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

How Do You Have Your Hard Drives Set Up?

2x640GB (6400aaks) in RAID0 as boot. (bay 1 and 5 [5.25" opitcal bay"])
1TB as Time Machine in external
2x750GB for working data drives (and 3x backups for each of those)
250gb drive for Bootcamp.

Im getting 210mb/s on my RAID 0, its pretty fast. Then I have a RAM Disk for firefox cache and scratch.
 
Bay 1 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> System + Users etc.
Bay 2 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> Data (I'm a scientist)
Bay 3 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> Data back-up (every two days)
Bay 4 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> Data back-up (every two day, staggered)
Bay 5 (750GB Seagate 7200.11 optical bay) --> System Back-Up
Bay 6 (750GB Seagate 7200.11 optical bay) --> Time Machine

Not the best set-up, but that is what I'm doing. I'm close to getting a RAID card for Bay 1-4 and partitioning for Time Machine. Then #5 becomes the System and #6 the Users drive. I've also just ordered a large (8TB) NAS for off-site back-ups which I really need to have in place. My data is probably worth more than my life insurance policy! Ha! Ugh. Probably true!

I'm open to suggestions for improvement...
 
Hayduke, I think you are throwing too much storage IN ONE PLACE at the issue. What if your Mac Pro were stolen, your data AND ALL BACKUP DRIVES would go with it. Honestly, just having one big backup drive to handle Time Machine for data and system would be fine, but you need external backup sources - off-site server, internet backup, anything... away from your Mac.

If it's worth THAT much, dude, that's what I would do. I'm a CIO and offsite storage is a key component of Disaster Recovery (theft, natural disaster, etc.). Look into it.

JP

hayduke said:
Bay 1 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> System + Users etc.
Bay 2 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> Data (I'm a scientist)
Bay 3 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> Data back-up (every two days)
Bay 4 (750GB Seagate 7200.11) --> Data back-up (every two day, staggered)
Bay 5 (750GB Seagate 7200.11 optical bay) --> System Back-Up
Bay 6 (750GB Seagate 7200.11 optical bay) --> Time Machine

Not the best set-up, but that is what I'm doing. I'm close to getting a RAID card for Bay 1-4 and partitioning for Time Machine. Then #5 becomes the System and #6 the Users drive. I've also just ordered a large (8TB) NAS for off-site back-ups which I really need to have in place. My data is probably worth more than my life insurance policy! Ha! Ugh. Probably true!

I'm open to suggestions for improvement...
Click to expand...
 
hayduke said:
Bay 5 (750GB Seagate 7200.11 optical bay) --> System Back-Up
Bay 6 (750GB Seagate 7200.11 optical bay) --> Time Machine
Click to expand...
Sorry, Newb question here: Does this mean you have no cd / dvd drives and have put in 2 hard drives in their place?
 
How would you configure a new Mac Pro regarding the Hard Drives if you want to use Photoshop CS4, Final Cut Pro & Logic?
 
I will partition the four drives as follows:

3x640GB Raid 0: 1787GB formatted space:
Scratch for Photoshop: 87 GB
Macintosh HD: 1700 GB

1x2TB: 1865GB formatted space:
Windows: 115 GB
Movies & TV Shows: 250 GB
Time Machine: 1500 GB
 
Here is my setup

Drive 1 is Intel X25 SSD for boot, OS X, and applications

Drive 2, 3, 4 are WD velociRaptor 300 Gb in a Raid 0 stripe

I also use an external LaCie 2Big Triple on firewire 800 configured as Raid 1 for Time Machine

Here are some DiskTester results:

bash-3.2$ disktester show-info
DiskTester 2.0 (C) 2003-2006 diglloyd, Inc. All Rights Reserved

3 volumes: "OS", "User", "DiskTester_Install"

KB=1024 bytes, MB=1024KB, GB=1024MB, TB=1024GB

------------------------------------- "OS" -------------------------------------
Volume name: "OS"
Create date: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 5:49:46 AM PT
Modify date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:19:29 PM PT
Backup date: Thursday, December 31, 1903 4:00:00 PM PT
Checked date: Thursday, December 31, 1903 4:00:00 PM PT
File count: 507152
Folder count: 128108
Total bytes: 79682387968 (74.2GB)
Free bytes: 48641122304 (45.3GB, 61.0%)
Block size: 4K (4096 bytes)
Total blocks: 19453708
Free blocks: 11875274 (61.0%)
Next allocation: 0
Rsrc fork clump size: 4K (4096 bytes)
Data fork clump size: 4K (4096 bytes)
Next catalog ID: 0
Flags: 4020 = {default volume}
File system ID: HFS Plus
Signature: H+ (HFS Plus)
Drive number: 1
Driver ref num: 0

