Raid for iMac

[MacMike1]

i am looking for a good external raid solution (for video editing)

firewire 800 is good but if you are working with high resolution video (excam) you need a raid (at least for the data security). i found several raid systems (like the drobo) but not sure if they are fast enough for video. please advise!
if lan raid solutions are fast enough that would be the best!
thanks mike

 

[Hellhammer]

Well, FireWire 800 is the fastest that iMac supports, don't know how LAN thing would work but it would only be 20% faster (FW800 = 800Mb/s, Gigabit Ethernet = 1000Mb/s)

 

[Powers]

iSCSI

Well, FireWire 800 is the fastest that iMac supports, don't know how LAN thing would work but it would only be 20% faster (FW800 = 800Mb/s, Gigabit Ethernet = 1000Mb/s)

Something like the following offering from inXtron set in RAID 5 will run faster than the FW800 bandwidth will allow and offer a good degree of redundancy, up to 200MB/sec sustained with 4 drives in RAID 5 even full via eSATA. However, this will only go at the max FW800 speed around 65-80 MB/sec in real world tests.

http://www.span.com/product_info.php?products_id=27289
http://www.inxtron.com/products/hddmulti/hydra/hydra_superslcm

You might be able squeeze a bit more bandwidth from your gigabit Network port via a quality iSCSI device, but you will have to spend much more to get the extra performance. Many standard gigabit devices like the following Promise NS4600 NAS, fall down in real world speed tests in comparison to the gigabit theoretical max. Max I could get was a paltry 45MB/sec over gigabit:
http://www.span.com/product_info.php?products_id=26401
And a review of the NS4600:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/promise-smartstor-ns4600-review/12

If you really want speed from your iMac, open it up remove your CD drive and connect a SATA to eSATA cable to the first box from inXtron, stick the cable out of the CD opening slot . But somehow I cannot see you butchering your new iMac, but the extra 120MB/sec is very tempting hey!

 

[mrksem454]

A software RAID on a desktop home machine probably wouldn't do anything much different than what you're used to now, They're more dependent on your processor and video card. I would recommend simply using the extra 250GB drive as a place to hold stuff (ie, an extra hard drive connected to the computer for storage).

 

[MacMike1]

thanks a lot guys!
after buying the imac and realising my "raid problem" i thought i should have bought the mac pro!
however the open up and use dvd sata for external raid sounds good
maybe as soon my warranty is over.
however i am wondering how are companies solving this?
i know that they are using imac for smaller video editing and using a network data transfer system which goes to the network storage raid.
so not sure how they can acchieve super speeds with a gigabit network. :/