Question on RAID

mb72378

mb72378

Well-known member
I currently edit on an Imac with Final Cut Studio. I decided to to invest now in a raid setup for my editing. I have an HVX200 so I edit up to DVCPRO HD 1080. Im a little bit fuzzy as to what the best raid is (0, 5 etc.) for video editing. Currently I set my scratch disks for, project files, and original footage on an external WD 1TB drive.

I am leaning toward either the G-SAFE or G-RAID. My imac has a firewire 800 port but Im wanting something that will also have esata for when I get a macpro. What are some things I should look into or know before investing in a raid setup?
 
G-Safe is RAID 0 which is safe, as it records in parallel to two drives, so if one dies (it will eventually), the other survives, and you replace the drive, and have 2 again. G-Raid is RAID 1 (striped) which is faster, but I recommend a 64Gb SSD for fast "current project" work (faster, cheaper, safer, better)

EDIT: Yeah I wrote this at 1 in the morning, a little worse for wear. RAID 1 is the safe storage method, as in the G-Safe, and THe G-Raid is RAID 0, which is the fast, but not safe type, and no longer your best option since SSDs are so er reasonable? can I call them reasonable? They're expensive, but a lot safer, faster and better than RAID 0, which I will never use again.
 
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Lucas Adamson said:
G-Safe is RAID 0 which is safe, as it records in parallel to two drives, so if one dies (it will eventually), the other survives, and you replace the drive, and have 2 again. G-Raid is RAID 1 (striped) which is faster, but I recommend a 64Gb SSD for fast "current project" work (faster, cheaper, safer, better)
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Um, I think you have it backwards. Raid 0 is for speed, but if one drive in the array fails, you lose all data. Raid 1 is striped, so you have redundancy throughout the array. I've lost a lot of data on Raid 0 arrays due to motherboard controller issues. there is a way to recover some of the data, but it's expensive, and usually not very successful.

You can do multiples, say raid 0+1, or raid 5.

But, Raid 0 is not safe for redundancy, as it needs both drives, as it splits the data and spread it across two drives. If one dies, your missing half the pieces of the puzzle. had one array die on a Alienware laptop(long story), and one died when my controller died on my desktop MB.

No more raid for me. SSD is plenty fast enough
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
 
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Lucas Adamson said:
G-Safe is RAID 0 which is safe, as it records in parallel to two drives, so if one dies (it will eventually), the other survives, and you replace the drive, and have 2 again. G-Raid is RAID 1 (striped) which is faster, but I recommend a 64Gb SSD for fast "current project" work (faster, cheaper, safer, better)
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Yep, this is backwards. Fast is RAID 0, and unsafe (striped). Whereas RAID 1 is redundant wherein one drive mirrors the other. RAID 1 protects against failure of one drive, but it does not protect against the controller going - I've had that happen, luckily I recovered. If I were you, I'd get an SSD to run the applications themselves, and keep the data scratch disk on an external RAID 1. That's what I do, though since I'm extra paranoid, I also regularly back the RAID 1 onto another drive that's also a RAID 1 - but I am paranoid. I figure it's cheap insurance. I'd rather pay an extra $300 and be safe.
 
mb72378 said:
Forgive my ignorance but what is a SSD? Is that the Solid State hard drives?

O would need one of these
http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid.cfm
or
http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-speed-q.cfm

and then the ssd thing?
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yes, ssd is the solid state drive. plenty fast enough for your working drive. regularly back-up to an external raid 1 array will work well. I also used external drives for back-up. they're non-raid, but portable-so they can be stored in a fire-proof safe-so you always have a copy somewhere safe.
it all depends on how critical the footage is.

g-raids are nice, but spendy. just depend on how much space you want/need. remember, if you have a fire, or electrical surge/lightning when the array is attached, you could theoretically lose 12 tb of data!!!! that's like, a lot.
so it's best to split chapters up into separate drives with back-ups. I just hate to have that many terabytes all sitting in one place-and it is the back-up, because it's raid 1.

hard drives are cheap, and ssd drives are coming down in price. what's the cost if you lose one days worth of shooting?? what's the cost if you lose the whole project?? divide it up onto many external drives, just to be safe.

