Any suggestions on good, affordable RAID systems for a Mac Pro?

[Rob Ruffo]

We just bought a Mac Pro 2008 8-core to tide us over until the PC release of DaVinci - anybody have any raid suggestions for MAC that are good and cost-effective, and just fast enough to run a single channel of RED footage at reasonable speeds?

[Richard Foster]

Hi Rob. I just bought some DroboS's loaded with 2TB Seagate Barracudas from http://www.NASHQ.com/?gclid=CIXzgoPon6sCFahgTAodMUxOjg. His price and service was good. He prebuilds and tests. I only just got them and haven't tested the speed yet, but I'm sure 5 of these puppies in a RAID 0 will meet the benchmark :–) And the DroboS's are really nicely made. Hope this helps.

[ckarcher]

Also look at the Caldigit Raids. Both Mac and PC friendly. We've had one for 4 years (HDpro) and we're getting ready to upgrade it ton a HDpro2- it only needs an upgraded interface card and then we'll be integrating it into a Supershare SAN. it will be running +700mbps alongside a +1600mbps HDpro24 with fiber lines to several edit stations. It's a great company, great support and solid tech.

[Jason Myres]

There are a few different data rates, but last time I checked, a stream of R3D tops out at 42 MB/s which doesn't require an array to play back. The challenge starts when you transcode out to DPX where the data rates move from 100's of megs per second (HD) to close to 2000MB/s (4K) very quickly depending on your settings. If you do ultimately end up needing an array, my vote would be for a Maxx Digital Evo if you want to go full service, or an ATTO R680 with an 8-Bay (or larger) 6Gb SAS enclosure if you'd like to roll your own.

JM

[Christopher Barrett]

I use a Drobo Pro as my vault... pretty much offline everything to there but use a 4 drive internal Raid 0 for active work. There is a huge speed difference between the two. I think I get maybe just under 100mb/s from the Drobo and at least twice that from the internal Raid. If I play R3D's in RCX from the Drobo they usually stutter a bit.

I think I'm gonna replace my internal raid with larger drives but keep the same setup... you just need to be religious about backup with the Raid 0.

[Peter Chamberlain]

Hi, we are scheduled to release Resolve on Windows in Q1 of 2012 so you could use three drives in the MacPro with software Raid 0 for sufficient performance and its unlikely the drives would fail in a few months so while the RAID 0 has some risks its relatively low.
Peter

[Tom.Wong]

few tips on keeping a raid 0 healthy.

make sure the power doesn't get yanked in the middle of a process like transfer or writing. that's where bad blocks are created and cause bad mojo.
i always use software to give me a drive health status

a cool and dry room, and the rest is chance :)

my 5 bay internal raid 0 has been running since Jan, with several external raid 5's as my backups.

[Greg Huson]

Im a fan of maxx digital, but I agree with the consensus here- though I would use a 4-way raid 0 and put an SSD in the second optical slot as your boot drive... Everything launches faster, which is really cool.
Wait.. Is that a 'harpertown?' I haven't had terrific results on that box with processor- intensive codecs, but YMMV. Fine if you have rocket, I guess. Also the optical slot might be PATA, I think, not SATA, but there's a spare SATA on the mobo behind the fan, if you want to hook up an SSD.

[Rob Ruffo]

Thank you all for your very knowledgeable replies - this is why I love Reduser!

[Christopher Barrett]

The opti-bay is indeed SATA. I pulled that drive and use both opti-bay cables to run a couple SSD's. One is OS the other is Apps. The four internal bays are in RAID 0 for active work. I offline that to Drobo, but thinking about a MAXX digital... drag is... I got no slots left for ESATA or SAS controllers. Ugh.

[Jerimiah Morey]

I have an areca 1680x and a sans digital tr8x with 8 2tb drives. It's a little more of a DIY solution, but it works very well. To build the array takes around 30 hours, but once it's done, it's very fast.

[mcKayj]

This may be overkill but you can build an ATTO based 12 bay array capable of around 1100MB/s in RAID6 for around $3500 with controller card, etc.

[Paul Provost]

this enclosure and host card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111176
plus these drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145473
will give you 14TB of raid5 650MB-700MB/sec performance for about $1500. which is amazing.
and it works. yeah it's cheap chinese crap but it does work. emails you with raid events the whole deal.
worked reliably for 6 months now. and you can move it to the PC when you switch...

[Joe Kleber]

Hi Rob. I just bought some DroboS's loaded with 2TB Seagate Barracudas from http://www.NASHQ.com/?gclid=CIXzgoPon6sCFahgTAodMUxOjg. His price and service was good. He prebuilds and tests. I only just got them and haven't tested the speed yet, but I'm sure 5 of these puppies in a RAID 0 will meet the benchmark :–) And the DroboS's are really nicely made. Hope this helps.


I hate to say this after reading your post... I will never buy another Seagate product of any kind. I recommend you run at least raid 5.

[Jean Déraps]

Jarred just gave up on his Drobos....

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?63478-DROBO....&highlight=jarred+drobo

[Alexis Vanier]

I just keep reading terrible things about the Drobos but still see quite a few of them. They're this era's new LaCie? Urh...

Anyway, I can say I'm running a HighPoint card with a four drive array of Samsung Spinpoints F3s and pump out a consistent 350Mb/s. I can do realtime DPX, which is freaking awesome.

A two port SFF-8088 raid card and a dumb enclosure (as in, the raid's on the card in your computer, not in the enclosure) like some of the other Sans Digital will get you great performance at a more or less low pricepoint. Just pick a controller that suits you price and feature-wise, and you're good to go. Just don't skimp out on the drives. Some cheaper drives don't play well with raids. Caviar Blacks are a favourite of mine for that matter.

Otherwise, for an out of the box, plug and play deal, you could simply pick up one of those G-Tech mini-tower things, slap a decent eSata card in your mac and call it victory. Quite a few people stock them locally. And that would be plenty enough to read Red footage.

Cheers!

[Rob Ruffo]

Thanks Alexis! RT DPX is useful for sure!

Which High Point Card?

[Sean Kapleton]

Yeah I have had TERRIBLE support and experience with Drobo lately - it was my backup vault for my RAID 0 internal 8TB on a 12-core and was just using CCC to do nightly backups to the drobo via friewire 800 - terrible idea I must say - unit failed!