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Replacing a dead g-tech raid with an external RAID?

S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
Hey guys,

After 6 great years my 640gb g-tech external raid bit the dust. I have everything backed up, so at least the data is protected. I now have to think about what to replace it with for my video editing.

Unfortunately the budget is pretty limited (trying to keep it under $200) so I can't go back to g-tech. I was thinking of getting a 4-bay external raid enclosure. I'm fairly new to this, so I was hoping to run my plan past you guys for feedback and recommendations:

I'm planning to get a USB3 external enclosure with 4 bays. At first I'll only have 1 drive in it, but thinking a single 2-3 tb 7200rpm, just to get me back on my feet. I'll set this up as Raid 0. In another month or so, I'll pick up a second 2-3 tb drive, add that, and convert to Raid 1 for backup purposes. I'll continue to expand from there.

Like I said, I'm fairly new to this, so suggestions, feedback, pointing out massive holes in my thinking, etc are all very much appreciated. I'd also love some brand/model suggestions.

My system:
15" MBP with 2.6 GHZ i7 with 16gb of ram. Primary use is work in CS6 suite. Limited FCP 6.
 
S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
I'll also happily hear alternatives for video/photo editing! I haven't had to buy a new drive in quite awhile, so I'm open to learning more. Thank you!
 
phrehdd

phrehdd

macrumors 601
Oct 25, 2008
4,313
1,311
SpastikMonkii said:
Hey guys,

After 6 great years my 640gb g-tech external raid bit the dust. I have everything backed up, so at least the data is protected. I now have to think about what to replace it with for my video editing.

Unfortunately the budget is pretty limited (trying to keep it under $200) so I can't go back to g-tech. I was thinking of getting a 4-bay external raid enclosure. I'm fairly new to this, so I was hoping to run my plan past you guys for feedback and recommendations:

I'm planning to get a USB3 external enclosure with 4 bays. At first I'll only have 1 drive in it, but thinking a single 2-3 tb 7200rpm, just to get me back on my feet. I'll set this up as Raid 0. In another month or so, I'll pick up a second 2-3 tb drive, add that, and convert to Raid 1 for backup purposes. I'll continue to expand from there.

Like I said, I'm fairly new to this, so suggestions, feedback, pointing out massive holes in my thinking, etc are all very much appreciated. I'd also love some brand/model suggestions.

My system:
15" MBP with 2.6 GHZ i7 with 16gb of ram. Primary use is work in CS6 suite. Limited FCP 6.
Click to expand...

Is the 200 dollar mark for the RAID direct attached storage or did you think you were including the drives as well in that budget?

The fast and easy way is to get a Western Digital or Seagate soluton that is set to RAID 0 and then get another one later. Internal to each should be 2 drives. You didn't mention the volume you wanted as a total usable space after RAID. Also, if you plan to go from stripe to mirror, you will need to work in either 2 or 4 drive scenario respectively.

There are multiple DAS RAID units out there and you may want to look at OWC's site as they have a few solutions that may be within your budget. There are other makers out there as well but going to a 4 drive RAID is certainly not cheap. If your Mac has Thunderbolt, it may be far wiser to go with (for now) one external TBolt drive that is 7200 or a Striped RAID TB enclosure. From that unit you can choose to back it up elsewhere rather than going with a striped+mirror or just a mirror.

Good luck
 
S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
I think I got a bit ahead of myself and hadn't done enough research on RAID types. Your post really helped. Basically I'm up to my waist in externals and I'd like to do some consolidation. So instead of just picking up a new drive, I want to invest in some sort of solution that I can grow with as my storage needs expand over time, but still need to be able to back everything up. That's why I originally looked at RAID systems.

I think for now i'm going to get:
-4 bay enclosure setup (no RAID so it'll just be like a JBOD): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007XJIYI6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

-1tb WD Black drive for Video: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0036Q7MV0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

-1tb WD Blue drive for Photo work: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088PUEPK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1COA7PWTAABOP

And then I'll keep manually backing it up on my external 1.5tb drive until that fills up. So I'm gonna lose RAID0 performance, but the USB3 and fast drives with big buffers will still be pretty great.

