LaCie 2Big Drive - Raid 0 vs Independent Volumes

[dmw16]

I just purchased a LaCie 2Big thunderbolt drive for my new rMBP. I'll be using it to supplement the smaller drive in the laptop.

Along with music, movies, and images I'll also be using it to hold a windows VM.

However, temporarily it is holding the files I need to backup from my iMac as I transition to the rMBP. And since I'm changing computers I can't currently set it up as a RAID 0 enclosure.

So my question is, for my usage will I see a real performance difference between using each volume as opposed to setting them up in RAID 0.

If there's a big upside I will move all my files onto my slower USB drive, then setup the 2Big and then move them back.

Thanks.

 

[ray648]

Raid 0 should give you better performance, especially with the larger files (movies etc). However, don't forget that if one of the drives fails you will lose all your data.

If you can fit your files in less than half the total capacity, and don't have backups elsewhere, then you would be better off configuring it as raid 1. This will give you the same performance boost, but only on reads, and protect against disc failure.

 

[dmw16]

Raid 0 should give you better performance, especially with the larger files (movies etc). However, don't forget that if one of the drives fails you will lose all your data.

If you can fit your files in less than half the total capacity, and don't have backups elsewhere, then you would be better off configuring it as raid 1. This will give you the same performance boost, but only on reads, and protect against disc failure.

Thanks. I didn't realize that RAID1 would give a similar boost in read speeds to RAID0.

I am not sure if the 2Big will have anything I can't afford to lose. My pictures (which are the things I'd be most disappointed to lose) will be on my internal drive which will get backed up to time machine and then critical stuff will be occasionally copied to another external drive. I'll have to give all that some thought.

 

[mawyatt]

I have the LaCie 4TB Thunderbolt as RAID 0 and it is very fast with my MBPr. Black Magic indicates it's almost as fast as the MBPr internal SSD. I got the refurb LaCie and wished I had got 2, waiting for a lower price and I'll get another LaCie as backup.

 

[dmw16]

I have the LaCie 4TB Thunderbolt as RAID 0 and it is very fast with my MBPr. Black Magic indicates it's almost as fast as the MBPr internal SSD. I got the refurb LaCie and wished I had got 2, waiting for a lower price and I'll get another LaCie as backup.

I picked one up refurb from MacMall for $290 which given the regular price I was pretty happy with. It was the external thunderbolt drive I wanted, but I couldn't swallow the $600 price tag, but at under $300 it seemed the way to go.

 

[mawyatt]

I picked one up refurb from MacMall for $290 which given the regular price I was pretty happy with. It was the external thunderbolt drive I wanted, but I couldn't swallow the $600 price tag, but at under $300 it seemed the way to go.

They don't have anymore of the 2Big 4TB Thunderbolt refurb drives, I got mine from MacMall as well...should have got 2. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll show up again.