Building a good RAID array

[filmguy123]

I know you can buy than from Apple for an arm and a leg - not what I'm talking about.

What is a good way to build a RAID array for my MacPro? IE, shopping off of newegg. I'd buy a bunch of Seagate 1TB HDD's, but what do I need for the enclosure, controller cards or what not, cables, etc.? Stuff to hotswap drives easily?

Don't really know much about using/building a RAID array, any tips/help would be appreciated...

PS - anyone know off the top of their head which RAID # it is for striping + full mirror (ie, 3x1TB drives striped for performance, and then another 3x1TB for perfect 100% data coverage?)

 

[Shane Ross]

Well, I built this...

http://lfhd.blogspot.com/2006/12/dark-tower-sata-raid.html

Although now I have a Port Multiplied eSATA card from CalDigit, and I got a PortMultilier controller for the case as well. forget the part number...to tired and lazy to search.

RAID 0 is a striped RAID and basically stripes all your drives to appear as one drive. Very fast, but no protection. RAID 1 requires you to RAID an even number of drives, and the information will be mirrored. However, the transfer rate will be VERY slow. If you are talking RAID 5 protecdtion, then you are in a whole different ballgame...needing a RAID CONTROLLER. In this case, I'd recommend against doing it yourself and just buying a CalDigit or Sonnet or MaxxDigital box. I have this raid, then back up the footage to the firewire drives I have. A manual RAID 1 if you will.

 

[capt chuck]

Adaptec has a lot of great information on their site. One the thing I learned there is that the consumer hard drives don't always work great in a raid configuration because of the way they do extended error correction. I ended up getting enterprise drives from newegg at bit of a premium over consumer, but they should work better in the long run. Here is an article on adaptec that lists "raid friendly" drives: http://www.adaptec.com/NR/rdonlyres...RCSASCompatibilityReport_030708_3x05_3085.pdf