How to configure RAID 5 sys using SAS controller for APP CS4

P

Pushpa de Silva

Member
Hi

I would like to know how to configure my 3 HardDrives (600GB each) on RAID 5 connected to SAS controller to work smoothly with PremierePro CS4. Mainly to store scratch disk, and all preview files, etc..

At present it shows as one big hard drive in C:\ It shows as follows:

OS(C:) 0.98 TB free of 1.08TB

I would like to have at least one HDD out of 3 to store my scratch disk files and preview files...

I have installed only CS4 Master Collection + Windows 7 64bit Ultimate as OS in this machine.
Following is my system configuration:

Intel Xeon E5620, 2.4GHz processor/12M Cache, 5.86GT/S, QPI, Turbo, HT, 4C
Intel 5520 Chipset
12GB DDR3 RDIMM Memory,1333MHz, ECC
Three 600GB (15000rpm) SAS HardDrives
Perc6/i SAS/SATA Harware RAID card
All SAS Drives, RAID 5, 3 drive configuration
BlueRayBurner1GB PCIe X16 nVidia Quadro FX3800 ,Dual monitor DP+1 DVI Capable

I am in a little bit strife on this. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks
Nathapushpa
 
You need 3 drives for RAID5. If you want to have one drive for scratch you would need to mirror the other 2.

That would give you C: 600GB (RAID 1)
D: 600GB (no RAID)
 
Thx 4 ur comments.

Yes, I have 3, 600GB HDDs but that's on RAID 5 system. I would appreciate if you could let me know how to configure that way. At present, I can c all 3 as one big HardDiskDrive.
Ur help is much appreciated...
Thx
 
What you're asking for is not possible. You can't tell your system to stripe your data across all 3 drives AND use one drive for scratch files. It's one or the other. So you either buy another drive for your scratch files, or you reconfigure your RAID the way I described.
 
My case houses six drives:
I'm using Raid 5 with four drives (one is the "parity" drive in case of the loss of a drive) so I only get the storage of three.
In additoin, I have a separate "scratch" drive assigned to photoshop and other programs.
A separate drive for the "C" drive with programs that I don't allow to be used for anything else like audio, video, or scratch.

My builder is making a 64bit CS5 machine... I'll use the present machine for a backup box... but I will pull the 4 raid drives and controller for the new machine and go with a single data drive... it is after all only for an emergency.
 
Pushpa de Silva said:
Thx 4 ur comments.

Yes, I have 3, 600GB HDDs but that's on RAID 5 system. I would appreciate if you could let me know how to configure that way. At present, I can c all 3 as one big HardDiskDrive.
Ur help is much appreciated...
Thx
Click to expand...

It can be done. But not easily.
From your original listing it looks like your only drives are these 3 600GB drives configured as a RAID5. That means that your system sees these drives a just one big drive of 1200GB. One drive is your parity drive and unavailable to you. So, when you first start up the machine it will see this one drive. You can then partition it into several logical drives. Of course these drives will have a combined size of 1200GB. Since you already have the OS installed, the partitioning is already done or partially done. You already have a C: drive which appears to take up most of the room on the RAID5 drives.

You have two ways of changing this. Re-install Windows from scratch and partition the RAID at that time to contain as many drives as you need, say at 200GB C: drive, a 500GB D: drive, and finally a 500GB E: drive. Or whatever combination suits your fancy. Or, you can try one of the partitioning tools available that will re-partition your drive non-destructively. I've used Partition Magic with great luck, but no guarantees. Non-destructive re-partitioning is always a dicey proposition. Make sure you have good backups. Also, if you have 400GB of data on your current C: drive you cannot re-partitioning it down to 200GB without deleting or moving stuff first.

Good luck.
 
Networker said:
It can be done. But not easily.
From your original listing it looks like your only drives are these 3 600GB drives configured as a RAID5. That means that your system sees these drives a just one big drive of 1200GB. One drive is your parity drive and unavailable to you. So, when you first start up the machine it will see this one drive. You can then partition it into several logical drives. Of course these drives will have a combined size of 1200GB. Since you already have the OS installed, the partitioning is already done or partially done. You already have a C: drive which appears to take up most of the room on the RAID5 drives.

You have two ways of changing this. Re-install Windows from scratch and partition the RAID at that time to contain as many drives as you need, say at 200GB C: drive, a 500GB D: drive, and finally a 500GB E: drive. Or whatever combination suits your fancy. Or, you can try one of the partitioning tools available that will re-partition your drive non-destructively. I've used Partition Magic with great luck, but no guarantees. Non-destructive re-partitioning is always a dicey proposition. Make sure you have good backups. Also, if you have 400GB of data on your current C: drive you cannot re-partitioning it down to 200GB without deleting or moving stuff first.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Doing this would be a complete waste. The only reason to partition one physical drive would be to idiot-proof your system drive so you don't fill it up (most systems don't like it when there is no free disk space on the system drive).
Putting your scratch disk on a separate physical disk gives you increased performance. Putting your scratch disk on a seperate partition yields no performance difference, it only limits your ability to use your disk space efficiently (ie: what happens when you need more space on one partition and have lots of free space on the other?)

RAID 5 was nice when disks were small. Now that we can buy 2TB disks for $100, RAID5 doesn't make much sense.

Two very good reasons you should use RAID1 instead of RAID5:
RAID1 will give you better performance
You can pull a drive out of a RAID1 and still be able to read it. If your raid controller dies, and you're running RAID5, you better hope you can replace it, and your replacement is running the same firmware and can read your array. Otherwise all that data is GONE.
 
noworries said:
Doing this would be a complete waste. The only reason to partition one physical drive would be to idiot-proof your system drive so you don't fill it up (most systems don't like it when there is no free disk space on the system drive).
Putting your scratch disk on a separate physical disk gives you increased performance. Putting your scratch disk on a seperate partition yields no performance difference, it only limits your ability to use your disk space efficiently (ie: what happens when you need more space on one partition and have lots of free space on the other?)

RAID 5 was nice when disks were small. Now that we can buy 2TB disks for $100, RAID5 doesn't make much sense.

Two very good reasons you should use RAID1 instead of RAID5:
RAID1 will give you better performance
You can pull a drive out of a RAID1 and still be able to read it. If your raid controller dies, and you're running RAID5, you better hope you can replace it, and your replacement is running the same firmware and can read your array. Otherwise all that data is GONE.
Click to expand...

Noworries;
Would you mind explaining why RAID5 was good when drives were small, but not now that they are bigger and cheaper?
 
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