To RAID or not to RAID, that is the question =)

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

Veteran
Formatting two SATA drives, 500GB each, to use for video editing of footage from short films (just got footage for my first short film, shot 1920x1080). Any thoughts on if I should set up the SATA drives as a RAID, and if so, go RAID(0) for speed, or RAID(1) for backup? Or forego RAID and just use the drives for storing footage, Sony Vegas 8 project files, renderings?
 
Unless you don't care about your data, you can do either. But for security and peace of mind, you'll need a 3rd drive and set it up as a Raid 5. Anything else is not safe. I had a Raid 0+1, and one drive died. What was left on the other drive was not recoverable.
 
Capt Quirk said:
Unless you don't care about your data, you can do either. But for security and peace of mind, you'll need a 3rd drive and set it up as a Raid 5. Anything else is not safe. I had a Raid 0+1, and one drive died. What was left on the other drive was not recoverable.
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My understanding is that raid(1) mirrors the data, protects the data as it is automagically backed up (mirrored) from first drive to second, so if one drive fails the data still exists on the other drive.

I actually have two more identical SATA drives yet to put in my desktop, so with four SATA drives (500GB each) I have quite a bit of choice for RAID if I go that route. Too many choices!
 
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Capt Quirk said:
That is what I thought too, but that isn't what happened. Raid 5 is the way to go.
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I have 4 sata drives in now, formatting last two of them. I will have to research raid 5, sounds like that might be a way to have a combo raid0 and raid1, raid 0+1 or something like that, get both striped speed and mirrored backup?
 
I opted for a RAID 1+0 system, used 4 x 500GB sata drives, now have a raid 1+0 system with total of 750GB storage that is now striped (=speed) and mirrored (automagic data backup). I am no longer a RAID virgin, my first RAID! :beer:
 
As someone kindly reminded me on comp.hardware, even a RAID1+0 system, though mirrored, is not a complete backup system-- the entire RAID could get fried by a voltage spike, theft, fire, etc. I need to remember to do a separate physically separate backup, like an external Terabyte USB or Firewire drive.
 
Well, I have done a reversal in my decisions-- I got rid of the RAID. Googling discussions on the net showed me a raid might be counterproductive, not needed. Since my sata drives are hot swappable, easy to pull out and store physically away from the PC., I decided to have sata1 for video raw footage, sata2 for edited and rendered video footage, sata3 and sata4 for data backups for sata1 and sata2 respectively. I can easily hotswap out sata3 and sata4 backups and keep them somewhere safe, as well as get an external terabyte drive. These sata drives are lightning fast, 3GB/sec throughput, so I think RAID would have been overkill and created data integrity problems should one drive of a raid fail. My understanding is that what can really help speed up rendering is having the input files and output (rendered) files on separate drives, eliminating bottlenecking bandwidth on the drive cables, so this should allow for great throughput.



Randall_Oelerich said:
As someone kindly reminded me on comp.hardware, even a RAID1+0 system, though mirrored, is not a complete backup system-- the entire RAID could get fried by a voltage spike, theft, fire, etc. I need to remember to do a separate physically separate backup, like an external Terabyte USB or Firewire drive.
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For editing and storage I have 2 500GB drives on a raid 0.
I like living life on the edge ;)

but don't worry I have all my important stuff backed up.
 
RAID 5 or 6 is a great solution because it offers data redundency, but don't use the motherboard's RAID, get a seperate card to handle the RAID.

- Derrick
 
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