive. I have an SSD in my Hackintosh, running at SATA 6 speeds. I'm well aware I won't be able to reach that kind of performance without the Velocity x2, but I'm not too keen on throwing another $100 into SSD performance I'm not sure I need. The WD Black is going to improve performance drastically, regardless. So my question to you guys is: Should I JUST get the WD Black, OR should I Fusion Drive with an SSD and WD Black at SATA 3Gbps speeds, OR should I really shell out the extra hundred for the Velocity x2, and Fusion Drive with an SSD and WD Black, OR should I use one of these methods without going the Fusion Drive route? Again, I'm not at all upset with the performance on my existing 320GB Drive, the one that actually shipped with the Mac. I just need more storage.

 

[Celedral]

You could Raid two WD HDDs which will give you performance and storage. But as with all raid 0 setups, there's always a chance of drive failure, slim.

 

[NOTNlCE]

You could Raid two WD HDDs which will give you performance and storage. But as with all raid 0 setups, there's always a chance of drive failure, slim.

Interesting. Didn't think of that, it would certainly be cheaper and give more storage for the price. The RAID isn't as much of a concern, now that I'm thinking about it, since if a piece of the Fusion Drive failed, I would be in the same situation. So this poses another question. I do my video editing under Premiere in OS X, but I use ShadowPlay under Windows 7 for video capture. If I go the 2TB RAID array, am I going to have issues editing files or accessing drives under Boot Camp?

 

[Gymnut]

Interesting. Didn't think of that, it would certainly be cheaper and give more storage for the price. The RAID isn't as much of a concern, now that I'm thinking about it, since if a piece of the Fusion Drive failed, I would be in the same situation. So this poses another question. I do my video editing under Premiere in OS X, but I use ShadowPlay under Windows 7 for video capture. If I go the 2TB RAID array, am I going to have issues editing files or accessing drives under Boot Camp?

Windows will not recognize your RAID 0 if it's a software RAID created by Disk Utility. I had a RAID 0 volume that caused issues for me when I had it and launched Windows 7 through Bootcamp. BSOD without fail, so I'd pull the drive sleds before jumping into Win 7. Paragon has software that allows you to see Mac OSX formatted drives under Windows and vice versa, but again, I'm hesitant to say that Windows is going to recognize a software RAID volume created in Disk U.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Windows will not recognize your RAID 0 if it's a software RAID created by Disk Utility. I had a RAID 0 volume that caused issues for me when I had it and launched Windows 7 through Bootcamp. BSOD without fail, so I'd pull the drive sleds before jumping into Win 7. Paragon has software that allows you to see Mac OSX formatted drives under Windows and vice versa, but again, I'm hesitant to say that Windows is going to recognize a software RAID volume created in Disk U.

Good to know, sounds like Fusion Drive might be the way to go once again. My Windows 7 drive is currently a 160GB drive I got with my Mac Pro, and that will be moved to the 320GB OS X is on right now. That leaves the 160GB to be NTFS formatted for writing my screen capture in Windows. I have NTFS software for OS X so that I can read and write from this drive, but with the storage capacity of the Fusion Drive, the 160 will only be storing RAW files, and the render files will be deleted after the videos are compiled. This way, Windows won't need to see or use the OS X volumes.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Just wanted to fill everyone in. Went Cyber Monday shopping at the Local Micro Center today and picked up a 120GB 840 EVO and a Toshiba 1TB for $80 and $60 respectively, only to find a Velocity Solo x1 on sale for $25. Came home and created a Fusion Drive through CoreStorage, and it's BLAZING fast. 10/10 would recommend. Cloning the BootCamp drive as I type this, that will be moved over to the 320GB that OS X was originally on, and the 160GB that had Windows will be a render drive. Thanks to everyone who gave me advice, I am very pleased with my choice.
-N

 

[costabunny]

Always good to see when someone puts a resolved post up with an update.

You will be pleased with that combo - i have it also and have mounted two ssd's to the card.

Nice and fast