Multi RAID

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kiwis

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#159732 10-Dec-2014 21:39

I have a RAID-0 as my C drive which is 2x 1T HDD.

I have a 'storage' disk of 3TB - I want a RAID-1 this (I think) so I have 2x 3TB drives and one is a backup so only giving me 1x 3TB storage. Can this be done on one machine?

if so how?

andrewNZ

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#1195307 10-Dec-2014 22:25

As I've said previously (incase you missed it), RAID is NOT backup. If you're trying to protect data, RAID is not the answer.

TLD

908 posts

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#1195339 10-Dec-2014 23:13

These guys are the ultimate authority on raid arrays. You can just register and ask,

https://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere/hardware_forum?view=discussions

Or check out some of the sticky posts from folk like Harm Millaard

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/525263

They are helpful and (mostly) friendly, but they tend to spend more on a raid controller than most folk on their entire system. As to what you can do with your system will depend on what Mother Board you have. Check out the manual which should give full details of raid options it will support.

You can get capable and affordable raid controllers from TradeMe.

If you are concerned about backup, then the best advice I can give is to spend $100 on Shadow Protect. It will save incremental backups at down to 15 minute intervals, and if things go pair shaped, you can mount a backup at any of the time points in less than ten minutes. You can also save an image of the boot drive, with a bootable CD to access it.

http://www.shadowprotect.com/

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

Lias

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#1195425 11-Dec-2014 09:55

Yes it's perfectly possible to have two separate arrays on a machine, one being a raid-0 of 2x1tb and one being a raid1 of 2x3tb.

Most modern motherboards that support onboard raid should be able to handle that without a problem. How varies, but generally either in the bios itself, or as part of the post you will see a display from the raid controller and get prompted to hit a key combination to configure it. Just create a new virtual drive, add the two 3tb drives to the pool and away you go.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

TLD

908 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 263

#1195447 11-Dec-2014 10:32

Be aware that it can get complicated with regards to drivers. For instance I had an issue where I was stuck in a Windows Startup Repair loop. SUR was not fixing things, and it needed a driver to go forward, and I had a heck of a time finding that driver. If you are using your MB for raid, then you may have both Intel and Marvel raid options. It can also get tricky finding your way round the BIOS to set up the boot drive, because some of the options can be hidden.

I had to use an Intel Enterprise driver, rather than the driver that came with the MB, but I was able to use the raid pre-install driver that came with the MB for the initial set up. The guys on the Premiere Pro hardware forum were very helpful guiding me through these issues.

Also be aware that not all drives work well in a raid array, and this applies to both HDDs and SSDs. I discovered this after ordering a pair of Samsung 250Gb EVO SSDs, and had to quickly change the order for t6he more expensive 256Gb PRO. Here again I was put on the right track by the PremPro Hardware guys.

Now this is from memory and may be wrong, but I have a feeling that WD greens are not so flash, and that the Blacks are are better option. Just do your research before laying out dollars.

I have three raid0 arrays because I am only interested in speed, and not redundancy. These are connected to MB headers (Gigabyte X79-UD5). The Samsung 256Gb PROs give me >900Gb/s continuous read and write, but where they have a huge advantage over HDDs is their 4K performance (see image). This is the sort of real world drive usage that makes all the difference.

I also have a pair of WD Blacks, and a pair of 6th Generation 1Tb Velociraptor making three separate raid0 arrays, but if I was starting again I'd bite the bullet and pay the big bucks for a proper raid controller card, and have a single array with redundancy and spare drives. I do have a buddy who has six SSDs on a cheap controller which works well for him, so I guess the $2000 controllers are not absolutely necessary.

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)