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davelong9050 · Jul 8, 2007, 06:45 PM

Moving to MacPro soon and seriously considering the following configuration. Need advice and opinions.

1) RAID 0 on the first two drives
2) 3rd drive as the back up
3) 4th drive for XP and a few associated applications

Use SuperDuper for BU. Automate BU's to kick off on "power down" to avoid disruption of workflow and ensure they are done daily.

Thoughts?

Biest · Jul 8, 2007, 06:50 PM

What do you want to with the machine?
What are the sizes of disks you want to use?
SuperDuper is not the only option for backup iBackup is quite nice and free, might be better. Depending on what you do

nikoz1200 · Jul 9, 2007, 04:02 PM

BUMP

I'm interested in this also. I'll be picking up a MP the day they are updated

Mac Write · Jul 9, 2007, 04:55 PM

Listen to MacBreakTech.com RAID)/1 is scary RAID and 100% not reliable. RAID5 is not so scary RAIDm but requires 3 drives min.

OreoCookie · Jul 9, 2007, 05:58 PM

Two observations: (1) You seem to have made up your mind about the configuration you'd like to use. (2) Without knowing what you actually want to do with the Mac Pro, I don't think we can give you good advice.

rehoot · Jul 9, 2007, 10:41 PM

Someone said that RAID was scary--I've been running various RAID configurations on my Mac Pro for almost a year. My only issue was that if every drive in the MP is in a RAID, you can't apply firmware updates. That can be corrected by having an additional drive that is bootable that you can insert to perform the update. As for RAID 5, you would need to cough up a couple hundred bucks for a RAID controller to do that.

You mentioned XP, and I don't know about running XP from a RAID volume--perhaps that is the scary part. Unless you get information to the contrary, I would also stick with an extra drive for XP. If you keep one drive for XP, that your RAID options are reduced, and if you want one drive for an online backup, then your options are further reduced. If you want speed, use RAID 0 as you suggested, if you need relability, use RAID 1. I have used both.

If XP can run on a RAID, you might want to have two disks in RAID 0, and two in RAID 1. The RAID 1 disk could have three partitions, one for XP, one for OSX, and a modest backup area. You could point your /tmp drive and your ~/Library/Caches to the RAID 0 using the ln -s command. This would depend on how much data you have. You should also have an external backup--I would recommend an SATA drive in your own firewire enclosure (so you can stick that drive in the Mac Pro if needed).

I will also comment on the Raptor issue. My latest config is a 3-disk RAID 0 and a single 150GB Raptor as the boot disk. The Raptor is quick, but I was also impressed with my Western Digital Caviar 500GB SE16. It was fast, big, and runs about 5 degrees C cooler than the Rapteor. If you could use the storage, the Caviar would be a good choice. If you want a bit of extra speed, the Raptor is the choice.

I think I am going to splurge on a RocketRAID RAID controller that has 4 internal and 4 external connections. I can then run two RAID 5s.

davelong9050 · Jul 10, 2007, 09:01 PM

OreoCookie and Rehoot- thanks for the information. Here is more background:

50% Video Editing
25% Office Work
15% Web Surfing
10% Audio Editing

I would like to keep the entire system in the box. I had planned on 4 drives but a fifth is possible (because of the optical bay). I have struggled with XP for editing and hit the wall. Time to get on a well designed operating system. I understand XP and OS X should not be on the same drive. Also a seperate bootable drive (Raptor) has major advantages. I am comfortable with RAID and believe that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, particularly with a well planned back up strategy.