Any thoughts? Thank you!
 
phrehdd

phrehdd

macrumors 601
Oct 25, 2008
4,313
1,311
SpastikMonkii said:
I think I got a bit ahead of myself and hadn't done enough research on RAID types. Your post really helped. Basically I'm up to my waist in externals and I'd like to do some consolidation. So instead of just picking up a new drive, I want to invest in some sort of solution that I can grow with as my storage needs expand over time, but still need to be able to back everything up. That's why I originally looked at RAID systems.

I think for now i'm going to get:
-4 bay enclosure setup (no RAID so it'll just be like a JBOD): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007XJIYI6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

-1tb WD Black drive for Video: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0036Q7MV0/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

-1tb WD Blue drive for Photo work: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088PUEPK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1COA7PWTAABOP

And then I'll keep manually backing it up on my external 1.5tb drive until that fills up. So I'm gonna lose RAID0 performance, but the USB3 and fast drives with big buffers will still be pretty great.

Any thoughts? Thank you!
Click to expand...

I am curious as why you don't use just one larger drive like say a 2 or 3 gig drive. I read some comments on the Vantec and I highly suggest you see the first comment that has a 1-star. It speaks about the power supply not being suited for more than 3 drives or so in the case.

You may want to go over to OWC's site and see their external enclosures not so much to buy but as a measure of what is out there.
 
S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
I suppose the multiple drives were just for my dumb brain to keep things separate, but there's no reason why I can't be more organized and do it on one big drive. You raise a good point.

I read that about the Vantec, but that appeared to be the only review saying with that specific problem. It had decent reviews on other sites. I really like OWC's enclosures, and they have a great deal on a refurbished Qx2 but they don't do JBOD, they do NRAID, which I don't know much about. What happens if 1 drive fails in NRAID?

Again, thank you for your help
 
phrehdd

phrehdd

macrumors 601
Oct 25, 2008
4,313
1,311
SpastikMonkii said:
Also if I went down to a single external drive for all my storage, I'd consider getting a dual-enclosure with a 4tb drive. Still leaves me options for expansion if need be:

4tb seagate: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barra...id=1373835853&sr=1-6&keywords=seagate+7200rpm

Vantec dual-enclosure: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0089V4WOC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Click to expand...

Why not consider a Western Digital, Seagate or other famous maker external drive unit? There are plenty out there, prices are not bad and plenty of reviews to help guide you. There are some units that are large volumes that are mirrored in the same case etc. The only value to me of getting a generic case (for 2 drives) is that the OS itself can do the mirroring or you can use software to "copy" from one drive to another at your own schedule as well as replace a failed drive within.
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,576
1,692
Redondo Beach, California
What is the TOTAL amount of data you have? How much more data will you add in each of the next two years?

Without this info it is really hard to know what you need or to think of a backup plan. Do you have 500GB or 15TB? Something in between?
 
S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
phrehdd said:
Why not consider a Western Digital, Seagate or other famous maker external drive unit? There are plenty out there, prices are not bad and plenty of reviews to help guide you. There are some units that are large volumes that are mirrored in the same case etc. The only value to me of getting a generic case (for 2 drives) is that the OS itself can do the mirroring or you can use software to "copy" from one drive to another at your own schedule as well as replace a failed drive within.
Click to expand...

My thinking here was to get the 1 drive now and leave the second bay open for future expansion.

ChrisA said:
What is the TOTAL amount of data you have? How much more data will you add in each of the next two years?

Without this info it is really hard to know what you need or to think of a backup plan. Do you have 500GB or 15TB? Something in between?
Click to expand...

I currently have just over 1.1 TB (about 600gb of video, 370gb of photography work, and a little over 150gb of conference talks, presentations, copies of students' work, etc.)

In the next 2 years I will probably add another 1-2tb of that. My photo work is moving from digital to scanned and composited 6x7 negatives, and I'm hoping to do some with with 2.5k video on the new Black Magic camera.
 
phrehdd

phrehdd

macrumors 601
Oct 25, 2008
4,313
1,311
SpastikMonkii said:
My thinking here was to get the 1 drive now and leave the second bay open for future expansion.