Largest contiguous block: 44.0GB

------------------------------------ "User" ------------------------------------
Volume name: "User"
Create date: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:40:13 PM PT
Modify date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:19:22 PM PT
Backup date: Thursday, December 31, 1903 4:00:00 PM PT
Checked date: Thursday, December 31, 1903 4:00:00 PM PT
File count: 21602
Folder count: 2621
Total bytes: 899175186432 (837.4GB)
Free bytes: 801406861312 (746.4GB, 89.1%)
Block size: 4K (4096 bytes)
Total blocks: 219525192
Free blocks: 195655972 (89.1%)
Next allocation: 0
Rsrc fork clump size: 4K (4096 bytes)
Data fork clump size: 4K (4096 bytes)
Next catalog ID: 0
Flags: 4000 = {}
File system ID: HFS Plus
Signature: H+ (HFS Plus)
Drive number: 1
Driver ref num: 0

Largest contiguous block: 741.1GB

Command "show-info" executed in 3.08 seconds.

bash-3.2$ disktester run-area-test OS
DiskTester 2.0 (C) 2003-2006 diglloyd, Inc. All Rights Reserved

=> Allocating maximum size contiguous file on "OS" (74.2GB)...44.0GB (59.3% of volume size)

NOTE:
(1) Contiguous space equal to 59.3% of volume "OS" was allocated. Depending on the location of the contiguous space (which disktester cannot determine), TOP SPEED MIGHT BE AS MUCH AS 32.6% FASTER (worst case, sequential). To avoid this ambiguity, test a freshly-formatted volume.

=> Using test size of 512MB, 4MB at a time, across a 44.0GB test file.
=> Testing at: 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%

Area 0% (offset 0B): writing...79.7MB/sec, reading...265MB/sec
Area 10% (offset 4.40GB): writing...79.0MB/sec, reading...265MB/sec
Area 20% (offset 8.80GB): writing...81.0MB/sec, reading...264MB/sec
Area 30% (offset 13.2GB): writing...80.5MB/sec, reading...264MB/sec
Area 40% (offset 17.6GB): writing...80.7MB/sec, reading...265MB/sec
Area 50% (offset 22.0GB): writing...78.9MB/sec, reading...260MB/sec
Area 60% (offset 26.4GB): writing...80.7MB/sec, reading...265MB/sec
Area 70% (offset 30.8GB): writing...79.4MB/sec, reading...265MB/sec
Area 80% (offset 35.2GB): writing...79.4MB/sec, reading...261MB/sec
Area 90% (offset 39.6GB): writing...79.6MB/sec, reading...260MB/sec
Area 100% (offset 43.5GB): writing...79.5MB/sec, reading...265MB/sec

======== Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:20:39 PM PT, volume "OS" (74.2GB) =======


------------------ Averages for "OS" (512MB/4MB, 1 iteration) ------------------
Area (44.0GB) Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
0% 79.7 265
10% 79.0 265
20% 81.0 264
30% 80.5 264
40% 80.7 265
50% 78.9 260
60% 80.7 265
70% 79.4 265
80% 79.4 261
90% 79.6 260
100% 79.5 265
Average write speed across the volume: 79.9MB/sec
Average read speed across the volume: 263MB/sec


Command "run-area-test" executed in 92.13 seconds.

bash-3.2$ disktester run-area-test User
DiskTester 2.0 (C) 2003-2006 diglloyd, Inc. All Rights Reserved

=> Allocating maximum size contiguous file on "User" (837.4GB)...741.1GB (88.5% of volume size)

NOTE:
(1) Contiguous space equal to 88.5% of volume "User" was allocated. Depending on the location of the contiguous space (which disktester cannot determine), TOP SPEED MIGHT BE AS MUCH AS 9.2% FASTER (worst case, sequential). To avoid this ambiguity, test a freshly-formatted volume.

=> Using test size of 512MB, 4MB at a time, across a 741.1GB test file.
=> Testing at: 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%

Area 0% (offset 0B): writing...331MB/sec, reading...354MB/sec
Area 10% (offset 74.1GB): writing...333MB/sec, reading...330MB/sec
Area 20% (offset 148.2GB): writing...325MB/sec, reading...317MB/sec
Area 30% (offset 222.3GB): writing...316MB/sec, reading...310MB/sec
Area 40% (offset 296.5GB): writing...304MB/sec, reading...308MB/sec
Area 50% (offset 370.6GB): writing...293MB/sec, reading...287MB/sec
Area 60% (offset 444.7GB): writing...285MB/sec, reading...281MB/sec
Area 70% (offset 518.8GB): writing...272MB/sec, reading...268MB/sec
Area 80% (offset 592.9GB): writing...248MB/sec, reading...249MB/sec
Area 90% (offset 667.0GB): writing...225MB/sec, reading...236MB/sec
Area 100% (offset 740.6GB): writing...351MB/sec, reading...340MB/sec

====== Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:22:19 PM PT, volume "User" (837.4GB) ======


----------------- Averages for "User" (512MB/4MB, 1 iteration) -----------------
Area (741.1GB) Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
0% 331 354
10% 333 330
20% 325 317
30% 316 310
40% 304 308
50% 293 287
60% 285 281
70% 272 268
80% 248 249
90% 225 236
100% 351 340
Average write speed across the volume: 299MB/sec
Average read speed across the volume: 298MB/sec


Command "run-area-test" executed in 41.15 seconds.

bash-3.2$ disktester run-sequential-suite OS
DiskTester 2.0 (C) 2003-2006 diglloyd, Inc. All Rights Reserved

=> Allocating maximum size contiguous file on "OS" (74.2GB)...44.0GB (59.3% of volume size)

NOTE:
(1) Contiguous space equal to 59.3% of volume "OS" was allocated. Depending on the location of the contiguous space (which disktester cannot determine), TOP SPEED MIGHT BE AS MUCH AS 32.6% FASTER (worst case, sequential). To avoid this ambiguity, test a freshly-formatted volume.

=> Using test size of 512MB at start (0%), within a 44.0GB test file.


Chunk Size 256K, test area start: writing...72.8MB/sec, reading...204MB/sec
Chunk Size 512K, test area start: writing...76.9MB/sec, reading...228MB/sec
Chunk Size 1MB, test area start: writing...75.3MB/sec, reading...227MB/sec
Chunk Size 2MB, test area start: writing...77.5MB/sec, reading...254MB/sec
Chunk Size 4MB, test area start: writing...79.1MB/sec, reading...263MB/sec
Chunk Size 8MB, test area start: writing...80.9MB/sec, reading...269MB/sec
Chunk Size 16MB, test area start: writing...77.7MB/sec, reading...266MB/sec
Chunk Size 32MB, test area start: writing...79.7MB/sec, reading...270MB/sec
Chunk Size 64MB, test area start: writing...76.1MB/sec, reading...180MB/sec
Chunk Size 128MB, test area start: writing...77.5MB/sec, reading...269MB/sec
Chunk Size 256MB, test area start: writing...79.7MB/sec, reading...271MB/sec

======== Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:24:30 PM PT, volume "OS" (74.2GB) =======

----------------- Averages for "OS" (512MB/start, 1 iteration) -----------------
Chunk Size Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
256K 72.8 204
512K 76.9 228
1MB 75.3 227
2MB 77.5 254
4MB 79.1 263
8MB 80.9 269
16MB 77.7 266
32MB 79.7 270
64MB 76.1 180
128MB 77.5 269
256MB 79.7 271


Command "run-sequential-suite" executed in 96.68 seconds.

bash-3.2$ disktester run-sequential-suite User
DiskTester 2.0 (C) 2003-2006 diglloyd, Inc. All Rights Reserved

=> Allocating maximum size contiguous file on "User" (837.4GB)...741.1GB (88.5% of volume size)

NOTE:
(1) Contiguous space equal to 88.5% of volume "User" was allocated. Depending on the location of the contiguous space (which disktester cannot determine), TOP SPEED MIGHT BE AS MUCH AS 9.2% FASTER (worst case, sequential). To avoid this ambiguity, test a freshly-formatted volume.

=> Using test size of 512MB at start (0%), within a 741.1GB test file.


Chunk Size 256K, test area start: writing...209MB/sec, reading...261MB/sec
Chunk Size 512K, test area start: writing...292MB/sec, reading...324MB/sec
Chunk Size 1MB, test area start: writing...331MB/sec, reading...332MB/sec
Chunk Size 2MB, test area start: writing...343MB/sec, reading...325MB/sec
Chunk Size 4MB, test area start: writing...348MB/sec, reading...331MB/sec
Chunk Size 8MB, test area start: writing...348MB/sec, reading...334MB/sec
Chunk Size 16MB, test area start: writing...349MB/sec, reading...338MB/sec
Chunk Size 32MB, test area start: writing...353MB/sec, reading...338MB/sec
Chunk Size 64MB, test area start: writing...357MB/sec, reading...345MB/sec
Chunk Size 128MB, test area start: writing...331MB/sec, reading...346MB/sec
Chunk Size 256MB, test area start: writing...353MB/sec, reading...343MB/sec

====== Wednesday, March 11, 2009 3:26:23 PM PT, volume "User" (837.4GB) ======

---------------- Averages for "User" (512MB/start, 1 iteration) ----------------
Chunk Size Write MB/sec Read MB/sec
256K 209 261
512K 292 324
1MB 331 332
2MB 343 325
4MB 348 331
8MB 348 334
16MB 349 338
32MB 353 338
64MB 357 345
128MB 331 346
256MB 353 343


Command "run-sequential-suite" executed in 38.09 seconds.

bash-3.2$
 
How my drives will be set-up.

