Another RAID question
 

building an HD editing cpu, gonna go with 3- 320GB SATA300 RAID7200RPM drives. First, I'm ordering all the components for this cpu in hopes of putting them together myself, I have a little experience but not with RAID.
So what is exactly is the process of getting these 3 drives RAIDED? And once this is done, do I then only have 320GB to store files since they all work together? Or can you store files on seperate drives? I know it's a noob question, but that's what I am. Thanks, Tony

There's at least two ways to implement RAID. One way is to use a software RAID solution built into Microsoft Windows. This method is less than desireable because it's not nearly as fast as a hardware RAID solution. Each hardware RAID solution is implemented in a slightly different way, depending on which brand of hardware RAID controllers you have. All hardware RAID solutions are configured during BIOS POST; and, some solutions allow configuration after the OS gets loaded, within Windows.

I suggest you read up on the various types of RAID, whether it's type, 0, 1, 5, etc. Each type offers a different benefit. RAID 0, for example is, arguable, the fastest and allows the total capacity to be the sum total of all the installed hard drives. So, if you have 3 x 320 gig drives, you have 960Gb available. The other RAID types offer redundant storage by duplicating one of the main hard drives. In this case, a 320 Gb drive would back up a second 320 Gb drive.

Hope this helps

In this post I mention my experience that (fault tolerant) RAID5 is not fast enough for video editing and having a naked disc or a RAID0 array is helpful

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...highlight=RAID

You seemed to want to know how you set up a system load on a RAID set. In my case both RAID controllers were on the motherboard. I had to set the BIOS up to "tell" these controllers they were to use RAID functions. Then I needed to have a floppy (yes a floppy disc!) to use BEFORE loading the operating system so it knew how to be redirected to the root array. The help site on the motherboard were loaded with complaints on floppyless people trying to use a keychain drive or some such to get started. The bottom line is, floppys are so cheap you should include one. You can always borrow one from some old computer. If you are tight on space in the case, you can always disconnect it after the machine is built.

Actually the simplest thing is to use a single , non-RAID drive as the root for the operating system, "Pictures" "Music" etc. and just have a RAID0 array as the video store.

To follow up on Don's advice, I find it more secure to have a RAID for storing the files during edit (e.g., the Cineform AVIs or whatever). My source (the original M2Ts from my DTE get stored on the project drive, usually, where all my PPro files & images are, along with some audio. So the large files get the benefit of the RAID-0 performance, and I get the benefit of knowing if I lose or rebuild my RAID, I can easily & swiftly recreate the video work files. ALong with a regular backup of the project and system drives, this setup seems to keep my blood pressure down a bit...

My $.02 (US),
Matt

Well, I am doing personal HDV things, nothing commercially but do appreciate having a fault tolerant RAID5 for documents, pics etc and like the speed of a RAID0 array for my in-process video projects. For longer term security for my finished .m2t files (or menued projects as Blu-Ray .iso files) I decided to add an external hard disc. It is connected as eSATA so is at native drive speed. The drive is only powered up when saving finished projects and is at any time available to grab and remove on an emergency basis. I have gotten an eSATA express card for may notebook for such "emergency" use. (not so) funny how Katrina (or the "big one" earthquake) has focused so many of our minds on such things.