Your RAID solutions.

[Nathan Buck]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at setting up a RAID 5 solution as I'm rapidly running out of space and I have poor data redundancy solutions right now. I'm on Windows, not Mac.

Looking at various enclosures it seems like a minefield so I thought I'd ask what everyone is using for their solution?

The plan is to have a 4 (maybe 5) bay enclosure to use as storage and to pull media from during editing. I want to use my existing 2TB caviar black as a write drive. I'd also like it to be expandable (so thunderbolt daisy chain?).

So my questions are:
What's the best PC connection?
Is a NAS solution any good?
What HDDs should I buy? WD red or WD black?
Is my workflow flawed?

I don't need anymore than a total of 12TB. 6 or 8TB would also be OK.
I have a budget of about £800.

Thanks for your help.

[Noa Put]

I don't use a raid nor know that much about it but I have read to never to use WD black drives for a raid as they are not build for that purpose and can result into loss of data, WD red drives on the other hand are specifically build for a NAS.

[Nathan Buck]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I don't use a raid nor know that much about it but I have read to never to use WD black drives for a raid as they are not build for that purpose and can result into loss of data, WD red drives on the other hand are specifically build for a NAS.

Hi Noa, that's pretty much what I thought too. There are Red Pro and Red and the pro spins at 7200 and the Red at 5400. I know a RAID 5 increases speed but not sure if it's enough to make up for a 5400 drive. That's why I use black for my editing. But I agree, red seems the way to go.

[Noa Put]

I also use WD black drives but also have two 2TB WD Red pro drives for my video data.

[Rob Cantwell]

I dont have a raid solution either, my work flow at the moment is edit on my main drive which is a 1TB SSD, footage/resources are stored on a second 1 TB internal SATA consumer HD. Footage etc is dragged from this to the SSD as required.
Output is to a third 1 TB internal drive with backups using Macruim to an external 4TB drive, I also have another 1 TB external drive to hold temporary files etc.
I've looked at NAS which i think might be much better than what I have now!

[Mike Watson]

If you can get away with multiple single 4TB (or even 6TB) drives, they are making those in 7200 RPM now. I'd recommend that over a RAID. I'm editing HD and 4K video off 5400 RPM 8TB USB3 drives without issue.

NAS will not work at all, the network speed just won't hold up.

[Andrew Smith]

I use a Stardom RAID5 unit which I purchased through Videoguys.com (current model of what I have is here) and it's been brilliant. You can happily sustain 200Mb/sec if needed. Very inexpensive and does the job.

Also doubles as a footrest if you have it located on the floor beside your editing box (give or take the handle they seem to have added to the top of the unit).

Andrew

[Mark Watson]

I have a RAID 0 on my laptop, as the D drive. C drive is a big SSD. RAID is made up of two 1TB 7200 RPM HDDs. Usually I keep the original files on external WD black USB 3 drives and send renders to the RAID. If I were working from a desktop machine, I'd go 100% RAIDs. The speed boost is obvious to me.

I have a 8 drive NAS in a RAID 5 that I can access anywhere I have an internet connection, and I just use that to keep video files I "might" need while traveling. Last year I brought 35 of those WD drives with me on travel. With the NAS, this year I'm down to carrying around just 15, with half of them being 2TB or 3TB. NAS is too slow for editing off of, even when directly connected with a cable.

Mark

[James Manford]

Get an SSD drive as your boot / scratch drive. Get an SSD drive as your Media drive. Get an SSD drive as your render drive.

And get a mechanical drive as your storage drive.

And keep 3 x 5TB External USB 3.0 drives that you can keep in a fireproof safe.

Keep an eye on Hot uk deals for offers.

There is no need for RAID solutions. Waste of money and time if you ask me.

[Andrew Smith]

The whole point of RAID is (a) the ability to attain higher storage sizes without spending through the roof, and (b) redundancy / insurance in case of a physical drive failure. It comes down to how much you wish to insure your data, and what the cost of a data loss would be to you. Even an SSD can fail.

Andrew

[Mike Watson]

You also have to consider what your time is worth, and the pain-in-the-ass factor of getting USB external drives in and out of a fire safe.

[Bryan Cantwell]

I have used RAID 5 setups from Synology and OWC (32TB and 20TB, respectively), both have been solid performers. I'd recommend them both.

Oh, and I'm currently running HGST Deskstar NAS drives. Have also run the WD Red's without any failures.

[Billy Horton]

For editing, I have a Raid0 with 2 1.5TB drives because I want speed and the ability to play multiple HD clips at once. To add to that story, I built my own computer several years ago and put in lots of fans. At the time of the build I had 2 1TB drives. Six years or so later one of the drives finally went on the fritz, which outlasted many more drives that I had die in the same time period but in different machines. I firmly believe it's because of all the cooling fans in the computer which also runs 24 hours a day.

I have a 2TB drive that I use to copy all the files on the editing drives. That way I have at least 2 copies of everything. If I can, I also keep the SDHC cards that I used to record the video, so that's 3 copies.

Once a project is finished, I render to a totally different drive, that way one set of drives reads and another set writes, which speeds up the process. When a project is rendered I then send it over the network to another computer that's dedicated to doing DVD stuff and a few other things.

I'm a fanatic about backups so I do daily backups of my C: drive, which has all the project files. I do weekly backups of the drive that I render to as well as another drive that I keep other assets on. I back up to an NAS with a Raid5.

[Derek Heeps]

Originally Posted by Nathan Buck

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at setting up a RAID 5 solution as I'm rapidly running out of space and I have poor data redundancy solutions right now. I'm on Windows, not Mac.

Looking at various enclosures it seems like a minefield so I thought I'd ask what everyone is using for their solution?

The plan is to have a 4 (maybe 5) bay enclosure to use as storage and to pull media from during editing. I want to use my existing 2TB caviar black as a write drive. I'd also like it to be expandable (so thunderbolt daisy chain?).

So my questions are:
What's the best PC connection?
Is a NAS solution any good?
What HDDs should I buy? WD red or WD black?
Is my workflow flawed?

I don't need anymore than a total of 12TB. 6 or 8TB would also be OK.
I have a budget of about £800.

Thanks for your help.

Some of the G Technologies G speed arrays can be bought ready made for that sort of money .