Are Raid drives obsolete?
- Thread starter Amadou
- Start date
They are still useful. Maybe a bit less than in the past, but ...
You can put 2 SSD's in a RAID 0 to double their speed. Especially if you are just using them as a Scratch drive, which I have done. Instead of buying 1x 240 GB SSD, I bought 2 x 120 GB SSD. You can do a RAID 0, because it is mostly just transitive data that you can rebuild.
My main Project drives are still HDD's, as they are 3 TB each. I put 2 of those in a RAID 0 to create a 6 TB drive with almost double the speed. Which is a little dangerous - because it doubles their chance of failure - but they are automatically backed up nightly to my NAS.
The NAS itself uses a RAID 5 among 4 drives, which increases the speed but also provides redundancy, while using about 1/3 of the total space. You can also use a RAID 10, which gives 4x the speed of a single drive, but only 1/2 of teh space. So you get the best features of both types of RAID - faster performance, but the ability to recover if any of the drives go down.
In general though - yes, it is easier to get usable performance with SSD's today tahn in the past with only HDD's.
I spent about a month benchmarking Adobe CS6 on my machine, researching, upgrading, and testing my system about 2 years ago. i7, 27 GB of RAM, multiple drives, RAIDs, SSD's, GPU.
Then you just use it and forget about the technical details .... But if you have RAID controllers, you may as well use them.
Cheers,
Michael
You can put 2 SSD's in a RAID 0 to double their speed. Especially if you are just using them as a Scratch drive, which I have done. Instead of buying 1x 240 GB SSD, I bought 2 x 120 GB SSD. You can do a RAID 0, because it is mostly just transitive data that you can rebuild.
My main Project drives are still HDD's, as they are 3 TB each. I put 2 of those in a RAID 0 to create a 6 TB drive with almost double the speed. Which is a little dangerous - because it doubles their chance of failure - but they are automatically backed up nightly to my NAS.
The NAS itself uses a RAID 5 among 4 drives, which increases the speed but also provides redundancy, while using about 1/3 of the total space. You can also use a RAID 10, which gives 4x the speed of a single drive, but only 1/2 of teh space. So you get the best features of both types of RAID - faster performance, but the ability to recover if any of the drives go down.
In general though - yes, it is easier to get usable performance with SSD's today tahn in the past with only HDD's.
I spent about a month benchmarking Adobe CS6 on my machine, researching, upgrading, and testing my system about 2 years ago. i7, 27 GB of RAM, multiple drives, RAIDs, SSD's, GPU.
Then you just use it and forget about the technical details .... But if you have RAID controllers, you may as well use them.
Cheers,
Michael
Kevin Monahan
Active member
Hi,
RAID is not only for speed, it's for data protection.
Thanks,
Kevin
RAID is not only for speed, it's for data protection.
Thanks,
Kevin
egproductions
Veteran
It would be a pretty bold choice to keep work files on a single SSD. If an HDD fails, files can usually be recovered if an SSD fails you are usually without a paddle. I've also found that SSDs are not yet as reliable as HDDs.
Definitely NOT obsolete. I run a Caldigit raid 5. Two HDD's have died in it in the last 6 months. Data Loss 0. Pull out dead drive > replace> rebuild > go play golf or other fun activity > come home > restored.
FWIW two dead drives weren't dead on the drive themselves, something on the board so the spinning disc was not the cause.
FWIW two dead drives weren't dead on the drive themselves, something on the board so the spinning disc was not the cause.
tired
Well-known member
RAID is about redundancy more than speed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
I've been luckier than Noel with my raid 5, only lost 2 drives in the last 3 years but - no data loss, that's the point. If you're just using raid 0 for speed with no backup - good luck!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
I've been luckier than Noel with my raid 5, only lost 2 drives in the last 3 years but - no data loss, that's the point. If you're just using raid 0 for speed with no backup - good luck!
Andrius Simutis
Veteran
What's obsolete about pairing disks together? Either for speed or redundancy, it's still useful. If you want to ask if spinning disk HDs are obsolete then the answer is also no.
You need to balance cost, speed, space, and safety. SSDs are fast, but they're expensive and limited in size.
I have a RAID internally on my MacPro. It's 6 TB and cost $200. Speed is about equal to a SSD for most uses. How much would that cost in SSDs? $4,000 and it would be six drives so I couldn't even do that on my MacPro for a lack of connections.
You need to balance cost, speed, space, and safety. SSDs are fast, but they're expensive and limited in size.
I have a RAID internally on my MacPro. It's 6 TB and cost $200. Speed is about equal to a SSD for most uses. How much would that cost in SSDs? $4,000 and it would be six drives so I couldn't even do that on my MacPro for a lack of connections.
Andrius Simutis
Veteran
Not really. It can be either. Mirrored disks are about redundancy while paired disks are about speed. Set up your RAID according to your needs. With HD footage, raw, and now 4k, we still need speed in order to edit.
andrius-
i'm rather new to raids.
did you use the apple disk utility software to set-up your raid?
is a raid controller necessary or can it all be done via software.
care to share how you set-up your mac pro raid?
thanks in advance for any info you can share.
be well.
rob
smalltalk productions/nyc
i'm rather new to raids.
did you use the apple disk utility software to set-up your raid?
is a raid controller necessary or can it all be done via software.
care to share how you set-up your mac pro raid?
thanks in advance for any info you can share.
be well.
rob
smalltalk productions/nyc
Marino215
Well-known member
No way, Like others said the SSDs aren't quite there yet as far as reliability. No redundeancy, like my 8 drive, 2TB raid 6. I can afford to loose 2 drives and still keep my files in tact, I'm running about 670 Mbps. SSDs are great for system drives and scratch disks.
Andrius Simutis
Veteran
Yep. Easy peasy. It's only a few clicks and works just fine. The only caveat is that it won't be recognized on the Windows side if you use Boot Camp (unless that's changed in the latest OS).
Software is fine as long as you don't need to access it from Windows in Boot Camp.
Stuck a couple drives in there and used Disk Utility to set them as a RAID.
You're welcome. One thing though, before you install your RAID you might need a new keyboard. You're shift key seems to be broken.
