How many Hard Disks can the new Mac Pro hold?

Internally, 4. Or 5 if you rig one in the second drive bay but you just need to mod it a little. If you're using RAID, it really depends on your circumstance and what you will use that card for

 

If you so desire, you can add four additional 2.5" HDDs with this carriage.

http://www.transintl.com/store/category.cfm?Category=2799

 

Screw the Apple RAID card, that thing is worthless.

Check out bootable cards from Areca. For example the ARC-1880; be sure to get a backup battery since they are not included with Areca cards.

 

instead of worrying about a raid card you should start converting you avchd files to something that is easier for editing. that format is notorious for weighing unnecessarily hard on editing systems

 

In terms of SATA ports, it has 6x (4x used for the HDD bays, 2x for the Optical Drive bays).

But there are 3rd party mounts that can allow you to fit more (especially 2.5" disks). But you'll need a card/s of some sort to provide ports.

Check out MaxUpgrades, TransInt'l, and OWC for mounts (MaxUpgrades also has an adapter kit if you want to use the HDD bays with a 3rd party RAID card).

Definitely NO, as it's an overpriced piece of junk (slow, only 4 ports, OS X only, and last I heard, still has problems with stability over the Battery Backup Unit).

Areca's the best choice, ATTO second (similar performance, but cost wise, Areca offers a better value, and even comes with cables for internal port models).

As mentioned, you will need to buy the BBU if you run it (ideally you do; BBU + UPS), and get a decent UPS (Line Interactive unit with a Pure Sine Wave output would be the recommended bare minimum; Online/Double Conversion would be better if possible - REFURBISHED units are your friend). Worst case, get the UPS first (between the two, it covers you better).

Beyond this, more details would be needed to get you into the best possible setup within your budget.

BTW, hardware RAID is expensive, so be prepared (card + enterprise grade mechanical disks + any kits or enclosures that may be needed to reach the disk counts for performance targets). And I can get you links from vendors that ship internationally.

 

You don't need a RAID card. You can setup a RAID 0, 1, or 10 array using DiskUtility in OSX. You probably don't even need RAID. A large fast Caviar Black will handle HD video editing just fine - scratch and project files. However, if you want RAID for some added performance, maybe run a 2 disk RAID0 array with reasonably sized drives (eg. 2 x 1TB), and then have another large drive (2TB?) for backups and archiving your AVCHD files.

FCP will automatically convert it to pro-res upon ingest. It doesn't work natively with AVCHD. AVCHD, is good for storage/archival though as it's very space efficient.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=BESTMATCH&Description=rosewill+8+bay&x=0&y=0 8 bay case.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=sans_digital_8_bay-_-16-111-140-_-Product 8 bay case.


use a pci card they won't boot but they will be over 350MB/s in raid0 they use 2 esata connects not one. a software raid0 with 2 drives to one esats and 2 drives to the other esata will give 350MB/s speed read and write. you can use a low cost pcie card like this

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/MXPCIE6GRS/

 

This card will not work, as it does not have drivers for OS X. You're limited to Areca or ATTO.

You also need to realize that if you do use such a card, consumer disks will not work. Enterprise disks are required, so you'd be looking at Western Digital's RE (RAID Edition) lines, or similar units from other vendors.

What I'm not sure of, is if you really need to run RAID5 (requires a card; example).

Also, stay away from software implementations of RAID5 (typically eSATA card + Port Multiplier enclosures). These are fine for 0/1/10, but not parity.

For parity, you'd need a proper RAID card (handles the RAID 5 you're interested in), and a SAS enclosure, such as the Sans Digital TR8X (they do look nice with the MP). BTW, example of a card with external ports.

Yes.

In the case of the equipment you're wanting to use (above), both eSATA ports will go to the enclosure (4 ports per eSATA connection in this unit; max limit for PM chips is 5x disks on one port).

Assuming your disks would be capable of generating 500MB/s in an array, then that would be the max throughput possible with that card when in a PCIe Gen 2.0 slot (1x lane card).

 

Then the LSI will work (good for mechanical disks). You'll still need to run enterprise disks for stability reasons (this isn't to do with the MP or OS X, but with recovery = different timings programmed into the disk's firmware). Take a look here.

But if you're just after insane speeds with a stripe set, get a 6.0Gb/s card, and run it with SSD's (4x recent SSD's in a stripe will generate ~1GB/s).

Cheapest internal 6.0Gb/s RAID card I'm aware of is the ARC-1880i.

As per disks, I'd go with the Western Digital (larger cache should give a slight performance boost; this is reflected in independent testing I've seen, not just theory/marketing hype).

 

Why must the stripe set be 2TB?

For faster throughputs on an array that's essentially temp data from what you've described, go for less capacity here, and move smaller chuncks off to the primary data storage location (where you use mechanical for cheap mass storage).

This uses the strengths of feach technology (SSD = performance, small capacity, HDD = cheap capacity, mediocre performance comparitively speaking).

You get a good balance this way (cost/performance ratio).

There is a cable that can be used with MiniSAS (SFF-8088 to 4e*SATA), but it's meant to be used with 1x port per disk (1:1 ratio).

