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Best option for 24TB RAID

Jeremy Wiles

Jeremy Wiles

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Well, it's time to get a RAID and stop stacking up external G-drives. I'm not a raid genius by any means, so I'm relying on the brain trust here at reduser. My goal is to take the RAID between my desktop PC and laptop. I don't want to go with a rack solution at this point because I'm planning to sail the Caribbean in a few months and want to edit while I'm at sea. I know this also requires taking a lot of extra drives in case of failure. My current project has reached 8TB and I can foresee that I'm going to need about 24TB. I'd like for the RAID to be expandable from 12TB to 24TB+. My PC doesn't have thunderbolt, so I can't go with the Pegasus R6. I'm having originpc.com build the laptop.

I've scoured the forum on RAID advice and I think I'm considering between the G-speed and ARC-8040.

G-tech G-SPEED eS PRO: Overpriced? What's the difference between eS PRO, eS and Q?

Areca ARC-8040: Does it require you to install a RAID controller card? If so, then will it still work with a laptop?

Advice is very much appreciated.
 
I really enjoy the G-Tech Raids... and for what you are talking about, these might be ideal for you. although I believe the biggest single enclosure only holds 12TB...
I heartily recommend the "ES", which is designed for E-sata connection, and I use this setup frequently when moving between desktop and laptop.

I have not used the "ES Pro" which connects via Mini SAS, only because I was unaware of how well it could be adapted for Laptop use.

The "Q" is a good option as it has a quad interface ((1) eSATA, (2) FireWire 800, and (1) USB 2.0 port).
BUT... I chose NOT to go with the Q, because the ES had far higher transfer speeds.

anyways... good luck!
-CK
 
to achieve 24 tb, you'd need raid with 8 bays with 3 tb drives, or 6 bay with 4 tb drives. the 4 tb drives will be considerably slower, and with such a large platter i don't think i could even trust it. unfortunately once you start hitting 8 bay solutions, you start running out of options with connectivity. but remember in a raid you lose some capacity if you want some drive protection. raid 5 you'll have 21 tb or so. raid 6, you'll have 18 tb. if you want more you can go with a 12 bay solution.

generally to implement a raid 5 or 6 solution with a 8 bay desktop raid, you'll need a sas card (raid card) while you can install one like a atto, lsi, highpoint, areca, etc. probably not gonna be possible to hook it up with your laptop without something like thunderbolt or a express card pci expander if your laptop has a express card reader. but with that express card slot, your drive speed will be throttled but a lot. if you can just deal with working with your desktop only, i highly recommend a istoragepro 8 bay desktop raid and throw in your own drives. combine that with a qualified sas card, i prefer ATTO products like the r680, but there are lots to research and look into, and you'll have some fast storage with a lot of capacity.

if you are absolutely dead set on 24 tb though and have to go 12 bay, there are mobile rackmounts you can buy to keep it in, or if you get a certain model you can daisy chain a second raid to it and have either combined capacity or have it show up as two separate raids.

any of the g tech drives you mentioned won't get up to the capacity you want until you hit the larger units, and they are all sas based as well. i have yet to find a large raid unit that can raid internally through the unit that has more common connections like esata. most i've seen is 4 bays.


if switching between the desktop and laptop is 100% needed, best advice i can say is maybe pick up the owc 4 bay raids that can hardware raid internally. you can put 3 tb drives in there, and in a raid 5 you'd get around 9 tb. and have 2-3 of those units hooked up.
 
if you can just deal with working with your desktop only, i highly recommend a istoragepro 8 bay desktop raid and throw in your own drives. combine that with a qualified sas card, i prefer ATTO products like the r680, but there are lots to research and look into, and you'll have some fast storage with a lot of capacity.


Hi Tom,

What exactly do you mean by '' but there are lots to research and look into'' ???
 
Please chat with Luis at Proavio/EditBox, he is an expert in these things, is generous with his knowledge and might be able to help you out.
 
Make sure to go with enterprise drives if you build your own. It really does make a difference with reliability, access speeds, etc.
 
CK Olsen said:
I believe the biggest single enclosure only holds 12TB...

I have not used the "ES Pro" which connects via Mini SAS, only because I was unaware of how well it could be adapted for Laptop use.
Click to expand...

How do you adapt the MINI SAS for laptop use? Can you daisy chain the G-Tech raids together? If so, that seems like the easiest solution, if it doesn't affect performance or speed.

