HDD Options - Single Drive or Raid0

[bbadalucco]

So I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with my two open HDD bays in my Mac Pro. I know I want to add more storage, but I'm not sure if I should use Raid0 or not. I store most of my media on a server but wanted to store the following in my MacPro and would need more hdd space.

iTunes Library
Pictures
Bootcamp - obviously can't store in server
Scratch drive - would write handbrake encodes to this then transfer to server

In all I'll need around 1.5tb

I already have a 1.5tb drive and would only consider buying another to put them into raid0. Should I bother with raid0 for the increased speed or just use the 7200RPM 1.5tb drive I already have?

This is all for my personal use but I like my system fast. I have a time capsule to use as a backup if needed.

[gugucom]

RAID0 the two drives and cut off the bottom 50%. They will run considerably faster that way than one drive close to capacity.

[bbadalucco]

RAID0 the two drives and cut off the bottom 50%. They will run considerably faster that way than one drive close to capacity.

Great thanks for the input. What do you mean by cut off the bottom 50%? Are you just saying don't use that space or format the drive so they are smaller?

[Wotan31]

I would RAID0 them for speed, but make DAMN sure you have a firewire drive in your desk drawer, and use it to make regular backups. Data loss potential with RAID0 is doubled vs. using a single drive.

I run RAID0 and I do a full backup to an external firewire disk every 2 weeks, using Carbon Copy Cloner.

[Tesselator]

I like my RAID0 a lot. I wouldn't give it up after having become used to the nice speed. But two points are worth mentioning here I think.

1. You can't put bootcamp on an Apple RAID and you can't see an Apple RAID from the windows side at all.

2. Two drives in a RAID0 is better sure, but not enough to justify doing it IMHO. With 3 drives you'll be happy and you'll be ecstatic useing a 4-Drive RAID0. But with only two you'll mumbling to yourself a lot things like: Is this any faster, I'm not sure, where's my stop-watch?

[Mac Husky]

Two drives in a RAID0 is better sure, but not enough to justify doing it IMHO. With 3 drives you'll be happy and you'll be ecstatic useing a 4-Drive RAID0.
I knew you would say that reading this thread :D

[Carnivor]

If you got 3 drives you could raid 5 them, say x3 1.5tbs, you'd have 3tb storage and be covered if any of the drives fails.

[alphaod]

If you got 3 drives you could raid 5 them, say x3 1.5tbs, you'd have 3tb storage and be covered if any of the drives fails.

RAID 5 would mean getting another controller for lots of $$$.

[Carnivor]

RAID 5 would mean getting another controller for lots of $$$.

didnt know that! can you raid 0+1 or 1+0 then?

[nanofrog]

Great thanks for the input. What do you mean by cut off the bottom 50%? Are you just saying don't use that space or format the drive so they are smaller?
The idea is to keep the data on the outermost tracks, which are the fastest on the drive.

You can do it either way. If it were a windows installation on a PC, partitions would make more sense, but OS X it seems, does better at keeping the files at the front (outer tracks, from information I've gotten out of Tesselator. ;) So you can just keep the capacity lower than half the total (50% mark or less).

didnt know that! can you raid 0+1 or 1+0 then?
Yes.

OS X is capable of 0/1/0+1/1+0 arrays. :)

[Tesselator]

Yes.

OS X is capable of 0/1/0+1/1+0 arrays. :)

And JBOD too. (AKA: Concatenation).

[nanofrog]

And JBOD too. (AKA: Concatenation).
DOH! Missed that one (the outcast child in array types). :eek: :p