Raid Setup

[Quasmo]

Ok so I'm looking to finally go all out and build myself a video editing suite (because I'm going to school to be an editor) I was wondering if anyone has thoughts on what RAID storage solution I should use. I definately want to go raid 5 or maybe 6 if I feel like I have enough overhead. I want to use SCSI disks, and I wanted to know If I should go Fibre Channel, SCSI, or an eSATA interface to the computer, or if I should just do it internally through a PCI-X slot. At the moment I have no budget, so I'm really looking for best bang for your buck on the performace cost curve.
Any suggestions? I'm looking at housing about 1-2 TBs of storage so possibly a 8 Channel controller? (I'm pretty new to the land of SCSI, dont know how well U160 holds up to 320 (obviously double throughput))

 

[Vegito]

I have a dell powervault external enclosure with 14 73gb 15k and its connected by a perc4 dual channel pcix card. If you build your on scsi enclosure, it'll be cheaper. My internal is a 2nd perc4 with 7 73gb 15k and 7 146gb 10ks. So total on my system is 21 73gb drives + 7 146gb drives = 2.5 tb non raided.

For that many drives, I would use u320 and put 7 drives per channel, otherwise you'll saturate the u320 bus.

fiber are really expensive.. it is faster than scsi but even I can't afford that..

Best bang = sata raid but it wont be as fast as scsi.

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: Vegito
I have a dell powervault external enclosure with 14 73gb 15k and its connected by a perc4 dual channel pcix card. If you build your on scsi enclosure, it'll be cheaper. My internal is a 2nd perc4 with 7 73gb 15k and 7 146gb 10ks. So total on my system is 21 73gb drives + 7 146gb drives = 2.5 tb non raided.

For that many drives, I would use u320 and put 7 drives per channel, otherwise you'll saturate the u320 bus.

fiber are really expensive.. it is faster than scsi but even I can't afford that..

Best bang = sata raid but it wont be as fast as scsi.

What are you doing with all those drives?!?!

I was thinking about going SATA using the new 150GB WD Raptors in an 8 drive RAID 5 setup giving me about a Terrabyte of storage. I figure, if I did this, I can keep my current projects in the raid setup, and back them up to externals when I finish the projects.

 

[Vegito]

Same as you.. video work...

To make swaps faster, I have several 73gb as swap partitions....

I dont know when those wd 150s are coming out.. but should wait for reviews before purchasing..

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: Vegito
Same as you.. video work...

To make swaps faster, I have several 73gb as swap partitions....

I dont know when those wd 150s are coming out.. but should wait for reviews before purchasing..

I wont be building this till the summer, and the raptors may be out by then, what video suite are you editing on? Media Composer?

 

[fire400]

I would go with SCSI, the very basics first. Once you know what you are dealing with, move your way up. This way you're not cluttering yourself with things you've never experienced.

I recommend that if you need 15k rpm drives, just combine the drives in an array, otherwise you'll find cheaper 10k rpm with quite a few more gigs to work with.

What OS and software are you using?

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: fire400
I would go with SCSI, the very basics first. Once you know what you are dealing with, move your way up. This way you're not cluttering yourself with things you've never experienced.

I recommend that if you need 15k rpm drives, just combine the drives in an array, otherwise you'll find cheaper 10k rpm with quite a few more gigs to work with.

What OS and software are you using?

I'll most likely be running WindowsXP Pro wth Avid Xpress DV, until I can afford Adrenaline or Symphony (yeah right). I'll probably go with 10k rpm drives due to size and price.

 

[Vegito]

maybe by summer ill be giving away my 10k drives.. haha.. gave away some scsi drives + controller last summer... pm me this coming summer... looking to upgrade my pcix to pcie so...

im premiere guy.. still learning.. going to take forever..

 

[Quasmo]

what card are you looking at getting? And can you really tell a difference when you upgrade?

 

[Hardlin]

Have you looked into going with a SAS RAID controller and some kind of internal/external drive enclosure? It would allow you to mix and match SAS and SATA drives to get where you wanted to. Adaptec makes some: http://www.adaptec.com/sas/index.html?source=home_menu

 

[Kenazo]

Drool...

I edit using Sonic Foundry Vegas 4 with a RAID 0 200GBX2 SATA setup.

I need to make the jump to Premier, Vegas is a bit limited I'm thinking.

 

[SnoMunke]

I just bought Adaptec's 8-port SAS controller...will be using it with 6 SATA HDDs in RAID 5 array (w/ 1 hotspare)...I'll post some benchies when I get a chance...