Anyone else have chronic G-RAID problems?

I almost bought one of those sans digital 8 bay towers, the thing that turned me off to them was the spotty reviews on newegg, and that they rely on the pci host adapter card for operation. so if your computer dies, you cannot simply plug the tower into another system and keep going, that backup scenario is critical to me. but since 2tb drives are so cheap, you could do the same setup with 4x2tb in the mediasonic box, which does have built in operation, and has usb, firewire, estata, etc...

curious, what bitrates are you editing richter? 150/sec does work fine for me but i'm by no means handling 4k or raw. maybe i could grab a file from you to test out
 
With an 8 drive raid you can swith to another system. You will have to rebuild the array though. (and remember the drive order) (no data loss, just a lot of time) That is one of the reason i use raid 10 over 5. The rebuild for raid 10 is a lot quicker. Also write speed on 10 is better.

150/sec will work fine for anything in DVCPRO HD. It will not work for uncompressed HD. It will also slow you down in huge ass renders. I found 6 drives is about as much as you need. (internal raid now)

You could do the same with a 4 drive raid, but you do get slower speeds. I found 4 drive raid 10 a little annoying during big renders. With a 6 or8 disk raid my I7 will run flat out all cores maxed cranking about 50C out. With a 4 disk array my cpu chills out at 60-70% (only 35C) since the hard drives can't keep up. (rendering dvpro hd to export to bluray).

That being said, a 4 disk array is more portable and can be moved without the need to rebuild every time.

In either case, buying a 3rd party enclosure and building yourself is a lot better and cheaper then the graid.
 
yea the rebuild time kills it for me, and seems no one makes a hardware raid 8 bay as of yet, what i'll consider doing is when i need to expand i'll get a second of these 4bays, raid O each of them, then windows mirror them, but for now this solution works great, if i really needed more speed i could put some faster drives in it that would likely push 250/300
 
I've got 6 G-Tech products sitting here: 1 G-Speed es, 3 G-Raids, and 2 mini's. I had one of the drives in the G-Speed es start to go on me. After talking with tech support I decided to buy a replacent drive online and have it delivered within 48 hours--it was just easier.

Anyhow, I've got the fan issue in my 2tb G-Raid. I'm just going to source another fan (probably only a buck or two) and replace it myself when I get the time.
All this talk about who's more reliable is just idle conversation because more often than not it's the drives NOT the internals that fail (which is a really good reason to have a raid array in the first place).

I'm about to upgrade my G-Speed es from 2 to 8tb. All I have to do is decide whose drives I am going to buy, Hitachi, WD, Seagate? Unfortunately there isn't any likelihood that one will outlast the other.
That's why I backup all commercial footage to LTO tape.

Anyhow back to your original topic . . . Yep, I too have/had the fan issue. It evidently is a repeatable problem with some of their enclosures. I agree that it appears to be a public relations nightmare that evidently is not receiving the appropriate amount of attention from G-Tech.

What I think business sometimes fails to reconize it that, while they enjoy huge market-share today . . . by the time it begins to erode (noticably) it's usually to late.

We're, most of us anyway, brand loyal. This is a "ten cent" problem and I think they are missing an opportunity. Too bad.

Best.
 
imdjay said:
yea the rebuild time kills it for me, and seems no one makes a hardware raid 8 bay as of yet, what i'll consider doing is when i need to expand i'll get a second of these 4bays, raid O each of them, then windows mirror them, but for now this solution works great, if i really needed more speed i could put some faster drives in it that would likely push 250/300
Click to expand...

4 is fine for anyone without a real supped up computer that can take advantage of additional speed. I'm maybe shaving 20% off my render times with 2 extra drives. I would highly recommend against using 2 4bays and using windows to mirror. First off, that uses your cpu to do the work. Secondly you loose a lot of your awesome speed because its not a hardware raid. I'm sure someone will make a sata 3 (6gb/s) single esata 8 bay raid, but none are made yet. Probaly because esata is technically not 6gb/s although it is if your esata port is plugged into a 6gb/s sata port. The 4 bay enclosure are probably fine for you, but you will save a lot putting the derives in your self as apposed to buying a pre built one.
-Cody
 
Any external that isn't RAID 1+ is at risk, my professional experience with G-RAIDS has not been good. I recently read that to save money, Hitachi down graded the quality of the hard disk assembly inside their G-RAIDS. Maybe this explains why I have had two G-Raid failures in the last year!

As far as reliability, I don't trust G-RAID's products.

CALDIGIT's are where it's at!

-Matt
www.redearthla.com
 
Found this as I was searching for fan issues with G-Raids. I'm in the process of transferring data from my G-Drive to an internal I just bought, coincidentally. It's a low-hum/vibration that's louder at the rear of the drive. I'm not entirely sure it's the fan, but I certainly hope it is. It was VERY loud this morning, and has since been much quieter.
 
Richard Crowley said:
I most frequently use raw drives and plug-in docking stations. No fans!
Click to expand...

Richard Crowley said:
Most of the drive sticks up into the ambient air. Stays cooler than in any case.
Click to expand...


Be very careful with these. I have one and it's a two slot version and if I have two drives in running they overheat and stop working. Place a small fan blowing across them and it's fine. Remove one drive and its usually ok.

Personally I will never trust one of those crappy docks ever again. It's just not worth it...


At the same time,

I have a 6TB G-RAID and have yet to have any issues with it at all. I love it.

I also have one of OWC's (Other World Computing) Mercury Pro Qx4 array and that has also been working really well too. And OWC's Customer service is amazing which is always nice.
 
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