I was (and guess I still am) considering RAID 0 for my recording needs however have read that Pro Tools get finiky about it, especially software RAID. That being said I have seen other DAW software not even care. To address nanofrogs question, I m after a balance of capacity and performance, hence the caviar blacks for important stuff.
A mechanical based stripe set is the least expensive means you can improve throughputs for your usage. A set of Caviar Blacks done on the logic board would work, and be fine for data storage (primary), and it seems a set of 3 would be the minimum that you'd need. A fourth would be better. I'll address backups further on, and has a bearing as to what you can fit in the internals of the MP.
Audio applications are essentially random access, and SSD is the better way to go from other members that have done it claim. It does make sense, and reading from an SSD uses it in the fashion it excels at. Reads, particularly random in this case.
With SSD's, I threw in the suggestion of the Vertex based on the latest findings by anandtech which proposed that they were a good lower cost alternative to the Intels. I know the intels are good, and I want one, but trying to find one that hasnt had its price gouged is a little tricky. From my knowledge, there arent too many in australia at all, so will need to source from OS.
Understandable. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure on the reliability of the Vertex drives (from another thread; worth searching, and not just MR), and the Intel's do seem to be better in this area as well (not just performance). If you place the backups externally, you can even make a 2 drive stripe set of SSD's, that would make sure you have the capacity needed for OS & applications. It could even be less expensive to do it, given the price fluctuations of Intel drives (if you decide to use them). But the performance/capacity gains of this, are effective no matter what drives are used.
As far as backups go, is it worth utilising a PCI eSATA card and hook up a backup solution from there? I would only really want to backup home directory stuff (itunes library, iphoto stuff like that) and pro tools projects (in case of corrupted session files). Everything else I could make clones or just manual copies at regular intervals when needed. Perhaps with this I could run a RAID 1+0 setup internally is Pro Tools lets me...
As an aside, has anyone used the WD Caviar Green drives in RAID 0 before?
Thanks
You can place the backups externally via an eSATA card. This also frees up additional space for SSD's if you go this route.
What I would recommend, if you do go with SSD's, is two things:
1. Run them off a SATA card
2. Place them in the empty optical bay
This would leave you all 4 HDD bays for RAID, even if you only start out with a 3 disk stripe set. It makes it much easier to add a fourth member at a later time if need be.
So the card you'd want needs to have both internal SATA and eSATA ports, and boot OS X (EFI boot support). This is a problem, as it's not as easy as you'd hope, or inexpensive. But it is possible.
Highpoint makes a bootable
eSATA card for Mac, but it doesn't have internal ports. It's not cheap either, at $230USD IIRC (offered at OWC).
The others are true hardware RAID cards. This also gives you a single card solution as you can hook up an eSATA bracket that you attach to the card. Specifically if you use the
ARC-1210 (least expensive 4 port SATA RAID card that boots OS X I'm aware of). Areca is a decent company as well. It can have problems with EFI32, but that's not an issue for you as it's an '09 (uses EFI64
). Please note it's an x8 lane card, so though you can use it in a x4 lane slot (slots 3 & 4), it would possibly bottleneck you if you do (specifically with simultaneous access for SSD & eSATA backup drives). So slot 2 is a better choice to avoid it. Any of the hardware RAID cards (has a processor and cache on it) would fall into this.
It also allows you to avoid the ICH10R bottleneck in the X58 chipset (660MB/s max throughput which is Intel's fault).
You could also use 2 separate cards, but even if you find them both (internal SATA that boots) + eSATA (easy and inexpensive), it may not work out cost wise. The hardware RAID cards actually have an advantage here, depending on the specific model. To lower the costs, you'd have to go for a 4 or 8 port model.
Personally, I'd recommend an 8 port, as they allow you to expand for future growth, have faster processors, and possibly additional features (depends on vendor & model). This helps you for adding not only additional drive for capacity, but perhaps even offer you array types that otherwise wouldn't be available (specifically 50/60; nested parity array type). The ARC-1220 would suffice here, and it and it's smaller cousin are SATA ports. So the eSATA bracket and SSD drives are very easy to connect (no MiniSAS cables to deal with).
Sorry this might be confusing, but what you want isn't so simple, given what Apple has done this time around and lack of 3rd party hardware. Especially bootable SATA on a Mac.
I do hope it helps
, as I'm trying to keep you from making a mistep. They tend to be rather expensive with RAID (restocking fees, return shipping, and time lost).
