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How Do You Have Your Hard Drives Set Up?

ncc1701d said:
I wanted to clarify with apple before buying the quad if I could set up a hardware raid 0 with a 5th drive and they (mac Pro Specialist) said that it may or may not work, that the optical drive connection into which you'd be now putting another Hard Drive wasn't designed for a hard drive (but that it still may work) and that it will more than likely void any warranty. :eek: So, I guess I'm stuck with 4x1TB in Raid 0 (with external back up) iso the 5TB that I wanted :( I don't have the knowledge or expertise to start doing my own additions and upgrades. oh well.
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I have 4 HD in RAID 0. After I did that, I wondered if I could use my stock HD in the second optical bay and sure enough it worked. I don't know if you can use it as part of a RAID configuration, but I know you can use it for a hard drive.
 
300gb Velociraptor (OS+Data)
750gb Seagate (scratch)
1TB Seagate (itunes and video capture/output from FCP)
1TB Seagate (Aperture/Lightroom libraries)

Attached storage
4TB DROBO - time machine
2TB ReadyNas - 2ndary backup of critical data in basement
1TB/1TB rotating drives in a hotswap eSATA carrier - photo library backup, placed in fireproof safe
 
What hard drive configuration would you all suggest for both storing and backing up a large itunes library? I'd like something to tide me over while I save up for a Drobo or DroboPro.

Here's what I was thinking, but I'm open to any suggestions.

Bay 1: WD Velociraptor 300GB (OS + Apps)
Bay 2: WD Black 1TB (Raid 0 w/ Bay 3)
Bay 3: WD Black 1TB (Raid 0 w/ Bay 2)
Bay 4: WD Green 2TB (Time Machine Backup of Bays 2 + 3)

Basically I'd store all of my data including iTunes, photos, etc. on bays 2 and 3 in Raid 0 and keep a backup in Bay 4 with Time Machine. How does this look? What would you do different? Thanks for the help!
 
Would work very well for that kind of use. If you are doing any video editing or scratch file work in Photoshop then having no separate disk would be a bottleneck, it all depends on what your goals are.

I wish the mac pro had 6 drive bays instead of 4 - would make life SO much easier! :apple:
 
pprior said:
Would work very well for that kind of use. If you are doing any video editing or scratch file work in Photoshop then having no separate disk would be a bottleneck, it all depends on what your goals are.

I wish the mac pro had 6 drive bays instead of 4 - would make life SO much easier! :apple:
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I do plan on doing some work in Photoshop. Is there any way to incorporate a scratch disk into this setup? Thanks for the response.
 
Apple RAID-Card

Apple RAID-Card
4 x 500 GB
RAID 0
1 Partition

extern 1,0 TB RAID 0 via FW800 for Time Machine

very fast for Photoshop, no problems. Stable and 300 MB/s! (nearly).
:D
 
Not unless you move your time machine disk to external. Again with 4 bays there are hard choices to be made.
 
pprior said:
Not unless you move your time machine disk to external. Again with 4 bays there are hard choices to be made.
Click to expand...

How much of a difference does is make running PS4 w/out a scratch disk compared to w/ one? Is it night and day or something that I may not even notice? I'll be running 8GB of Ram by the way. Could I partition the Velociraptor? Or is it not a good idea to use the OS disk? Sorry for the rambling questions.. :eek:
 
Well that largely depends on what file size and how many layers you have open. With 8GB of ram if you max out PS at 3+ GB of ram then with most editing you probably won't touch swap much enough to warrant changing around.

You certainly don't want to partition a drive for swap - it's the physical head motion of reading and writing to the same drive that is the problem.

What I would do is start how you planned, and at first it would be very easy to run the second disk as swap for a few days and see how system performance is. Then copy your data and RAID the two disks and run without scratch disk and compare. From your described use I would suspect you'll see better performance with the RAID and no scratch disk.

I'm too chicken to run raid-0 even with time machine, so I've stayed away.
 
pprior said:
Well that largely depends on what file size and how many layers you have open. With 8GB of ram if you max out PS at 3+ GB of ram then with most editing you probably won't touch swap much enough to warrant changing around.

You certainly don't want to partition a drive for swap - it's the physical head motion of reading and writing to the same drive that is the problem.

What I would do is start how you planned, and at first it would be very easy to run the second disk as swap for a few days and see how system performance is. Then copy your data and RAID the two disks and run without scratch disk and compare. From your described use I would suspect you'll see better performance with the RAID and no scratch disk.

I'm too chicken to run raid-0 even with time machine, so I've stayed away.
Click to expand...

I gotcha thanks for the advice.. :)

Is it really that risky running a Raid 0 w/ Time Machine backup?
 
Well it's twice as risky as not doing it :)

In the big scheme of things, no. But I'm a stability/reliability over performance kinda guy so I've done raid-1 and raid-5 but never raid-0.

Lots of people agree with your plan, I'm just a weenie when it comes to my data: I have my digital pics on my main data drive, backed up on Time machine (on a Drobo), backed up on 2 rotating drives put in fireproof safe, backed up on another raid-5 nas and then backed up using Mozy.
 
Drive 1 - 1TB 7200RPM
Drive 2 - 1TB 7200RPM
Drive 3 - 1TB 7200RPM
Drive 4 - 320GB 7200RPM

Drive 1 + 2 in Software RAID 0
Drive 3 is TM Back Up
Drive 4 is Windows XP for Games
 
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