Tom.Wong said:
if switching between the desktop and laptop is 100% needed, best advice i can say is maybe pick up the owc 4 bay raids that can hardware raid internally. you can put 3 tb drives in there, and in a raid 5 you'd get around 9 tb. and have 2-3 of those units hooked up.
Click to expand...

How do you hardware raid them internally? http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/847778-REG/OWC_Other_World_Computing_16TB_4_x_4TB.html

Have you had experience with the owc raids?
 
Nicos Ambatzis said:
if you can just deal with working with your desktop only, i highly recommend a istoragepro 8 bay desktop raid and throw in your own drives. combine that with a qualified sas card, i prefer ATTO products like the r680, but there are lots to research and look into, and you'll have some fast storage with a lot of capacity.


Hi Tom,

What exactly do you mean by '' but there are lots to research and look into'' ???
Click to expand...

meaning there are a good deal of sas card brands to look into at all varying performance, pros and cons. same with raid enclosures. i can recommendations from my experience, but the internet is a well of information that might be a better fit for budget vs performance.
 
and those owc raids have a built in raid controller in the enclosure. u just pop the drives in, and there is literally a dial you set to a certain number that will set what raid type you want it in. it's in the manual that comes with it. larger options, u configure the raid via sas card and software. i own 3 of those 4 bay owc raids. great bang for the buck, not a single hiccup.


if you can afford enterprise drives go for it, i personally don't use a single one. the owc's are my cheapy storage units so i just threw in samsung drives in there cause there was a great sale on them. performance is so so on them, but they are just cheap storage for me. you can probably get more consistent and better performance with enterprise drives. longer warranties and have a higher fault tolerance for a high stress load. but just to let you know, i have WD black caviar drives raided in my tower and they work great and super fast. and hitachi deskstars are typically used in most external hard drives raided together used in the pro video world. g raids, glyph, etc. are all just using deskstars inside of them. so they could work very well. but I don't discount the major benefits over a enterprise drives as well. they are built to the core to be raided.
 
I OWN 4 X GTECH GSPEED ES PRO (GSESP) WHICH CONNECT TO A MAC PRO THROUGH AN R680 ATTO CARD, i connect mine through 2 x jmr silverstor 20tb 3 port pci extenders. the whole system has 14tb ( 2 x GSESP) + 14tb ( 2 x GSESP) + 18tb (JMR) +18tb (JMR) for a total of 64tb raid 5 plus the system runs either on two towers or one tower, if on two towers add another 18tb of 3tb drives in the towers that can be software raided. (sorry about the caps)..also hitachi ultrastar enterprise class drive are a must for me.
 
dino g said:
I OWN 4 X GTECH GSPEED ES PRO (GSESP) WHICH CONNECT TO A MAC PRO THROUGH AN R680 ATTO CARD, i connect mine through 2 x jmr silverstor 20tb 3 port pci extenders. the whole system has 14tb ( 2 x GSESP) + 14tb ( 2 x GSESP) + 18tb (JMR) +18tb (JMR) for a total of 64tb raid 5 plus the system runs either on two towers or one tower, if on two towers add another 18tb of 3tb drives in the towers that can be software raided. (sorry about the caps)..also hitachi ultrastar enterprise class drive are a must for me.
Click to expand...

Hi Dino,

How you connect the 4 G-Speed es Pro units with one ATTO R680 ? Also how 2 GSESP unit give you 14Tb (4+4=8 disks x 3 Tb = 24Tb) ? Thanks.
 
Tom.Wong said:
and those owc raids have a built in raid controller in the enclosure. u just pop the drives in, and there is literally a dial you set to a certain number that will set what raid type you want it in. it's in the manual that comes with it. larger options, u configure the raid via sas card and software. i own 3 of those 4 bay owc raids. great bang for the buck, not a single hiccup.


if you can afford enterprise drives go for it, i personally don't use a single one. the owc's are my cheapy storage units so i just threw in samsung drives in there cause there was a great sale on them. performance is so so on them, but they are just cheap storage for me. you can probably get more consistent and better performance with enterprise drives. longer warranties and have a higher fault tolerance for a high stress load. but just to let you know, i have WD black caviar drives raided in my tower and they work great and super fast. and hitachi deskstars are typically used in most external hard drives raided together used in the pro video world. g raids, glyph, etc. are all just using deskstars inside of them. so they could work very well. but I don't discount the major benefits over a enterprise drives as well. they are built to the core to be raided.
Click to expand...


