built-in SATA RAID controller or card?

Andrew Smith · January 17th, 2013, 12:46 AM

Might want to double-check that your computer box can take the heat load (fans etc) before adding the hard drives.

Andrew

Gerald Webb · January 17th, 2013, 12:55 AM

Thanks Andrew,
Its all good, its all there and running now, just with a cheap Adaptec raid card that i cant use on the OSX side.
I dont really need any more performance than what I have now, just the ability to use the arrays on both OS's.

Andrew Smith · January 17th, 2013, 12:56 AM

Fantastic to hear. BTW, best wishes to your production manager.

Andrew

Gerald Webb · January 17th, 2013, 12:59 AM

Lol
Thank you
:-)

Panagiotis Raris · January 21st, 2013, 01:50 PM

Depends on what you need from it; speed versus redundancy, hot swappable, etc. My machine is used primarily as a media server (everything on the on-board RAID), second as a work-at-home machine (ARECA and RAMDisk), and lastly, and very seldom, as a gaming machine.

I have 14 drives in my machine. One SSD for Boot/Installs, 8 2.5" drives on an ARECA card for media/cache/etc, 4 2.5" drives on the on-board RAID controller (for my music, movies, other programs, and misc stuff), and one 3TB internal HDD for a backup to the ARECA raid array, plus external backups.

That comes down to 4 virtual disks; the SSD and 3TB are the slowest (250MB sustained and 90MB sustained each), the ARECA is the fastest (520MB sustained in RAID5), and the on-board is mostly for my own stuff (280MB sustained), as per ATTO and other tests. I also have 24GB of RAM, so for previews and disk cache, i use a 7.5GB RAMDisk, giving me 16.5 GB for Win7 and PP or AE, which dramatically speeds up previews in short clips with complex effects or multitrack/multicam work (ad work etc).

They are all in a HAF-932 with plenty of cooling, the ARECA HDD's are in hot swappable backplane modules, all the rest are internals, spaced out, with adequate cooling.

Next machine, i will likely build with a more advanced/faster RAID controller, 2 SSD's in RAID 1, 12 full size HDD's, faster 6-core processor, and 64 or more GB of RAM, and utilize a 20-30GB RAMDisk as well, and back it all up externally.

January 17th, 2013, 12:46 AM	#16
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,015	Re: built-in SATA RAID controller or card? Might want to double-check that your computer box can take the heat load (fans etc) before adding the hard drives. Andrew

January 17th, 2013, 12:55 AM	#17
Gerald Webb Trustee Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Central Coast Australia Posts: 1,046	Re: built-in SATA RAID controller or card? Thanks Andrew, Its all good, its all there and running now, just with a cheap Adaptec raid card that i cant use on the OSX side. I dont really need any more performance than what I have now, just the ability to use the arrays on both OS's. __________________ http://vimeo.com/livewebvideo

January 17th, 2013, 12:56 AM	#18
Andrew Smith Equal Opportunity Offender Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 3,015	Re: built-in SATA RAID controller or card? Fantastic to hear. BTW, best wishes to your production manager. Andrew

January 17th, 2013, 12:59 AM	#19
Gerald Webb Trustee Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Central Coast Australia Posts: 1,046	Re: built-in SATA RAID controller or card? Lol Thank you :-) __________________ http://vimeo.com/livewebvideo

January 21st, 2013, 01:50 PM	#20
Panagiotis Raris Major Player Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Reading, PA USA and Athens, Greece Posts: 269	Re: built-in SATA RAID controller or card? Depends on what you need from it; speed versus redundancy, hot swappable, etc. My machine is used primarily as a media server (everything on the on-board RAID), second as a work-at-home machine (ARECA and RAMDisk), and lastly, and very seldom, as a gaming machine. I have 14 drives in my machine. One SSD for Boot/Installs, 8 2.5" drives on an ARECA card for media/cache/etc, 4 2.5" drives on the on-board RAID controller (for my music, movies, other programs, and misc stuff), and one 3TB internal HDD for a backup to the ARECA raid array, plus external backups. That comes down to 4 virtual disks; the SSD and 3TB are the slowest (250MB sustained and 90MB sustained each), the ARECA is the fastest (520MB sustained in RAID5), and the on-board is mostly for my own stuff (280MB sustained), as per ATTO and other tests. I also have 24GB of RAM, so for previews and disk cache, i use a 7.5GB RAMDisk, giving me 16.5 GB for Win7 and PP or AE, which dramatically speeds up previews in short clips with complex effects or multitrack/multicam work (ad work etc). They are all in a HAF-932 with plenty of cooling, the ARECA HDD's are in hot swappable backplane modules, all the rest are internals, spaced out, with adequate cooling. Next machine, i will likely build with a more advanced/faster RAID controller, 2 SSD's in RAID 1, 12 full size HDD's, faster 6-core processor, and 64 or more GB of RAM, and utilize a 20-30GB RAMDisk as well, and back it all up externally.