The PM chip messes this up in your case (which is why it doesn't have 8x eSATA ports on the back). Such enclosures used to be common enough (you could find them from a few vendors), but they've become harder to find since MiniSAS has become cheaper. It's also cleaner and faster to implement MiniSAS (fewer cables to sort through, and less chance for getting the disks on the wrong ports in the event of a failure and the cables are being investigated as the cause of the problem).

It comes with a card (Highpoint RR622), so give that a try first (know it will work in a PC, and others have reported it does work in the MP as well, but will not boot).

Something to keep in mind, as it can save you $80USD.

RAID or eSATA?

The newertech will be fine for eSATA. As per Highpoint, they're not my favorite company by any means (poor customer support, and spotty track record with product performance and functionality - particularly their RAID products).

As per RAID, Areca is my brand of choice due to the price/performance ratio (they tend to beat out everybody in this, and in terms of performance, they and ATTO usually have the fastest cards out there).

 

Why do you need a RAID card? OSX can run Raid0 perfectly without a Hardware RAID card. Save some money and make things a lot simpler without sacrificing any performance.

Also, Why do you want to use low density 500GB drives? Using a pair of higher density and faster 1 or 2TB WD Blacks is again much simpler and better performing.

You guys are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill here. There's no reason you can't run a perfectly suitable storage solution just using the 5 internal drive bays.

 

I have six 3.5" drives inside my Mac Pro. I stuffed two in the second bay and removed the carriage screw that impeded the second drive from fitting. I was worried about temperature but they're the coolest two hard drives in the machine.

 

So, again, there is absolutely no need for a RAID card, and no need to go beyond the 5 HDD capacity of the Mac Pro chassis.

Here's what I would do that's economical and should perform amazingly well...

OS/Apps = 60GB Vertex 2 SSD $100
Ideal drive for OS/Apps if you don't have a lot of other apps besides FCP... if you do, then consider a 120GB drive for $200.

Working Files = 2x or 3x Caviar Blacks (suggest 1TB w/ 64MB cache) $90 each
Run this RAID0 array using DiskUtility in OSX. Consider that the data rate of ProRes 422 HQ is 220MB/s max, which a RAID0 array of 2 WD Black's can handle (250MB/s STR). ProRes 422 HQ also consumes about 100GB/hr. So if you're working with 3hrs of video, you're going to use about 150GB per drive or about 15% which is going to be on the highest performing outer tracks of the drives. If you want some overhead, run a 3 disk array, but I don't think this is necessary. I can edit ProRes 422 HQ easily off of a single WD Black without any noticeable lag.

Output Files = 1x Caviar Black (pick your capacity) $90 assuming 1TB
There's no need for a super fast output drive as your final encode is going to be CPU constrained.

You've already indicated you're archiving to an external drive, but if you want, you could use the last drive bay (assuming you go with a dual drive array for your working files) for that and/or backups. A 2TB WD Green would be ideal for this role.

This storage solution is going to cost you less than $400-$500 and fit in your Mac Pro without any complication and perform like nobody's business.

 

1. You might want to consider the Hex core system instead (even though it's 2x fewer cores, the clock speed actually makes it a bit faster for true n core multi-threading, and definitely faster for single threaded operations).

2. Even if you go with a Windows workstation, go for a vendor system for support reasons (PITA to do the warranty support, and if you happen to take a hiatus/vacation or leave for whatever reason, they may be in trouble if no one else has the skills or inclination to deal with it).

Something to consider at any rate.

BTW, you may want to increase the memory capacity (test your actual usage pattern on another machine if possible and watch the memory usage to get an idea of what you really need).

For RAID 0, Disk Utility is fine. Yes, a card is faster, but not significantly so with 4x mechanical disks. SSD's are a different scenario, and are better used for fast temp storage (even if it's a single disk for Photoshop's scratch space).

This will save money and reduce complications (especially if users with no idea of what a stripe set is has access to the system).

So you might want to consider the following:

• SSD for Photoshop scratch
• 2x SSD stripe set for working data (what you're wanting to use the 4x HDD's for; faster, and can be had for ~ the same money using smaller disks - just need enough capacity to hold the data being worked on)
• Internal mechanical storage for completed projects
• Internal mechanical disk for backup of the completed projects (say Optical bay 2)

You will need to replace the SSD's when they wear out, but that's not that big a deal anymore.

OWC has 40GB SSD's for $95USD (Pro version = 7% additional capacity for wear leveling). The RE version (RAID Edition; 50GB is $190) units have 28% of additional capacity for wear leveling (sometimes called over-provisioning).

At $95 each, they're cheap enough, and the ICH will be sufficient (could throttle if all 3x will run simultaneously, but from other information I've been given, they won't run simultaneously very often, if at all).

Use 2TB disks if needed for the completed project files, and backup (you can even get a PM enclosure and JBOD disks for backup on the cheap; Sans Digital eSATA enclosure + Disk Utility will get this done if you wish, or you could also use it for the primary project data in a RAID 10).

Just do not RAID 1 the primary project file location and the backup disk. They need to be handled with backup software only so things like user error aren't automatically duplicated on both disks (i.e. accidental file deletion).

So go back and price both the PC Workstation this way (and use a vendor system such as Dell,... and get the upgraded 3yr warranty as it gets you faster phone support), and the MP.

Then see if they'll go for the MP (PC Workstation this way is more realistic, so they don't try to cop out and use a cobbled together system where you're stuck doing all the warranty support work).

Good luck.