Actually, you got lucky.
They have a habit of taking other parts of the computer with them such as boards, CPU's, memory,... even the entire system.
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RAID 0/10/5 useful or real world overkill? (for non-video work)
- Thread starter schweinsteiger
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They have a habit of taking other parts of the computer with them such as boards, CPU's, memory,... even the entire system.
about 5 year using Raid 0 had hardware failure most of the time my fault but a good backup always help at this moment an aditional HD for Timemachine is a Must
but a good backup always help at this moment an aditional HD for Timemachine is a Must
Actually, you got lucky.
They have a habit of taking other parts of the computer with them such as boards, CPU's, memory,... even the entire system.
Yep!
But just to be clear I didn't mean cheap as in low dollar. I meant cheap as in low quality. I wouldn't put it past any vendor to charge high dollar for low quality either so it's manufacturer specs plus service records if you can get them, that you gotta look at.
Cheap quality definitely doesn't necessarily mean it was inexpensive, particularly these days.Yep!
But just to be clear I didn't mean cheap as in low dollar. I meant cheap as in low quality. I wouldn't put it past any vendor to charge high dollar for low quality either so it's manufacturer specs plus service records if you can get them, that you gotta look at.
I actually put some time into researching PSU's this this time around, as even some of the 1KW+ units weren't any good at doing what they're designed to do. Truly sad.
final set-up!
OK, so I made my decisions and will set up my new Mac Pro like this:
2.93 Quad/8GB RAM from OWC/2xGT120/NEC3090 30" - ACD 23" and 20"
four Hitachi Saturn Enterprise 1TB HDs for internal RAID 0
with "everything" loaded, OS/apps/work data/iTunes media for fastest read/write.
original 640GB HD goes into optical bay
hourly scheduled backup (CCC incremental) of OS/apps/work data
in case of RAID array failure I can immediately switch over to the 640HD and keep working as if nothing happened. (the only thing missing temporarily would be the enormous iTunes library - until I restore the RAID drive from external back-up)
2 1TB HDs in external FireWire800 enclosure to back up the complete RAID0 drive daily/weekly (CCC incremental)
in case of RAID array failure I can restore everything, just have to wait several hours for file transfer.
several external HDs I have lying around to make extra back-ups of iTunes library and work files, maybe to store off-site.
APC BR1500 Back-UPS 1500VA plus one additional APC BR24BP Battery Pack for extra time. In case of power outage (common in Los Angeles summers) I can save open docs and shut down properly to keep the RAID 0 drive intact.
[Thanks Tesselator for the deciding piece of advice. I heard from more people that a RAID 0 really starts getting FAST when you have 4 drives, so setting up a RAID10 would be "safer" but slower and only half the storage - but not really safe, since power outage could still ruin the array, so you need an external back-up anyway and you would not have the same speed as with a RAID 0. All in all I'm looking forward to having basically one really smokin' fast 4TB drive. With a UPS in place and the (almost) best 1TB HDs I could find (Hitachi Enterprise level) the RAID array should be very, very stable. In case of failure I can immediately switch over to the internal 640HD backup drive and keep working. With this setup I just have to be very good about file back-up, which I think I have prepared for.]
My new Mac Pro, new 30" monitor and HDs will all be delivered today. I will let you know how it all turns out ....
OK, so I made my decisions and will set up my new Mac Pro like this:
2.93 Quad/8GB RAM from OWC/2xGT120/NEC3090 30" - ACD 23" and 20"
four Hitachi Saturn Enterprise 1TB HDs for internal RAID 0
with "everything" loaded, OS/apps/work data/iTunes media for fastest read/write.
original 640GB HD goes into optical bay
hourly scheduled backup (CCC incremental) of OS/apps/work data
in case of RAID array failure I can immediately switch over to the 640HD and keep working as if nothing happened. (the only thing missing temporarily would be the enormous iTunes library - until I restore the RAID drive from external back-up)
2 1TB HDs in external FireWire800 enclosure to back up the complete RAID0 drive daily/weekly (CCC incremental)
in case of RAID array failure I can restore everything, just have to wait several hours for file transfer.
several external HDs I have lying around to make extra back-ups of iTunes library and work files, maybe to store off-site.
APC BR1500 Back-UPS 1500VA plus one additional APC BR24BP Battery Pack for extra time. In case of power outage (common in Los Angeles summers) I can save open docs and shut down properly to keep the RAID 0 drive intact.