FYI, ssd drives are faster than any raid 0 array.
 
mb72378, I'll try and help a bit. My background is as someone who builds midrange to high-end custom PCs (gaming, multimedia workstations, etc.). I'm not entirely up on Macs but in general, here's a breakdown:
  • RAID 0: this is for performance and requires at least 2 drives (can go up to as many drives as you have room for). For each drive you add, performance will almost, but not quite, double. The total capacity of the array is the combined capacity of all included drives. If any drive in a RAID 0 array fails, all data on the entire array is lost.
  • RAID 1: this requires 2 drives and is for fault tolerance. The same data is put on both drives, so if one fails, your data can be retrieved from the other. The total capacity will be that of one of the drives.
  • RAID 5: this provides both a performance boost and fault tolerance. Requires at least three drives and can go up to as many drives as you have room for. The total capacity of the array will be that of all drives combined, minus one.(E.g. if you had 3x 1TB drives in RAID 5, the total capacity would be 2TB). If any one drive fails, the data on it can be "rebuilt" using information stored on the other drives, but it takes time. It's also a little slower and a little more CPU-intensive than RAID 0. I don't recommend using more than 5 drives in a RAID 5 array.
  • RAID 6: this is like RAID 5, but with one more drive. So there's a four-drive minimum and the capacity is that of all drives combined minus two of the drives, but you are also protected against up to two drives failing at a time. So if, for example, one drive fails, then unlike with RAID 5, you're still protected while the array is rebuilding (which can take hours to days).
  • RAID 10: this requires at least four drives and combines RAID 1 with RAID 0. Also known as RAID 0 + 1 or 1 + 0. You can lose up to half the drives in the array and your data will remain protected, but the capacity is also half that of all drives combined. It's less CPU intensive than RAID 5 or 6 and doesn't have astronomical rebuild times in the even of a failure.
You can use RAID with standard "hard drives" AKA HDDs as well as with SSDs (Solid State Drives). SSDs are faster in every way but also around twenty times more expensive per gigabyte.
 
havasuphoto, I completely understand. I wasn't going to get the 12 tb version. They have a 4 TB version for 799. Then I can just replace those hard drives individually when they get full. At my current rate that would be about once every year or so. So how would that work? I would have a SSD connected to my imac then the G-Raid daisy chained to it to do my back up?

TGIR, thanks for the BG on raid. Def helps. It looks like my best options would be either Raid 5 or Raid 10 based on the G-Raid since it has 4 drives. So, when they are full....will I have to buy 4 new drives? or will all of the data be on one, then I can erase the other three and buy 1 new one?
 
I just took a look at the G-SPEED Q you linked to. I should have done so earlier. I think you're going to want to go with RAID 5 (RAID 10 does not appear to be an option, which is why I'm sorry I didn't look at this earlier). Now, if you get the 4TB version, you'll end up with 3TB of actual usable space (since with RAID 5, you get the capacity of all drives minus one, so in this case 4TB - 1TB = 3TB) if I understand the product description properly. Once you've filled up that 3TB of space, you'll need four new drives to start again (assuming you're going to go with another 4-drive RAID 5 configuration).

What I'm trying to figure out now is why it is $799. I realize that when dealing with Mac products and accessories there can be hefty price premiums, but in the PC world, HDDs can be had at 5 cents per GB and the external enclosure might add another $100-$150. Maybe it does just boil down to the Apple price premium but then again you may be able to find something more cost-effective elsewhere. I dedicate some attention to this because I don't want the cost to deter you from doing any video projects.
 
TIGR,

Macs and PCs use exactly the same storage products, they are formatted differently, so no reason for any different pricing. Many years ago, the drives were mac specific.

MB72378

Look at the memory products from OWC (Other World Computing). Their house brand Mercury-Pro products are top notch and very economical. I and many others here have had issues with G-Tech products. Search is your friend.

Grant
 
I also have a question regarding this issue.
I use external drives connected with FW800 to my iMac as scratch disks for Final Cut.
However, tell me if I am doing something wrong, I have found out that it is faster to save the final cut project on the same drive where the raw footage is. So it basically ends up using the same drive for rendering. The other option I have tried was to keep the raw footage on one external drive and save the fcp project and render on another drive daisy-chained. This appeared to me as being slower.
What is the best working configuaration with no raid setups but with 2 fw800 7500 drives daisy chained with the iMac?
 
Wow, I didn't realize I would have to replace ALL 4 drives when it was full. The replacement drives start at $199 each so I would be looking at a replacement cost of about $800 every time they got filled up. That doesn't sit well with me.
 
kostas said:
I also have a question regarding this issue.
I use external drives connected with FW800 to my iMac as scratch disks for Final Cut.
However, tell me if I am doing something wrong, I have found out that it is faster to save the final cut project on the same drive where the raw footage is. So it basically ends up using the same drive for rendering. The other option I have tried was to keep the raw footage on one external drive and save the fcp project and render on another drive daisy-chained. This appeared to me as being slower.
What is the best working configuaration with no raid setups but with 2 fw800 7500 drives daisy chained with the iMac?
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Your internal drives(SATA or eSATA) are going to be much faster than FW800, so use your internal drive as a scratch drive. Then dump the project regularly on the FW800 as a back-up. If nothing crashes, you can delete the back-ups and the project proceeds, then re-save your progress up to that point.

mb72378; yes, you have to replace the whole array....or, you can just dump the array onto external hard drives, which are fairly cheap.
How long do you plan to archive the footage, and how much of it are you going to archive?? You could end up with a closet full of external HD's.