If I went with a fifth drive the system would look like this:
1- Raptor for boot and scratch
2- 250 to 500GB drives for RAID 0
1- 500- 1TB drive for back up
1- 250 to 500 GB for XP- OS (maybe), but apps and data for sure

What are your thoughts?

ninahagen · Jul 11, 2007, 04:39 AM

Originally Posted by davelong9050

OreoCookie and Rehoot- thanks for the information. Here is more background:

50% Video Editing
25% Office Work
15% Web Surfing
10% Audio Editing

I would like to keep the entire system in the box. I had planned on 4 drives but a fifth is possible (because of the optical bay). I have struggled with XP for editing and hit the wall. Time to get on a well designed operating system. I understand XP and OS X should not be on the same drive. Also a seperate bootable drive (Raptor) has major advantages. I am comfortable with RAID and believe that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, particularly with a well planned back up strategy.

If I went with a fifth drive the system would look like this:
1- Raptor for boot and scratch
2- 250 to 500GB drives for RAID 0
1- 500- 1TB drive for back up
1- 250 to 500 GB for XP- OS (maybe), but apps and data for sure

What are your thoughts?

As a heavy Photoshop user, I can tell you that separating the boot and scratch drives will be faster, and you will need more speed than we do if your video editing is intense.

If you want to keep it all in one box, how about partioning a 160GB raptor as you system drive, OSX on one side and windows on the other?

Do you absolutely have to have it all in one box? If you could stand one more enclosure you can add 2 more hard drives with this harness... they would act like internal HDs even though they are outside the box. Then you would have 6 bays to work with. That would allow:

1 system disc (OSX + other Mac apps)
1 system disc (OSX + other Windows apps)
4 discs for scratch and storage

I don't know the fastest way to divide up those remaining 4, but I do know it will depend on whether you can accept an external backup solution.

If you can accept something like a Superduper, then the four discs could be divided 2 in a RAID0 scratch volume and 2 as a RAID0 primary storage volume for your files. In that case, if speed is you primary concern, all 6 as Raptors would be best, coming in at 960GB, just enough to fit on the 1TB superduper.

Best,

nina

chichow · Jul 13, 2007, 10:39 AM

FirmTek has come out with a 199USD retail card that does internal and external SATA RAID

AMUG FirmTek SeriTek/2SE4 PCI-X SATA PM Host Adapter Review

chichow · Jul 13, 2007, 10:40 AM

Oops sorry.

That card which I am considering as I have a G4 MDD is not PCIe and I missed the OPs
point of XP and Mac Pro (Intel).

Sorry.

Waragainstsleep · Aug 1, 2007, 02:41 PM

Best backup solution would be to have 3 drives striped with the 4th as hot spare. Everything is backed up as its done. Fast too. The you'd need XP on your main drive, though as you say you could stick a drive in the second optical bay for that.

mduell · Aug 1, 2007, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

Best backup solution would be to have 3 drives striped with the 4th as hot spare. Everything is backed up as its done. Fast too. The you'd need XP on your main drive, though as you say you could stick a drive in the second optical bay for that.

Huh? That has no backup or even redundancy.

Waragainstsleep · Aug 2, 2007, 02:24 PM

Have parity on the striped drives.

mduell · Aug 2, 2007, 06:37 PM

You'd need an additional RAID card for that... but I don't know if you can run a cable (from the card) to the built in drive bays anyway; they may only work with the backplane SATA connectors.

OreoCookie · Aug 2, 2007, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

Have parity on the striped drives.

Striping means you want a RAID0 -- which has no redundancy.
Perhaps you are referring to a RAID5, but you can't do what you want to do with striping. And the adapter chichow linked to cannot create RAID5s.

In any case, a RAID is not a backup.

mduell · Aug 2, 2007, 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Striping means you want a RAID0 -- which has no redundancy.
Perhaps you are referring to a RAID5, but you can't do what you want to do with striping.

RAID5 is striping with distributed parity.

OreoCookie · Aug 2, 2007, 08:17 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

RAID5 is striping with distributed parity.

In Disk Utility, RAID0 is referred to as `striping' -- I want to avoid confusion between RAID0 and RAID5. Technically, all (non-) RAID levels between 3 and 6 can be called striping with parity, so calling a RAID5 a RAID5 is more accurate. (Granted, only 5 and 6 are still practically relevant).