Need some help choosing hard drives

[odinsride]

Hi,

I am planning on buying a new mac pro whenever they're updated. I will be getting the 8-core base model with the upgraded GPU (for gaming). Everything else I will buy third-party.

I am having trouble deciding what size hard drives and how many of them I should buy.

I currently have two 500gb FW800 externals from OWC, that I will be using with the Mac Pro.

I definitely want to get a velociraptor for the system drive. For storage, I was planning on getting maybe a 1TB and a 1.5TB - the 1TB being my primary storage drive and the 1.5TB being my time machine drive for the System & Storage drives.

Does this sound like a good plan? Is there a better way I could go about doing it? Can you have multiple Time Machine drives that back up different locations?

I really don't know what I'll use my FW drives for yet, but I would prefer to use internal storage drives on the Mac Pro.

Thanks in advance


Edit: FWIW, I am also an amateur photographer and I use Aperture quite a bit. I also play guitar and would like to get Logic and a recording interface some day. I don't know what advantages there are to keeping working files on their own disk...could anyone comment on that?

Nothing huh?

 

[belvdr]

I think your setup sounds fine, although good luck with the gaming bit. Apple's graphics cards almost seem mid-to-low end comparatively.

You might also question if the VelociRaptor is worth the money, since you can get some other drives at 7200rpm that aren't that far behind in performance.

 

[nicolasmasset]

Funny, I'm planning on doing almost the same thing! My plan is:

Drive 1: hopefully flash ssd drive of however high they can get as the system drive. Otherwise a SAS 15000 rpm drive.
Drive 2 + 3: raid drive (the raid which evens the load on the drives)
Drive 4: The drive to store my songs.

So all in all, the mac pro would read the songs from 4, load up the samples from the raid 2+3, and operate the software with the one bliztingly fast ssd or 15000 SAS.

Now I just really really hope they launch them come january, cause my macbook's desperately running out of power!

 

[frimple]

+1 to the SSD ^

I've thought a lot about my ideal setup with the current hardware, and please keep in mind that this is beyond ridiculous, but here's my dream setup.

First off you've got to get a third party RAID card. From what I've heard Areca makes about the best cards you can buy and I think that they are Mac OS X bootable (at least 10.4). 8 SATA drive connections is a must, and with the current case design it's impossible to avoid running a few cables around.

OS Drives: 4 x 64Gb SSD (SLC) RAID 0 [2.5 form factor should allow all 4 into second optical bay]
App Drives: 3 x 300Gb Raptor (RAID 5)
Media Drive: 1 x 1.5Tb (mirrored to NAS)

Of course this setup would be a labor of love and cost ~$5k. But for a budget dream machine I think of this.

OS\Apps: 1 x 128 Gb SSD (MLC)
Working Media: 3 x 300 Gb Raptor (RAID 5)
Storage Media: NAS (Damn you 4 drive bays!)

 

[pagansoul]

On all of my 4 drives I took out my Maxtor 500GBs and went with WD Green 1TB (Micro Center). I got them for $120 each. I believe I paid around that much 2 years ago for the 500s. Very quiet, I have them as a few back-up drives in external enclosures.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Don't get the Seagate 1.5TB. Mine froze, dismounted, and deformatted itself every 20 minutes or so before and after the firmware update that was supposed to have fixed the problems.

If you actually want to keep your data, I'd get something else.

 

[cube]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077.html

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Velociraptor

My understanding is that the 300gb Raptor (velociraptor) does not have the sata/sata power connectors in the standard spot and will not work in a mac pro without relocating to a 5 1/4 " bay....

I went for a 160gb Raptor for the system drive... quite a bit cheaper too and not THAT much slower....

 

[nanofrog]

My understanding is that the 300gb Raptor (velociraptor) does not have the sata/sata power connectors in the standard spot and will not work in a mac pro without relocating to a 5 1/4 " bay....