Drive 1: OSX (1TB)
Drive 2: Vista (1TB)
Drive 3: Porn (1TB)
Drive 4: Porn Backup (1TB)

External Drive: Time Machine (1TB)
 
Wow, how do you guys do that?
I have the standard HD taht came with the mac pro and i bought a new one.
A MAxtor 320Gb Sata.

How do i set them up like that?
Is my PSU enough for taht?
 
Got it.

But is there a way i can make a fresh os x install on my new hard drive?
Because right now my old hard rive is saying SMART status failing, which means its gonna die soon...****.
 
Bay 1: Raptor 150gb - OS
Bay 2: Stock apple/wdc 320 hd - Windows
Bay 3: WDC Black 1tb - Time Machine
External MyBook Studio II: Raid 1 - Movies, music, pictures, other important files.
 
Drive 1: OSX, Apps, Files, Work, etc. (750 GB Samsung Spinpoint F1)
Drive 2: DVD collection being digitized (Western Digital Cavier Green 1TB)
Drive 3: Backup Via Time Machine (Western Digital Cavier Green 1TB)
Drive 4: Semi-Porn (Stock 320 GB Drive)
Drive 5: Porn (External 500GB MyBook & External 250 GB Crap Brand)
Drive 6: Extra Backup: Important Files (Hidden Time Capsule in case computer stolen)
 
i am curious about ups and downs of moving the home directory to a separate drive.

seems like this would add to performance a bit. also seems like it would make backups a bit more complicated. i am still a time machine skeptic.

i assume one just drags and drops the home to the new location and adjusts the home location per preferences - makes me nervous, i guess.

also, i wonder about deleting the old home on the boot disk.

thoughts?
 
Jigga Beef said:
Drive 1 (Mitsubishi 1TB): Boot Drive, OS X, User account info, documents, pictures

Drive 2: (WD 1TB): Clone of drive one, clones itself weekly with CCC

Drive 3 (Seagate 1.5TB): "Media Drive"- iTunes Music and Videos

Drive 4 (Seagate 1.5TB): Raid 1 of Drive 3

I also have everything on drive 1 backed up using time machine on a TC
Click to expand...

Mine is almost identical with a slight exception.

Bay 1: 640 Boot drive with all my files - except video...
Bay 2: WD 750 Clone of Bay 1
Bay 3: Seagate 1.5 TB for all my video
Bay 4: Seagate 1.5 TB clone of Bay 3

I also have a 500GB Time Capsule that backs up Bay 1 except for some KEY folders and files - the exceptions are my Parallels disk images (20GB in all) and my JUNK/Download folder. They are Large files that would almost constantly change and fill up the TC very fast. I also have an iMac that backs up to the Time Capsule in addition to an external FW disk for cloning.

My cloning takes place on opposite days about 5pm.

My main reason for not running Bay 3 and 4 in a Raid 1 is useful life of the drive. Not that I'm paranoid (though you wouldn't get that from my setup) But if you have both drives being accessed simultaneously, then both drives get the same wear and tear. If bay 4 is idle for 99% of the time, it's life will be longer than bay 3. After a year or so, I'll swap which disk I work off of, and reverse the cloning. Also, my video files don't change as often as my boot drive so as such, it doesn't make sense for me to have a REAL time backup of bay 3.

-fate
 
aerodynamikh said:
Got it.

But is there a way i can make a fresh os x install on my new hard drive?
Because right now my old hard rive is saying SMART status failing, which means its gonna die soon...****.
Click to expand...

Why do you want to bother with a fresh install. Clone your old drive to your new one QUICK before it dies. Then... at your LEISURE... if you really want to do a fresh install, you can do one (or an archive and install) on your new drive.

just clone your old one to the new for starters.

-fate

Carbon copy cloner
Superduper!
 
bozz2006 said:
I have three drives.

Drive #1 contains a partition which acts as the startup disc for OSX which includes all my applications. It also includes a bootcamp partition. i don't use windows very much but i happened to have a retail of XP which i bought when when my windows laptop died and i couldn't find my install discs!

Drive #2 a dedicated "home" drive. it contains the home folder for OSX.

Drive #3 is for time machine. it also has a 20GB partition which is allocated as the scratch volume for CS3
Click to expand...

Why would you want your home directory on another drive? I can't immediately see the advantage.
 
Back in my Win9X days, I would ALWAYS keep my data on another drive or partition. The reason was when I inevitably had to do a clean install of Windows every year or so, my data was right where i left it.

But those were the days when a 13GB drive cost you $120. I remember buying that one to replace the 4GB stock drive my Dell had. Now, I just buy another TB if I need more space. It was a time before readily available cloning software and external enclosures.

-fate
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back