Raid for Video Editing

mattfink1

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May 5, 2010
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Hello,

Hey Everyone...

I have researched this extensively and still cannot find a good answer, so hoping one of you can shed some light!

Right now I don't use any back up solution - I have a zillion hard drives, internal and external and I have an older Lacie raid 5 array that I use for my music and graphics storage (and storing other important things).

I edit on Premiere CS4 and will be moving up to CS5 eventually.

I am starting to film tapeless (mainly with DSLRs) so now I really need a good backup solution - and I need a lot more storage in general. I thought about doing the simple copy the raw files to 2 separate disks but when I get home late from a wedding and have one the next day too this is a step I may forget...so then I thought about maybe having a raid configuration. I researched 1, 1+0 and 5. I know 0 is the best but there is no backup. I don't like the idea of 1 or 1+0 because you are basically loosing 1 or 2 harddrives just for mirroring. My favorite raid is 5 due to the fact that you get somewhere around 70% use of your storage space and have redundancy.

Now here is the question - everywhere I read says raid 5 is great for editing and then everywhere else I read says its not great for editing.

I want to buy this; Newegg.com - SANS DIGITAL TowerRAID TR4UT-B 4 Bay SATA to USB2.0 / eSATA Hardware RAID 5 Enclosure (Black)

It's a hardware raid solution - and throw in 4-2tb 32mb cache, 7200rpm drives. My question is - will this be a good solution for huge storage and allow me enough speed to edit right from it? Or can I even go cheaper and get a software raid solution using an E-Sata portmultiplier (1x speed)?

I am so confused as everybody has different info!

Thank you so much in advance!!
 

sub mesa

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Have you looked at FreeNAS? May provide you with a more reliable way of storing files. Generally the quality of RAID5 drivers both hardware and software varies alot.

Also, if you want speed you shouldn't be using any port multipliers; but real full-bandwidth SATA ports like on your motherboard and any PCI-express add-on controller.

If you also want something like a backup, perhaps you would like to study ZFS as well. The link in my signature points to several tutorials on how to set up such a system. You can try this in Virtualbox and see if it suits your demands.
 

adampower

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Apr 20, 2010
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Check my thread if you want to build a NAS using FreeNas. However, I like the look of those HP ex495 systems. On sale for $400 now and then. Use your desktop to do all the video editing and such and have an automatic backup to your NAS.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/257857-14-freenas-system-gigabit

ZFS and zRaid seems the way to go. It's like raid5 but better. zRaid2 is like Raid 6 but again...better. But there is no 'easy' ZFS solution yet. Windows Home Server seems to make people happy and FreeNas has very few complaints as even I could set it up. There is some talk that FreeNas 0.8 will be released with ZFS support.
 

mattfink1

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May 5, 2010
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I'm not looking for NAS (well at least for this project!). I just want to know if the raid 5 I am looking to make is powerful enough to handle editing without any noticeable slowdowns or difference. It will be connected directly via Esata to one machine only, doesn't need to be accessed anywhere else.

Thanks!
 

sub mesa

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Then you're looking for a DAS, and most that do RAID5 at the "hardware" level is actually quite slow. Please make sure you inform yourself about the speeds before opting for such a solution.

In either way, a NAS would be a cheaper and faster alternative; unless you can find a really good DAS with high speeds; but i warn you most RAID5s are crap.