[Thanks Tesselator for the deciding piece of advice. I heard from more people that a RAID 0 really starts getting FAST when you have 4 drives, so setting up a RAID10 would be "safer" but slower and only half the storage - but not really safe, since power outage could still ruin the array, so you need an external back-up anyway and you would not have the same speed as with a RAID 0. All in all I'm looking forward to having basically one really smokin' fast 4TB drive. With a UPS in place and the (almost) best 1TB HDs I could find (Hitachi Enterprise level) the RAID array should be very, very stable. In case of failure I can immediately switch over to the internal 640HD backup drive and keep working. With this setup I just have to be very good about file back-up, which I think I have prepared for.]
My new Mac Pro, new 30" monitor and HDs will all be delivered today. I will let you know how it all turns out ....
This might be a dumb question because I know very little about RAIDs, but....how are you going to use 2 TB's to backup a 4TB RAID?
Take a look at the Stardom DR4
http://www.stardom.com.tw/
I saw this product at NAB and was stunned by the design and idea.
for photograph work folw, they suggest to use the DR4 for RAID 5 for scratch disk and use the iTank to archive. There is a great product called Pro Drive which takes 2X 2.5" hard drive in one Mac Pro internal drive bay. Supports RAID 0 and 1 but only support for older Mac Pro.
No doubt about that! But then as a video professional I spent $50,000.00 for each deck in a 3 deck A-B-Roll and my camera cost another $50,000.00 So that's $200,000.00 just for that. Another $1,000 (or 5
This is the point most people forget about, and you are so right about it.
If you compare the cost of the backup/storage system with the cost of replacing the work, you'll easily find that spending good money on a great solution is a no brainer.
Personally, I'd go even further and say that if you compare the cost of the backup/storage system with the cost of replacing your vacation/family photos.. well.. you can't.
A lot of smaller companies insure their equipment but fail to realize how important their data is, and so elect to spend a minimal amount of money protecting the core asset of the company.
Luckily, people seem to be wising up about it, though there are still a couple of stories per year about companies going out of business due to bad backups and minimal DR planning.
Looking at the bright side, at least that means I can bill a few hours every once in a while
HDs only half full
Good question. I have a dual drive enclosure that holds two 1TB HDs. Total of 1.86TB real storage space.
The four disk RAID 0 array will be filled with 1.4TB now. Over the next year or so I will add more files and still be under the 1.86TB. Then I will get two 1.5TB or 2TB HDs when I need that extra space. Having a 4TB drive doesn't mean you should fill it up. Actually, the performance of HDs is much better when you only use up to 50%. (So I'm told)
Of those 1.4TB only maybe 300GB are mission critical, i.e. OS & apps/home/work/data, those I back up to my internal 640GB HD that came with the MacPro. (The rest is mainly music)
Good question. I have a dual drive enclosure that holds two 1TB HDs. Total of 1.86TB real storage space.
The four disk RAID 0 array will be filled with 1.4TB now. Over the next year or so I will add more files and still be under the 1.86TB. Then I will get two 1.5TB or 2TB HDs when I need that extra space. Having a 4TB drive doesn't mean you should fill it up. Actually, the performance of HDs is much better when you only use up to 50%. (So I'm told)
Of those 1.4TB only maybe 300GB are mission critical, i.e. OS & apps/home/work/data, those I back up to my internal 640GB HD that came with the MacPro. (The rest is mainly music)
fast!
I just organized my new Mac Pro today.....
RAID 0 was set up in ten mins. Carbon Copy Cloner works nicely to back up OS & apps to the 640GB HD in the optical bay.
I haven't done much real work on the new system yet. But a couple of Photoshop filters applied to a big file were so fast I couldn't even count the seconds before they were done ...
Thanks again Tesselator for the excellent advice. I saw the other thread about probabilty of failure of a RAID 0 array. If you have a smart back up system in place, then there is really no need to worry. And getting really good Enterprise level HDs for your RAID doesn't hurt either!
I just organized my new Mac Pro today.....
RAID 0 was set up in ten mins. Carbon Copy Cloner works nicely to back up OS & apps to the 640GB HD in the optical bay.
I haven't done much real work on the new system yet. But a couple of Photoshop filters applied to a big file were so fast I couldn't even count the seconds before they were done ...
Thanks again Tesselator for the excellent advice. I saw the other thread about probabilty of failure of a RAID 0 array. If you have a smart back up system in place, then there is really no need to worry. And getting really good Enterprise level HDs for your RAID doesn't hurt either!
one more interesting fact about RAID 0!
In order to better back up, I created another partition on my RAID array for the OS & apps.
So now I have three partitions on each of the four HDs, creating three RAID 0 arrays:
4 x 32GB scratch
4 x 150GB OS/apps/work
4 x 750GB media
This way I can schedule CCC to back up the whole 600GB OS/apps/work volume to the fifth HD in the optical bay hourly. It became too complicated trying to set up a back up excluding just specific folders, it's easier to just do the whole volume.
