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SATA vs SAS

scottydawg

scottydawg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 22, 2008
316
10
Sacramento, CA
I have a Mac Pro on order with a RAID card and 2 SAS drives (to start) for that I am going to be using for video editing. I am starting to have second thoughts if this is overkill and I would be fine with the SATA drives. Any thoughts?
 
SAS is more geared towards enterprise servers and more expensive than SATA, seems like overkill unless you have mission critical requirements.
 
The different in throughput is notable, and with higher-performance IO cards the difference in striped performance is also notable. If pumping data is what you need to do, SAS is a better option. It's nice to see Apple finally catching up with Dell.

However - the difference in noise is also notable. I don't know how much of it you'd hear outside the Pro. I don't do very IO intensive stuff on Macs so my newest Pro has been ordered with SATA, but my Dell Precisions do make a relatively loud racket with SAS drives in RAID0.
 
JesterJJZ said:
Nothing is overkill for video if you can afford it.
Click to expand...
I may have to starve for a month but I suppose I can afford it, I just like keeping money in my pocket whenever I can so I can buy other goodies :D

I have a RAID card running in RAID 0 in my PC that is 4 years old and it has been great at video editing with Adobe Premiere so I just figured that was the way to go moving to the Mac. I have been reading where some people are fine with SATA so I thought I should ask.
 
And don't forget that by going SAS, you sacrifice storage space (pay more per GB) because these drives spin at a much higher speed (10,000 or 15,000 rpm) the areal density is less per plater than the 7,200 rpm
 
Sesshi said:
The different in throughput is notable, and with higher-performance IO cards the difference in striped performance is also notable. If pumping data is what you need to do, SAS is a better option. It's nice to see Apple finally catching up with Dell.

However - the difference in noise is also notable. I don't know how much of it you'd hear outside the Pro. I don't do very IO intensive stuff on Macs so my newest Pro has been ordered with SATA, but my Dell Precisions do make a relatively loud racket with SAS drives in RAID0.
Click to expand...

This probably can't be stated enough, heat is also more of an issue which means the fans are likely to be working harder.
 
another related question...

Is the RAID card/ SAS installation something that needs to be installed when the computer is being built, or can it be added as an upgrade later?
 
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