I went for a 160gb Raptor for the system drive... quite a bit cheaper too and not THAT much slower....

The first version of the Velociraptor released won't fit the drive sleds.

But for anyone interested, the WD3000HLFS will, as they redesigned the aluminum mount to be backplane compatible.
If you look around, the prices have been falling a little as well.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The first version of the Velociraptor released won't fit the drive sleds.

But for anyone interested, the WD3000HLFS will, as they redesigned the aluminum mount to be backplane compatible.
If you look around, the prices have been falling a little as well.

Ah, very cool! Thanks for the info/update, I didn't know they had redesigned it, helps those of use with MP's that want the fastest drives we can get without going Raid / SAS 15K.

 

[cube]

http://www.storagereview.com/Testbed4Compare.sr

 

[nanofrog]

Ah, very cool! Thanks for the info/update, I didn't know they had redesigned it, helps those of use with MP's that want the fastest drives we can get without going Raid / SAS 15K.

Well, you can use the Velociraptor for a boot drive, and some Cheetah 15K.6's in RAID.
Now, that would move some data.

 

[nicolasmasset]

Well, you can use the Velociraptor for a boot drive, and some Cheetah 15K.6's in RAID.
Now, that would move some data.

But to be able to do raid on a mac pro, you need a raid card, don't you?
The ones on the apple site are ridicoulously expensive (+-700$). Makes me want to go external with a glyph raid system orso. But then that's firewire and not sata or sas...

 

[pwn247]

My only suggestion for hard drives- not just for the Mac Pro, mind you- is to stay away from Maxtor.

I went super cheap and picked up a 500GB Maxtor drive (7200 RPM) on discount a few months ago, and it's been horrible. It's extremely loud, it wiggles in the ports, just plain hell.

Stick with Seagate* (my fav) or Western Digital.

And yes, the SSD drives are extremely attractive- they have minimal access times.

 

[nanofrog]

But to be able to do raid on a mac pro, you need a raid card, don't you?
The ones on the apple site are ridicoulously expensive (+-700$). Makes me want to go external with a glyph raid system orso. But then that's firewire and not sata or sas...

Of course!
There's a few, and much better than Apple's Pro RAID card.
Take a look at Areca and Atto for features and speed. SAS and SATA offerings that work in a Mac.

My only suggestion for hard drives- not just for the Mac Pro, mind you- is to stay away from Maxtor.

I went super cheap and picked up a 500GB Maxtor drive (7200 RPM) on discount a few months ago, and it's been horrible. It's extremely loud, it wiggles in the ports, just plain hell.

Stick with Seagate* (my fav) or Western Digital.

And yes, the SSD drives are extremely attractive- they have minimal access times.

Maxtor's left a bad taste in my mouth years ago. I'll never touch one ever, even if given to me.
Straight to the recycle bin. At least the aluminum can be salvaged from such a dreadful existence.

Seagate and WD are decent, especially the Enterprise grade drives.

 

[wheezy]

I have two Samsung F1 1TB drives and I love them, very quiet and very cool.

 

[azdude]

I've been happy with my setup:

Bay 1 & 2: 2 x 300GB (backplane-compatible) VelociRaptor in RAID0
Bay 3: Seagate 1.5TB, 1TB for Data, 500GB for Boot Camp Vista x64
Bay 4: Seagate 1.5TB, Time Machine

No problems here with the 1.5TB drives.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I've been happy with my setup:

Bay 1 & 2: 2 x 300GB (backplane-compatible) VelociRaptor in RAID0
Bay 3: Seagate 1.5TB, 1TB for Data, 500GB for Boot Camp Vista x64
Bay 4: Seagate 1.5TB, Time Machine

No problems here with the 1.5TB drives.

I'm thinking that my setup is going to evolve into a similar setup. I bet those two 300gb VelociRaptors in Raid0 absolutely scream. Of course... 4 of them and then a 1.5 in the 2nd optical bay... hooahhhh "VelociRaid"