Buying a RAID drive- PLS help.

rook

rook

Veteran
Hey guys,

I'm in the market this week for a raid drive (500gigs or less)

You folks have always delivered great help and info. So what's the word?

There was some talk a while back but those threads don't seem to be kicking any more. I'm assuming that everyone has had time now to have their drive cause them problems or not.

What do you suggest I go with and what should I stay clear of?

Thanks in advance for the help, I appreciate it more than you guys know.

-rook
 
I have one in my G5. Works great. Added another internal 160 gig drive and use it as my system/applications. I usually get around 110-140 megs/second.

I'm thinking of getting more drives to do a 4 drive raid. Its as easy as pie if you've got a g5. Dunno about the pc's tho.
 
With prices dropping, it makes sense to get a bigger solution like one of the 1 TeraByte external NAS units that are becoming popular. 500GB doesn't last long for me, but it all depends on usage, concurrent projects, and of course your wallet.
 
redcap,

which brand is it you are using?

King,

yeah, I hear ya but I'm on a buget and 1TB is expensive.

-rook
 
rook said:
Hey guys,

I'm in the market this week for a raid drive (500gigs or less)

You folks have always delivered great help and info. So what's the word?

There was some talk a while back but those threads don't seem to be kicking any more. I'm assuming that everyone has had time now to have their drive cause them problems or not.

What do you suggest I go with and what should I stay clear of?
Click to expand...

What system do you have? What is the RAID for? What kind of RAID?

For an inexpensive RAID0 or RAID1 setup I'd suggest 2x Seagate 7200.10 320 GB SATA2 drives.
For a RAID5 I'd recommend IBM or Seagate 10k or 15k SCSI/SAS drives.

Stay away from Maxtor.
 
Just to be clear: you do realize a RAID drive is really 2 or more regular drives, right?

My computer has 2 RAID arrays. One 0 and one 1. All four drives are MAXTOR, running on the built-in VIA raid controller (ASUS motherboard). Been going strong for 3 years now. (Maybe more? Who remembers stuff like that? :) )

A much better solution is a SCSI card and drives, but the IDE or SATA built-ins work fine.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

I run a 15" powerbook, 1.25GHz, 768MB RAM, with FCP 5.

I'm starting to do some HDV work and it's my understanding that a raid set up is essential for speed and security of files.

Plus all my other drives are full.

To be honest I'm looking for a plug and play option.

Been looking at this.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...LATBESA500&is=REG&Q=&O=productlist&sku=418534

But to be honest, I haven't yet gotten my head around Raid 0, raid 1, Raid 2....etc...

thanks,
rook
 
Thats a fairly good deal, although you can get 400GB PATA (Newer Perpendicular Drives) for $110 as of late (Seagate as well). With a decent enclosure running less then $100, you could drop about $300 and have a solid 800GB of space and then use the extra $150 you saved on another 400GB drive :)
 
The LaCie drive you speak of is a Serial ATA interface, which won't work with your Powerbook, you're going to need something that is FW800 like this drive from GTech. I've heard bad things about the LaCie's drive and their power adapers, and I think Blaine can attest to this. The GTech offers RAID 0, which writes to both drives at the same time (treating them as one big drive) which gives you the higher speeds. If you want speed and backup then you need something like a RAID5, which is very pricey.
 
Or you can get a SATA PCMCIA card to put in the powerbook, then you can use the SATA solutions (which benchmark faster than FW800). That being said, I use FW800 solutions. GTech make great drives and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.
 
rook said:
But to be honest, I haven't yet gotten my head around Raid 0, raid 1, Raid 2....etc...
Click to expand...

OK.

RAID 0: 2 or more drives with the files being written a little on one, a little bit on the next (and the next and the next, depending on how many there are). Fast read/write access. BUT, if one drive goes bad, you lose everything. Good for the drives that get written to a lot. The one with the swap file, maybe the one being rendered to.

RAID 1: 2 drives "mirrored". A complete copy of all your stuff on both drives. If one goes bad...you still have a complete set and the mirror can be rebuilt when you put a new drive in. (Put all your can't-afford-to-lose stuff on this.)

RAID 2: no such thing. :)

RAID 3, 4: who cares? No one uses them.

RAID 5: data is spread across multiple drives (at least 3). Faster access than a single drive. If a drive goes bad, replace it and the missing data gets magically recreated. (Sooner or later. I've had it take over a day). Best set up. Most expensive.

RAID 1+0: 4 drives. Two pair of striped (RAID 0) drives, but mirrored (RAID 1). Fast access with data protection from the complete copy.
 
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