RAID questions...

[JesterJJZ]

I'm possibly getting a MacPro soon and had some questions.

I currently have a G5 with two internal drives. One for boot and one for files.
I'm trying to figure out what my best options are for configuring my drives. My drive with the files on it is most important, I would at least want to mirror that one. I don't keep critical files on my boot disk. Should I just mirror my files drive or run a raid5 and keep everything on that? Also, with the raid5, what happens if my machine breaks down? Can I move the whole raid set to a different machine? I also Understand I'd need the raid card to do raid5.

Also, does mirroring slow my performance?

Thanks.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Running any kind of RAID has some processor overhead, a mirror will slow performance down a bit. In theory, reads could be faster, but not with software RAID 1 IMO.

I think you are better off doing separate disks for System/Apps and Data, (or System, Apps and Data) and having a large external that you do periodic backups to with Superduper or Time Machine or whatever. A RAID is not a substitute for a backup. If you accidentally delete a file, overwrite it, or corrupt it in a crash, the RAID mirror is just as b0rked as the original.

 

[JesterJJZ]

I have an external drive that I plug bare sata drives into for my back ups. I'm looking for a failsafe online system for my important and current stuff like project files and art assets. I back those up manually to my external every few days. I also have 2T in G-Raid for my online media. With my files drive on a mirror I can have one drive fail without a hitch no?

 

[JesterJJZ]

Yeah, so it looks like I AM getting a new MacPro. I'm thinking I'm gonna do the mirror for all my files and projects. Does it matter what bays I'll use inside the MacPro? Like bay 1 for my boot and 3+4 for the mirror? I may add a Raptor as my scratch disk in bay 2 later. As I mentioned in another thread, I may add a pata drive in the second optical bay for my itunes.

Also...would I benefit in getting a raid card for the mirror or will softraid be enough?

 

[trancepriest]

Yeah, so it looks like I AM getting a new MacPro. I'm thinking I'm gonna do the mirror for all my files and projects. Does it matter what bays I'll use inside the MacPro? Like bay 1 for my boot and 3+4 for the mirror? I may add a Raptor as my scratch disk in bay 2 later. As I mentioned in another thread, I may add a pata drive in the second optical bay for my itunes.

Also...would I benefit in getting a raid card for the mirror or will softraid be enough?

Soft RAID will be enough. I don't know if you will have to configure drives 1+2 as one volume that gets mirrored to drives 3+4.

 

[JesterJJZ]

Soft RAID will be enough. I don't know if you will have to configure drives 1+2 as one volume that gets mirrored to drives 3+4.

I meant that Bay one will just be my OS. Bay 3 as another drive that gets mirrored to bay 4. I would leave bay 2 open for now.

 

[termina3]

Jester, went to your site and noticed a couple of things:

1) do you have the rights to display those company logos? If not, you should consider removing them...

2) I dunno if the boxes at the bottom are ads or not... but they sure do look like it (-> unprofessional feel)

 

[iSavant]

I'm only using two drives internally at the moment, but using Bay 2 and Bay 3. Bay 1 sits OVER the front fan and I don't think it gets cooled as well. All bays are equal otherwise. You may set them up as you please.

I hope you enjoy your new Mac Pro!