I currently have just over 1.1 TB (about 600gb of video, 370gb of photography work, and a little over 150gb of conference talks, presentations, copies of students' work, etc.)

In the next 2 years I will probably add another 1-2tb of that. My photo work is moving from digital to scanned and composited 6x7 negatives, and I'm hoping to do some with with 2.5k video on the new Black Magic camera.
Click to expand...

While I am not saying you should get this particular model, - go to OWC and look at the dual drive enclosure from Newertech (I think that is what it is called). It defaults to mirror mode. There are items like this one from various makers and not a bad deal given your connectivity.
 
S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
phrehdd said:
While I am not saying you should get this particular model, - go to OWC and look at the dual drive enclosure from Newertech (I think that is what it is called). It defaults to mirror mode. There are items like this one from various makers and not a bad deal given your connectivity.
Click to expand...

Just checked it out and it looks great, but I was curious about Raid 1 performance while video editing. I did some research and it's not recommended since it's so bandwidth intensive. They recommend 0, 5, or 10.

I think at this point, in the interest of my own sanity and workflow, I'll probably go with your original advice and just pickup a standalone USB3 drive, consolidate all my media onto that, and manually back it up on a 1.5tb I have. Eventually when that fills, I'll replace it with a larger one.

I'm very appreciative of your time and continued help. It's been interesting finding out the changes in hard drive tech in the past 5 years.
 
S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
Hey guys--I ended up ordering a 3tb CalDigit AV Pro: http://www.caldigit.com/AVPro/

I talked to a few friends who've used their systems on 4k and RED shoots. They spoke very highly of the brand. I liked that it has the option to hotswap in both SATA and SSD drives for future expansion/use. I even paid a little more to get the firewire 800 for when I need to work on a site without USB3.

Thank you so much for all your help! Shopping for gear when you're a few years out of the loop is stressful and you guys helped in this process a lot.
 
phrehdd

phrehdd

macrumors 601
Oct 25, 2008
4,313
1,311
SpastikMonkii said:
Hey guys--I ended up ordering a 3tb CalDigit AV Pro: http://www.caldigit.com/AVPro/

I talked to a few friends who've used their systems on 4k and RED shoots. They spoke very highly of the brand. I liked that it has the option to hotswap in both SATA and SSD drives for future expansion/use. I even paid a little more to get the firewire 800 for when I need to work on a site without USB3.

Thank you so much for all your help! Shopping for gear when you're a few years out of the loop is stressful and you guys helped in this process a lot.
Click to expand...

I avoided mentioning Caldigit and a few other makers as they are usually more pricey. I think you made a great choice. You may also want to contact them and find out if a Western Digital velociraptor (sp) 1 tb drive works in those units well. The drive runs at 10,000 rpm which is pretty nice for video work and it back when had a 5 year warranty. The best of course is SSD but they are pricey.
 
S

SpastikMonkii

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2007
20
0
phrehdd said:
I avoided mentioning Caldigit and a few other makers as they are usually more pricey. I think you made a great choice. You may also want to contact them and find out if a Western Digital velociraptor (sp) 1 tb drive works in those units well. The drive runs at 10,000 rpm which is pretty nice for video work and it back when had a 5 year warranty. The best of course is SSD but they are pricey.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Yeah I'll have to reach out and ask--it appears now you can only buy the expansion bracket with a drive already in it, and although they're pretty reasonably priced, I'd still like to have the option of putting my own in. THanks again for all your help!
 
G

giffut

macrumors 6502
Apr 28, 2003
467
156
Germany
Cache and Backup

I would recommend you grab a 256GB or 512GB SSD and put it into a thunderbolt case. This would be your work drive, where you cut/transcode your movies.

All your stored sequences/recordings should go onto an external unit, which is backuped to a second identical one.

It´s recommended to separate your backup/storage drive form the work unit.
 
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