What mirrored SATA Raid should I buy?

M

mindlikethesky

Member
I want to get a mirrored RAID for use in the field with my HVX-200. For now I'm downloading P2 cards straight to FCP 5.1.2 on an old PowerBook G4, but plan to update to a MacBook when the Duel Systems adaptor comes out.

People are telling me the G-Raids and Webetechs (sp.) are the best, but what about this 1.25 TB LaCie drive? It has Raid 0, 1, and 0+1.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...947&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

Also, is it really not reliable to download P2 cards to a Mac as some people on dvxuser.com are saying? Some of the top techs on commercials and TV in NYC have been going to Macs for a while now and have reported absolutely no problems. And they recommend it at Abel Cine Tech, which is a reputable place.

Stefan
www.freaktheframe.com
 
Not a fan of Lacie's. I read about too many issues on other forums.

The reason wiebetech and g-raid are expensive is because, I believe, they are better.

And if you want redundant backup, get the best
 
I've been real happy with useing a esata Raid Express Card in my Laptop useing 2 Segate 500gig Esata or Sata II drives with it.

I was dumping and mirrored 8 GIG in 6-7 min


VP
 
Is there any significance in using the esata raid express card over the cheaper esata express card that does not say RAID?
 
Thanks for all the thoughts - I just got 2 G-Raid 500GB's. Another question: how should I format them? Should I make partitions, and if so, what size?
 
But the G-Raid is not mirrored. You only get Raid Level 0.
The chance of losing data is twice as high....

PK
 
Well, you can set up the 2 G-Raid Drives in Disk Utility as a mirrored set.
just create a new raid set - choose Mirrored Raid Set - drag and drop the 2 drives in the box and hit create.

mind you - this is way less than ideal i think. using mirrored sets slows down performance greatly. i usually prefer to backup in the field to a striped set that is fast and then back that up manually after the p2 transfer is done. just gets your p2 in and out quicker.
also now you have 2 boxes, 2 power supplies, more cables, etc... i would recommend a 4 drive enclosure box with (4) 500gb drives and an SATA card for your laptop. make 2 striped sets from this and then mirror those 2 together. that way the box has a mirrored 1TB drive in one self contained unit and probably a lot cheaper than those G-Techs. that's what i'd do for mirrored in the field.

-anthony
 
By the way, for Mac users who want to set up a software RAID 1 (Mirror), I suggest SoftRAID, that's what I use. It's nicer to work with than Apple's own disk utility (it's actually more Mac-like). I worked on a documentary this summer where we went through more than 50 P2 card loads. We were ingesting P2 loads faster than I could backup. I was using two LaCie drives (crap in my opinion, but that's another story). One drive had problems. Software RAID-1 saved the day. Crisis averted.

By the way, consider this: RAID 1 mirrors are NOT the functional equivalent of doing backups, don't let mirroring give you a false sense of security. You still need to archive your data at some point. It's too easy to delete a file on a mirror. And it's gone. Mirrors are a good strategy to reduce the chances of data loss due to drive failure. They are not a substitute for creating a backup.
 
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