[bencurtis]

Current system: Quicksilver G4 933Mhz, 1.25gb RAM, 120gb + 60gb drives on onboard IDE controller, 100gb external firewire drive.

Ok, so I need to expand my storage capacity and hopefully give my system a speed boost. I'm using the system mainly for general use, lots of apps, Photoshop, lots of picture storage and some video (DV) work.

I was going to get a Sonnet Tempo ATA133 controller and an extra drive or two, but now I'm thinking I should go down the SATA path as it seems the way forward and about the same price. I read the following article over at www.barefeats.com:

http://www.barefeats.com/hard30.html

...and am now very tempted to use a software-striped RAID 0 solution (e.g. 2 x 200GB) on two SATA channels using the Firmtek SeriTek/1S2 PCI controller for my main drive.

I realise this increases the risk of data loss through drive failure but I think I can live with that if I can back up most of it with Retrospect to other drives every few days. I'm more worried I'll screw up something on the drive than have a drive failure, so RAID 1 mirroring isn't that appealing to me.

Ideally I'd retrospect it ALL to an external drive(s) e.g. a Lacie BigDisk but I can't afford that many drives...

Just wondering if anyone had any experience or opinions, or any ideas as to how best to utilise my existing drives if I go for the above setup.

Also understand there are some wake-from-sleep problems with the Firmtek card, and wondering if anyone has any experience of these.

Many thanks in advance... these forums have always been a really valuable resource.

Ben

[OreoCookie]

What do you do with your computer? DV, Photoshop.

First of all, don't believe anything barefeats writes, their Benchmarks are usually skewed.

You got a 933 MHz G4, so even if you do video editing, the performance benefits wouldn't justify the expenses. If you need space, you could always put in two drives, but I would caution you to buy drives when you need them. In a year, you can get twice the space for the same price.

Also, your G4 is not a top of the notch machine, you could always save the money for the next one. With a bigger drive.

[bencurtis]

Thanks for the advice... Yes I take your point about buying drives when you need them as next year they'll be cheaper, bigger etc
I still would like a two-drive RAID 0 setup but maybe I'll get two smaller, cheaper drives and see where that gets me.
Am unlikely to upgrade desktop any time soon as I need a powerbook more urgently.

Cheers,

Ben

[OreoCookie]

Well, I got a nice 160 gig drive for the backup server for little more than 100 Euros (108, I think). Smaller ones (like 60 or 80) sold for 70-80. It's usually not worth it.

How much space do you need?