DAS RAID system for older Mac Pro with Firewire ?

Y

yoclay

Veteran
Hi,
I have a 4 year old Mac Pro which still does a decent job of dealing with many projects.
It's a Apple Mac Pro 8 Core 2 x Quad Core 2.4Ghz Xenon Westmere with maxed out RAM, etc.
Been thinking about getting a RAID system and wondering what I can get considering that the Mac Pro is basically Firewire 800.

Before you advise me to get a new one, just know it ain't gonna happen. No way I am investing another $7K for the black trash can and all the peripherals.

So. The question is are there any viable Raid systems that I could actually edit RED files in 1/4 or 1/8 debayering with the Firewire connection?
I also considered a DROBO 8 bay system, but I guess that would be too slow for this kind of application? More of an archival system... Anyone tried it? Don't need a network system (NAS), just a direct connection to a single post (DAS).

An extra controller card isnt an alternative between the Blackmagic Decklink and the GeForce card for CUDA which are already filling my PCI slots by the way. So I guess whatever I get needs to happen in the external box or not at all.

Bear in mind that I am in Europe and something like the Areca 5040 is very difficult to find here...
 
One of my systems is much like yours with a BM Decklink and GFX card (would have to check my card but it is a zapped PC card takes two spaces) I use a Thunderbolt card and built my own drive enclosures going esata. Not sure about FW800 but thought I would let you know what has been work for me but will without a doubt will need to be upgraded soon.
 
The odds of ever being able to cut Red from the original r3d files over firewire are not good.

I have an 8 drive, 24TB SAS RAID connected to my 2009 Mac Pro that delivers over 700MB/second. RAID card, enclosure and drives cost between $3k and $4k when i put it together about 2 years ago.
 
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