Should I raid 0 three 1tb Caviar Blacks for OS, Apps, FCP Scratch?

[chiefroastbeef]

Dear all,

I've been reading on raid 0 set ups on this forum, and I have a 2.93 Mac Pro with 6gb ram, 4870 card coming in a few hours into Hong Kong!

Originally I was going to keep my 640gb for OS and Apps, and two 1tb Caviar Blacks for raid 0 for FCP scratch and Aperture library. However, I was reading this thread ( https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/693288/) and they were saying just raid 0 three or four drives together for OS, apps, and scratch disk for SSD level speeds. I will use the fourth drive and external HDs for back up, I also have a drobo for data storage as well.

My question is, will I see better performance by raid 0ing three drives, and putting everything on it, then raid 0ing two drives for scratch disk purposes for FCP? I want a faster OS and while working with apps, but just can't afford SSD yet!

Thanks for inputs!

 

[lemonade-maker]

As long as your backup scheme is sound, raid 0 is a good choice. I use raid 0 on 4 x 1.5tb drives and am happy. I use a 1.5 tb for timemachine and a 1.5 tb for periodic clone backup. Works great.

 

[chiefroastbeef]

Thanks for the reply lemonade (yum) maker. Is your raid 0 setup partitioned? If I raid 0 three WD Blacks, should I split them into three partitions?

1. OS and Apps
2. Aperture Library
3. Scratch Disk for FCP

I will probably use the fourth bay to back up my OS and Apps, and Aperture Library. For the scratch disk and media I will back up on the drobo, and I will back upmy Aperture library again on the Drobo.

Does this sound okie dokie with you?

One more questions, how should I go about making the raid 0 and installing Snow Leopard? I will be doing research on how to do it, just wondering how you did it if you don't mind sharing!

Thanks again.

 

[chiefroastbeef]

An update, I have decided to just keep the stock 640gb hard drive as the OS and App drive, since I don't care too much about start up and app loading times on the Mac Pro.

I will RAID 0 the two WD blacks I have for Aperture library and FCP scratch. And the fourth bay for back up.

I may try to Raid 0 the whole thing in the future when I get a raid card, after reading some stuff on the net it seems not to be worth it to raid 0 using software raid.

Thanks gain for the help! Now I need to go get an APC UPS!