External Harddrives

[MattSepeta]

I need more space so I am planning on redoing my hard drive strategy. Main use is for storage of photos.

Right now I have a iMac w/
-FW800 external WD Studip "Pro" or something holding only my aperture library
-USB 2.0 "Various Drive" holding music, videos, graphics projects, video projects, raw video footage, various textures and font / brush backup libraries, etc...
-Time Machine Drive Backing Up my aperture 3 library drive as well as my internal SSD boot/app drive

Question: I was browsing the B+H catalog and was SHOCKED to see how cheap RAID ready HUGE drives have become, ie "http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/740512-REG/LaCie_301883U_4tb_Quadra.html" and "http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/757710-REG/Western_Digital_WDH2Q60000N_6TB_My_Book_Studio.html".

Would I benefit any from putting my aperture library and everything on striped RAID 0 drive via FW800? Would I notice any marked improvements in Aperture 3, Photoshop, FCP?

I understand that running a raid 0 increases the chance of data failure, so I would still be backing it up via time machine to another huge drive.

Ideas?

 

[odinsride]

While it may give you some small performance gains to upgrade to a RAID 0 array, you would probably get more "bang for your buck" by looking at ways to tune/tweak your Aperture setup.

Have you considered using multiple Aperture libraries (especially if letting Aperture managed your files). You could start by creating an Aperture library for each year - this would probably give you a bigger performance gain than RAID 0 if you have a huge library. Just a thought.

 

[MattSepeta]

While it may give you some small performance gains to upgrade to a RAID 0 array, you would probably get more "bang for your buck" by looking at ways to tune/tweak your Aperture setup.

Have you considered using multiple Aperture libraries (especially if letting Aperture managed your files). You could start by creating an Aperture library for each year - this would probably give you a bigger performance gain than RAID 0 if you have a huge library. Just a thought.

Interesting, I have never heard / thought of that but it makes sense... How do you switch which library you are working in? I can break mine down into 3 libraries I imagine.

After researching this more I think I am going to look into buying a used Mac Pro tower. Very sick of Aperture taking forever to do anything, and it sounds like I have my 24" iMac pushed about as far as possible, maxed RAM, SSD boot/app drive, FW800 library drive, etc...

On that note, does anyone have any thoughts on A MacBook Pro Vs Mac Pro for doing photo work and some occasional video?

I am looking for the fastest optimal Aperture 3 performance, so being able to accept the fastest drive connection type is important. Is eSATA the best option for this?

 

[odinsride]

Interesting, I have never heard / thought of that but it makes sense... How do you switch which library you are working in? I can break mine down into 3 libraries I imagine.

When launching Aperture, if you hold down the Option key, it should ask you for a specific library. Then just tell it which one you want to open. (I think this is right, not at my mac right now)

After researching this more I think I am going to look into buying a used Mac Pro tower. Very sick of Aperture taking forever to do anything, and it sounds like I have my 24" iMac pushed about as far as possible, maxed RAM, SSD boot/app drive, FW800 library drive, etc...

On that note, does anyone have any thoughts on A MacBook Pro Vs Mac Pro for doing photo work and some occasional video?

I am looking for the fastest optimal Aperture 3 performance, so being able to accept the fastest drive connection type is important. Is eSATA the best option for this?

I use a Mac Pro currently for my primary photo editing rig, and it works out very well. I have OSX running on a SSD, and my User folder (and Aperture library) on a 1TB internal drive. I then backup to another internal drive with time machine, and use an Aperture vault to backup to yet another internal drive. On top of all that I back everything up to Backblaze (online backup)...kind of paranoid

As for using a MacBook Pro vs. Mac Pro, I would say the Mac Pro would be fastest and has more expandability, but the MacBook Pro would perform very fast with Aperture in its own right. Your storage options on the MacBook Pro would be the limiting factors on performance unless you went with a nice Thunderbolt setup (which I'm not sure, could be very expensive atm since it's new).

 

[flosseR]

Agreed about the multiple Libraries.. I go a step further and multi copy my raws and have them NOT managed by Aperture.. I just don't trust Aperture or Lightroom for that matter. We have seen in the past what happened to iPhoto at one point (corruption of all photos due to an update or something like that). So, my RAWs are separate BUT yes, you should split the libraries up.you can also switch fast within Aperture to the new library (File open library I think).

 

[MattSepeta]

I use a Mac Pro currently for my primary photo editing rig, and it works out very well. I have OSX running on a SSD, and my User folder (and Aperture library) on a 1TB internal drive. I then backup to another internal drive with time machine, and use an Aperture vault to backup to yet another internal drive. On top of all that I back everything up to Backblaze (online backup)...kind of paranoid

EDIT- moved to Mac Pro forum

Thanks