Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

yongy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2009
24
0
hi all

as per title, i need some help and guidance on my current hard drive setup. My goal is to have a video editing workstation. Currently using FCPX mostly but also AE and photoshop.

My setup is as follows:

1x 60gb Crucial M4 ssd (OS,apps) sata port
1x 256gb Crucial M4 ssd (video editing) sata port
2x 1TB Samsung F1 raid0 (video editing) esata hack, OWC Mercury Elite
1x 1TB Samsung F1 FW800 enclosure (home folder and files)
1x 256gb Crucial M4 ssd (SPARE!)

The 256gb ssd video editing contains my project event and files. The Raid0 contains the raw footage. "Sometimes" there is a little lag when scrubbing esp layers and the beach ball comes up. Also, in FCPX it takes a while to view all the different projects and "loading" takes a while.

Ideally, i would like to take the spare 256gb ssd and then Raid0 the current to create a 512gb and then store everything on to it! I work on a single project each time and 512gb is enough for now. also, the speeds would be crazy! not worried about TRIM as will wipe the drives after each project to make it "healthy" again...

However, I have since learnt that my current Raid0 enclosure will not yield faster results as the controller only supports up to SataII. Also, my fw800 is driving me a little crazy as files take a while to load, esp accessing lots of files at the same time.

So yes, a little bit stuck on how best to arrange so would appreciate ANY help that i can get! Also, not able to afford a single 512gb NOR buy a TB enclosure...

Many thanks

PS. I backup REGULARY so not worried about Raid0 losses etc etc.
 

yongy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2009
24
0
argh... apologies!!! had all that info in my original post but was lost as got signed out...

2011 imac i7 3.4, latest software with all latest updates to fcpx and 32gb RAM.

thanks!
 

kohlson

macrumors 68020
Apr 23, 2010
2,425
736
Do you have the Blackmagic app (free)? That can help measure disk performance. Take a look at Anandtech's SSD discussions. In some of his posts he discusses the rigs he uses test SATA3 performance on the latest SSDs. Contention may be beyond disk, including bus or I/O. Is the OWC eSata card 3 or 6 Gbps?
 

joshualee90

macrumors member
Mar 12, 2009
54
0
Your best option is to have a hard drive for os apps and project file. A hard drive for raw footage and a hard drive for renders. It helps with throughput of the drives as if you were working all off one you pulling and pushing a lot of information through 1 pipe as opposed to 3 drives you are splitting the load.

Also if your looking for the best option out there not sure if the 2011 had thunderbolt but look at the seagate goflex adapter. You can get a sata to thunderbolt adapter which will get you the fastest possible transfer speeds. The adapter is designed to be used with the go flex series of externals but you can just plug in any hard drive directly.
 

yongy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 18, 2009
24
0
hi kohlson, had a look at anandtech website and went through a few of the ssd posts but couldnt find anything bout the rig he used. do you have a link to it? also, not using the owc esata card but the esata enclosure... the controller on which is Sata II

Joshualee900, i believe with fcpx you dont need to separate the event and project folders as software handles it well, but the ssd should be able to handle it well. yea, thought about the TB goflex adapter, but some ppl have said that it only gets to SataII speeds and wont utilise ssd speeds.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.