RAID configuration

[jhvid]

I'm looking for a RAID setup to use with FCP 4.5. I have no knowledge about RAID at all. Any ideas on where to start looking and/or what to look for? I'm on a Dual 1.42 GHz Power PC G4 with 2 GB of RAM and OS X.

 

[NoahK]

That depends what sort of material you are planning to work with- like HD, uncompressed 10-bit or?

Noah

 

[jhvid]

Mini-DV, whatever the default FCP setting for that is. I don't know of any plans here to upgrade any time soon (this is for the Dept. I'm working in for my Graduate Assistantship). Thanks.

 

[NoahK]

It would be overkill for DV data rates unless you find things are going too slow or you want redundant backups of your data. Still if you're desiring it- here's some info on RAIDs:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/raids_defined_golden.html

Noah

 

[jhvid]

Nice article. Thank you.

 

[Guy_Cochran]

Your dual PowerMac G4 dual 1.42 has a FireWire 800 port. I would take a look at the G-RAID's first. These enclosures contain two drives hardware striped RAID 0 for speed. I would also look at the new stuff from Lacie for RAID 5. I have the Lacie F800 1TB and it rocks. They just came out with some SATA RAID's that are worth looking at. For even faster speeds take a look at Medea's HDV drives. You'll need a SCSI card for those. From there you start to get into the big bucks for Uncompressed...Xserve RAID, Rourke Data, fiber channel etc.

 

[Duffdaddy]

OWC also make a dual drive case with FW800 ports - striped together you've got an inexpensive raid drive...

 

[Jay Rodriguez]

OWC not bad in price but I found something a bit cheaper last week... Still trying to find that link again:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/RAID/

 

[mmm]

Why are you looking for a RAID, it sounds like an unnecessary expense to me. I would just stick a decent SATA drive (may have to be IDE on a G4, but still fine) into your machine.

If you want a redundant RAID, which stores all the data on 2 hard drives incase one crashes, then just put two drives inside your G4. G4's will hold 4 hard drives in all. Disk utility will RAID them for you.

I would recommed getting 2 Hitachi Deskstar 400GB IDEs (unless your G4 supports SATA drives) and RAIDing them into a single, safe 400GB drive. That will give you around 30 hours of DV storage which is all backed up. It'll cost ~$300-$400, and half that if you chose not to have the mirrored drive.

If you need to move to HD, reasses then, and buy a RAID, it will be fair cheaper.