At one point I tried to partition each drive 4 times before setting up the RAIDs, but that didn't work.
I spent a long time with AppleCare tech support on the phone. They had little knowledge of the matter, saying there were rarely any calls with RAID questions.
The interesting conclusion is that it is not possible to set up 4 RAIDs with Disk Utility. It worked flawlessly with 2 and 3, but when trying to go for four arrays I always received an error message with the last, fourth RAID.
Today I got an email from the Apple support person. Engineers had told him that Apple only supports one RAID array, not multiple arrays on the same set of physical disks.
OK, so it works with DU to create up to three arrays, but officially supported is only one.
I had read on macperformanceguide.com that DU is not as good as SOFTRAID when trying to create RAID arrays. I didn't want to spend another $130 just to set this up. And when you don't try to set up 4 arrays then Disk Utility actually worked very well (and it's free).
In order to better back up, I created another partition on my RAID array for the OS & apps.
So now I have three partitions on each of the four HDs, creating three RAID 0 arrays:
4 x 32GB scratch
4 x 150GB OS/apps/work
4 x 750GB media
This way I can schedule CCC to back up the whole 600GB OS/apps/work volume to the fifth HD in the optical bay hourly. It became too complicated trying to set up a back up excluding just specific folders, it's easier to just do the whole volume.
At one point I tried to partition each drive 4 times before setting up the RAIDs, but that didn't work.
I spent a long time with AppleCare tech support on the phone. They had little knowledge of the matter, saying there were rarely any calls with RAID questions.
The interesting conclusion is that it is not possible to set up 4 RAIDs with Disk Utility. It worked flawlessly with 2 and 3, but when trying to go for four arrays I always received an error message with the last, fourth RAID.
Today I got an email from the Apple support person. Engineers had told him that Apple only supports one RAID array, not multiple arrays on the same set of physical disks.
OK, so it works with DU to create up to three arrays, but officially supported is only one.
I had read on macperformanceguide.com that DU is not as good as SOFTRAID when trying to create RAID arrays. I didn't want to spend another $130 just to set this up. And when you don't try to set up 4 arrays then Disk Utility actually worked very well (and it's free).
I don't think there will be a over kill. It depends what you need and criticle it is. Can you afford to run at slower speed while rebuilding or complete shut down the operation?
I was helping a clinet who shoot video for a band tour. Her hard drive was dead. I spent at least 3 day to help her recover the data and finally got it back. I ask her to look into RAID solution but she did not listen.
Guess what, just before the project was due, her hard drive was complete out of luck. No way I could recover. She had to re-digitize all footage within a very short peroid of time. I still remember her face was like NINJA turtle green. Found out the issue was the power issue. She plug EVERYTHING to one power outlet.
A decent RAID setup, a Good power source and ALWAYS have a backup plan.
I was helping a clinet who shoot video for a band tour. Her hard drive was dead. I spent at least 3 day to help her recover the data and finally got it back. I ask her to look into RAID solution but she did not listen.
Guess what, just before the project was due, her hard drive was complete out of luck. No way I could recover. She had to re-digitize all footage within a very short peroid of time. I still remember her face was like NINJA turtle green. Found out the issue was the power issue. She plug EVERYTHING to one power outlet.
A decent RAID setup, a Good power source and ALWAYS have a backup plan.
I don't understand the problem.
If you make one RAID 0 set then you can just partition that. That's it. That's one RAID array. I listened to others here making partitions 1st and then making individual RAID arrays out of those but that borders lunacy IMHO.
Hmm... I thought lunacy would be to run a nested set in 50 or 60 just for a computer that only gets used for web browsing.
Hmm... I thought lunacy would be to run a nested set in 50 or 60 just for a computer that only gets used for web browsing.
Yeah, that would certainly qualify!
EDIT:
Oh wait? That's at me? No, no.
Those were for a hotel chain - on location. They supplied VOD (Video On Demand) and room service orders to the rooms. About 200 rooms per location so no light work-load.There are several places that recommend making the partitions first, then create the RAID(s). macperformanceguide.com, macprojournal.com/soft-raid.html, some Apple support discussion threads ...
It worked really well for me (after I gave up on the 4-partition idea) doing it that way.
Do you think the RAID first, partition later option is more stable? Any other advantages?
NanoFroggy might know more. I was initially surprised to discover it was even possible.
I was generalizing, and hadn't even thought of the hotel chain's set-up.Yeah, that would certainly qualify!
EDIT:
Oh wait? That's at me? No, no.
Either way can be done, provided the hardware supports it. But partitioning after the array is set up, can cause some issues. (Keep reading).
Creating partitions first, then the array makes disaster recovery easier.