Also, I feel we're near a point where hard drive prices will start falling again. SSD drives are still to expensive, and, they are life limited, like a flash drive-which essentially they are. They can only be written to so many times before they die. It may be billions and billions of times, but, they have a life limit, just like flash cards. Something to think about.

However, in 30+ years of "computing", I have never once had a hard drive fail.(sound of knocking on wood). The "secret" is knowing when to replace drives. Depending on your workload, every 2 or 3 years should be sufficient.
 
havasuphoto, currently I plan on archiving the footage and project files indefinitely until it becomes to unmanageable. The G-Safe product seems very cost effective. I can get the 2TB version for 549. Then when it is full just buy an additional 2tb hard drive....transfer footage over...and reuse the drives that come with G-Safe? The only thing is that the G-Safe is Raid 1 and from my understanding is not the best for video because of the speed?
 
mb72378 said:
havasuphoto, currently I plan on archiving the footage and project files indefinitely until it becomes to unmanageable. The G-Safe product seems very cost effective. I can get the 2TB version for 549. Then when it is full just buy an additional 2tb hard drive....transfer footage over...and reuse the drives that come with G-Safe? The only thing is that the G-Safe is Raid 1 and from my understanding is not the best for video because of the speed?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use the G-Safe as my "working" drive. I'd use an SSD-then copy the "daily's" over to the G-safe for archive purposes. As you move along in the project, you can over write what's on the G-safe until it's final.
And yea, I'd just buy an external to archive the footage after final. Let it sit in the closet-done.

This way, if something happens on your "scratch" drive, you only loose the footage you were working with for that session. When you're done for the day, you archive it. Come back in the morning, and if it's still on the SSD without any issues, you continue. So, you always have a back-up/fresh copy on the Raid 1 array, just in case you get hit by lightning or the power goes out, etc. I would leave the Raid 1 array disconnected from the working computer. Storms happen ;)

And, speed of the drive kind of depends on what kind of footage you're working with in FCP. If you are dealing with heavily compressed footage, and doing some "Twixtor" type work, then yea, you're gonna need every bit of speed in the "chain" that you can get. If you're dealing with 720P "native" footage, then not so much. It's all relative. Right now, your biggest stumbling block on speed is going to be your RAM(4GB), not your hard drive. So, if I was using the computer you had, I'd just go with an internal eSATA/SATA drive, and call it good.

EDIT; I see you're dealing with HVX200 footage, probably from a P2 source-so I really don't see the need for an SSD drive, until you upgrade your processor(quad-core), and RAM. SSD is way cool, and booting in seconds is very cool. But, that's where the cool will stop, for you.
 
Got it thanks so much. I have an imac so unfortunately I can't install an esata port. So I guess what would be a good idea...would be to get the g-safe and an additional hard drive equivalent to the storage on the g-safe. Work daily off my additional hard drive. Then at teh end of the day. Hook up my g-safe and transfer everything to the g-safe. rinse and repeat until the g-safe is full. Then buy 1 more external drive to store everything on in the closet....erase g-safe and rinse and repeat.
 
havasuphoto said:
I wouldn't use the G-Safe as my "working" drive. I'd use an SSD-then copy the "daily's" over to the G-safe for archive purposes. As you move along in the project, you can over write what's on the G-safe until it's final.
And yea, I'd just buy an external to archive the footage after final. Let it sit in the closet-done.

This way, if something happens on your "scratch" drive, you only loose the footage you were working with for that session. When you're done for the day, you archive it. Come back in the morning, and if it's still on the SSD without any issues, you continue. So, you always have a back-up/fresh copy on the Raid 1 array, just in case you get hit by lightning or the power goes out, etc. I would leave the Raid 1 array disconnected from the working computer. Storms happen ;)

And, speed of the drive kind of depends on what kind of footage you're working with in FCP. If you are dealing with heavily compressed footage, and doing some "Twixtor" type work, then yea, you're gonna need every bit of speed in the "chain" that you can get. If you're dealing with 720P "native" footage, then not so much. It's all relative. Right now, your biggest stumbling block on speed is going to be your RAM(4GB), not your hard drive. So, if I was using the computer you had, I'd just go with an internal eSATA/SATA drive, and call it good.

EDIT; I see you're dealing with HVX200 footage, probably from a P2 source-so I really don't see the need for an SSD drive, until you upgrade your processor(quad-core), and RAM. SSD is way cool, and booting in seconds is very cool. But, that's where the cool will stop, for you.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's what I suggested, only getting my 0 and 1 mixed up. It really is the way to go - the G-safe, or an equivalent, is a great thing. A 120Gb SSD can be filled with the required footage for your current project in 5 minutes, and then you're motoring, and safe too. Hallelujah! If no e-Sata, FW800 is your next best friend.
 
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