Storage recommendations for HD Video Editing (Home System)

[Zillatech]

I am helping a friend put together a new Home Computer that will satisfy his HD Video Editing needs and would like help picking the best storage option for him (Main Data Array). The system will be based around the following specs.

Windows 7
Intel Core i7 (w/ Hyper-Threading)
8GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 275 or better Video
Pinnacle Studio 12 (Editing Software)
24-25? LCD (1900 x 1200 res.)
160GB SSD Drive for OS & Apps (Intel G2)

Data drive array?

I was first thinking of an external NAS Box but access needs to be as fast as possible since this will be the drive he stores all his data on (Pictures, Videos, etc.).

Isn?t Direct attached storage the fastest method? (Internal RAID 5 Array)

I was thinking about using (4) TB WD RE3 drives for this application. I?m also considering an add-in PCI RAID card for optimal performance (any recommendations?)

What recommendations or advice can anyone give me on this setup?

Thanks in advance ~


Please also feel free to add advice for another (SOHO) Video Editing Software as well. I'm not sure how Pinnacle is these days but its what he has used in the past.

 

[ochadd]

RAID 10 using 1.5TB drives will get you the best bang for your buck these days. Avoid RAID 5 whenever possible. The rebuild times when there are mass quantities of data on slow drives leaves a massive window where total data loss can occur from a second failure. Even when using a hot spare.

When you add storage you need backup capacity as well. Terabytes for backups may require the NAS box at the same time he goes for the direct attached upgrade.

 

[Zillatech]

So your saying if I use (4) 1.5TB Drives, I'll end up with about 3TB of usable space with RAID 10? What about using RAID 6?

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_06.html

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Zillatech
So your saying if I use (4) 1.5TB Drives, I'll end up with about 3TB of usable space with RAID 10? What about using RAID 6?

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_06.html

With four 1.5 TB disks in RAID 6, you'd have 3 TB of usable space.

Any kind of network storage is going to be slower than internal storage. RAID 5/6 aren't likely to be great at video editing because of the slow write speeds of that type of array.

 

[BaboonGuy]

i say save some money and invest in a more upgradeable solution. is he really going to need 3TB right off the bat?

 

[Zillatech]

Well, he has about 600GB of Data right now and he hasn't started downloading any of the HD Video he has started shooting. Plus, I want to set him up with plenty up front.

 

[ochadd]

Originally posted by: Zillatech
So your saying if I use (4) 1.5TB Drives, I'll end up with about 3TB of usable space with RAID 10? What about using RAID 6?

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_06.html

IMHO RAID 6 is for the paranoid and folks with a large number of spindles. I wouldn't expect RAID 6 to become relevant until you get over eight drives. Up to that opting for RAID 10 is going to offer better performance, very similar redundancy, inexpensive controller options, and quicker rebuild times.

Lets assume you have a RAID card with two breakout connectors/ports on it. Each port can handle four drives.

The RAID 6 gods demand you sacrifice two drives no matter how many total drives you have in the array. You can survive any two drives failing but losing three and it's broke. If you have 4 drives on one port and 4 drives on another port losing that port means you have lost the data.

The RAID 10 gods demand you sacrifice 50% of the drives in the array. You can lose up to 50% of the drives in a best case failure scenario but there are only certain drives that can fail. If you have 4 drives on one port and 4 drives on another you could lose a port and all the drives on it and not lose data. If you have it set up correctly. It requires you to pray to said gods that only specific disks fail together.

 

[elconejito]

I vote for RAID 10.

RAID 10 will give you the best speed/redundancy ratio. If you're using 1.5TB drives then you'll have 3TB worth of space. You get the speed because of the '0', and redundancy because of the '1'. You can survive one or two failures depending on which drives fail. If I recall right, write speed is approx 2x and read speed is approx 4x (somebody correct me if I'm wrong on that).

RAID 5 and RAID 6 are going to have much slower writes because of the calculations required to write data across all the disks. Read speed is pretty high though. RAID 5 can only survive 1 drive failure, RAID 6 can survive 2 drive failures.

So if you are worried about redundancy RAID 10 is at least equal to RAID 5, and depending on which drives fail, could be as good as RAID 6. And the whole time it is giving better performance.

If he's doing that much HD editing, he's probably going to get good use out of a SSD scratch drive. He would then end up with 6 drives in the system. SSD-1 for OS/apps, small SSD-2 for scratch, RAID10 (4 drives). The other perk to doing RAID10 is you can use the Intel controller and you won't need a separate RAID card, which you can then use that $$$ for the 2nd SSD.

This would also be a situation where you might want to go S1366 i7 and not S1156 i7, so you can fill up with 12GB of RAM instead of 8GB. No matter how fast the drive is, RAM is way faster. No contest. So the more of the video file you can keep in RAM and not hit the HDD the faster your overall workflow will be.

For video software, I think you always have to bring up Adobe Premiere.

 

[Zillatech]

Thank you all for the information (especially Elconejito). The last post was exactly the kind of information I was looking for. I'll check out S1366 i7 as well as a secondary SSD drive for a "Scratch" option.