RAID question for video editing

[gffmatt2014]

Coming from my 2009 build (i7920, ASUS P6T Deluxe V2, 12GB 1333mhz RAM, Vista, Sony Vegas Pro 9), I used 4 HDDs and didn't RAID. I don't feel I ever had a performance issue.

In my new build (i74930k, ASUS P9X79 WS, 32GB 1866 RAM, 7 Ultimate, CS6, Vegas Pro 12) I am considering a RAID option but not really sure if I need it. I generally back up my raw footage and finished projects on two separate external drives anyway, so there's never any long-term files stored internally. I've never experienced a "speed issue" that I've noticed with the old rig, so I'm not sure where I'd be gaining anything.

I plan to put 4 WD Black 3TB drives in the new rig. 1 for boot drive, 1 for music files and other renders, then I don't know whether I should RAID the other 2. Or have 3 more for different RAID configuration.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[popatim]

Normally with video editing you want seperate source and destination drives.
Entusiasts want a seperate OS drive as well. In addition some softwares want a seperate 'scratch' disk for a total of 4 drives/arrays.

I dont know if vegas uses a scratch drive, i beleive it does but calls it something else, but this is where you want your fastest drive/array.

During a render you can monitor your disk and cpu usage and you will see if you need raids. You will see at least one of your disks hit 100% usage and your cpu won't be near 100%. Without knowing which WD blacks you getting I can only guess what MB/s would mean 100% usage.

keep in mind scratch disks dont need to be large, just fast and many people use a small SSD for the task.