The other way around, and you could loose the data, depending on the LVM (Logical Volume Management) used. It can also suffer from external fragmentation, costing you throughput.
Creating partitions first, then the array makes disaster recovery easier.
Umm, I think there's some wires being crossed here somewhere - probably in my brain.
It would seem to me that only partitioning after the RAID creation would this be possible. It's possible in the configuration I'm using presently. If you partition first and then create the RAID how are you going to change the size or concatenate partitions? Disk Utility will not allow you to modify more than one drive's PT and then save them all at once. However if you RAID'ed first then you have one virtual volume and the partitions on that can be handled as a single volume - sized, deleted, concatenated, etc.
What am I getting wrong?
This might helpUmm, I think there's some wires being crossed here somewhere - probably in my brain.
You may only be able to partition afterwards. I'm not familiar enough with OS X's software RAID functions. (I've never used it).It would seem to me that only partitioning after the RAID creation would this be possible. It's possible in the configuration I'm using presently. If you partition first and then create the RAID how are you going to change the size or concatenate partitions? Disk Utility will not allow you to modify more than one drive's PT and then save them all at once. However if you RAID'ed first then you have one virtual volume and the partitions on that can be handled as a single volume - sized, deleted, concatenated, etc. The same even applies to a RAID controller. You may only get one means of going about it.
What am I getting wrong?
If you can do it this way, you would partition the new drive first, then expand with the intended partition.
Personally, the way you're going about it, is much easier, and the issues can be lived with.
I've not even tried going the other way on any of the Areca's I have access to, but then again, I don't tend to partition them anyway. I just go with smaller drives. 
Sure, RAID is useful - can be faster (RAID 0) or more reliable (RAID 5). But it also gets complicated and potentially expensive and you wind up with less data for the buck.
Personally, if you are a reasonably disciplined person you can get all of the reliability with regular backups to an external device(s) with or without the use of TimeMachine.
For speed these days, we're headed for SSD's, which will eventually make RAID 0 less and less attractive. Although the cost and small storage space may not suit your needs (unless you want to RAID 0 an SSD).
Personally, I don't use RAID or TM and am very confident that my data is secure. Backups are done regularly - 3 or 4 x / week - for both user data and the OS using SuperDuper (with which you may automate the process) - painless. Never lost a file yet in 30+ years of computing. Takes only a few minutes each backup. Peace of mind.
But you'd better be disciplined about it, or the one time you forget ... that's my 2 cents.
Personally, if you are a reasonably disciplined person you can get all of the reliability with regular backups to an external device(s) with or without the use of TimeMachine.
For speed these days, we're headed for SSD's, which will eventually make RAID 0 less and less attractive. Although the cost and small storage space may not suit your needs (unless you want to RAID 0 an SSD).
Personally, I don't use RAID or TM and am very confident that my data is secure. Backups are done regularly - 3 or 4 x / week - for both user data and the OS using SuperDuper (with which you may automate the process) - painless. Never lost a file yet in 30+ years of computing. Takes only a few minutes each backup. Peace of mind.
But you'd better be disciplined about it, or the one time you forget ... that's my 2 cents.
It's usually needed when a combination of speed and security are needed. RAID 0 has no redundancy, and is insane to do without a proper backup system.
Mechanical or SSD's can be used, and the limiting factor is likely budget.
If it's not needed, then don't bother. You can save some headaches that way.
But it is a good way to speed up a system, as HDD throughput is the system's biggest bottleneck, and improving it can make a drastic difference. To each their own.
With RAID level 0 you get the same amount of data (storage space}
No RAID level is a replacement for backups. So, you still ned to back up either way.
SSD actually has about the same read/write speed as a 3 or 4 drive RAID. If you have 4 or 5 drive RAID at 10,000 or 15,000 RPM then RAID is faster than the fastest SSD. SSD kicks ass for access speeds. So it's SSD for seek heavy use like boot-drive or relative DB access.
The two aren't the same. Backups are backups. Backups are not RAID. RAID halls ass. It has a very specific purpose. 1, 10, 5, and 6 additionally have a hardware level of protection. But it's not a backup mechanism either.
And nearly n*individual drive throughput = stripe throughput.
With 0 redundancy of course. Absolutely.
SSD's have their place, and are particularly useful as OS drives.
I'm still Leary of them for RAID though, as no matter the leveling techniques implemented, it can't take a UBE of 1 bit error in 10K or 1 bit in 100K (depending on MLC or SLC), and make it 1E15 or better. FeRAM has a UBE of 1E16, but isn't yet available.
Definitely not.
Unfortunately, not everyone understands this, so it's worth re-posting often. Especially if the operator makes a living from the data.