Hi Tom,

Thank you for your answer to my question, I thought that you were reffering to the iStoragepro 8 for which I am interested. Of course you are right about getting as much information as you can get about enterprise drives or cheap ones. You get what you pay for. I don't have much knowledge in this matter but I think that, it's a good idea for someone to go for Hitachi 3Tb Ultrastr 7200 ones beside the cost. As for the iStoragePro iT8 6G SAS Expander since you have one, I would like to know your opinion in comparison with the G-Speed es Pro unit. Thanks.
 
i hear the es pro's are very fast. i don't own one so I'm not really sure. all i know is the istorage pro ones are cheaper and they work well and are plenty fast :)

i'm pretty sure the maxx digital brand ones are just re branded istorage pro's. if you go to the istorage pro website they let you rebrand their units for your company. they look identical... but of course a going through maxx digital you get service, support, and custom configuration. always something to consider when you really don't know the tech too well.


the debate with enterprise vs more off the shelf branded drives is a long one, but you can get great performance and long term usage out of wd black drives and deskstars. but enterprise drives were built from the ground up to work for a very long time under high stress and constant usage. some tests actually show the ultrastars are actually a little slower than the deskstars because of the extra fault tolerances. so people have to make up their own mind on the cost benefit ratio.

on my on set work raids, i literally replace the hard drives every year to increase capacity and just to get fresh drives in there. it's sort of my yearly maintenance. so I don't get enterprise drives because they don't stay in my system for much longer than a year anyway. and i take my old drives and throw them in a cheaper raid for extra storage. I'm probably gonna hit a point where I"m gonna drown in hard drives soon so I might go all the way with enterprise one of these days :)
 
Jeremy:

Most likely you are aware that no matter how fast of a laptop you get, editing while mobile generally translates into slower editing/rendering speeds, but if I read you correctly, as long as you have the convenience of editing footage while on the road at decent enough speeds you are good, right?

I highly recommend the G-SPEED eS PRO with the ATTO R680 RAID controller for your desktop; fastest thing I've ever tested. The ATTO can take 2 eS PROs to give you the 24TB you're looking for. However, I would not recommend editing with a 24TB RAID; its simply too big, imho. For my mobile gigs, I have a laptop with eSata ports and have a G-TECH 4TB RAID 0 to do that, then transfer it back to desktop.


Jeremy Wiles said:
Well, it's time to get a RAID and stop stacking up external G-drives. I'm not a raid genius by any means, so I'm relying on the brain trust here at reduser. My goal is to take the RAID between my desktop PC and laptop. I don't want to go with a rack solution at this point because I'm planning to sail the Caribbean in a few months and want to edit while I'm at sea. I know this also requires taking a lot of extra drives in case of failure. My current project has reached 8TB and I can foresee that I'm going to need about 24TB. I'd like for the RAID to be expandable from 12TB to 24TB+. My PC doesn't have thunderbolt, so I can't go with the Pegasus R6. I'm having originpc.com build the laptop.

I've scoured the forum on RAID advice and I think I'm considering between the G-speed and ARC-8040.

G-tech G-SPEED eS PRO: Overpriced? What's the difference between eS PRO, eS and Q?

Areca ARC-8040: Does it require you to install a RAID controller card? If so, then will it still work with a laptop?

Advice is very much appreciated.
Click to expand...
 
Marcos Montenegro said:
Most likely you are aware that no matter how fast of a laptop you get, editing while mobile generally translates into slower editing/rendering speeds, but if I read you correctly, as long as you have the convenience of editing footage while on the road at decent enough speeds you are good, right?

I highly recommend the G-SPEED eS PRO with the ATTO R680 RAID controller for your desktop; fastest thing I've ever tested. The ATTO can take 2 eS PROs to give you the 24TB you're looking for. However, I would not recommend editing with a 24TB RAID; its simply too big, imho. For my mobile gigs, I have a laptop with eSata ports and have a G-TECH 4TB RAID 0 to do that, then transfer it back to desktop.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if I can edit at decent speeds while on the road, then all is good. But, my project is going to be about 20TB, so how will I be able to work on it on the road? Would it be possible to get a laptop with 2 eSata ports and have the laptop read two 12TB RAID's as each separate RAID's?

Thanks.
 
Yes, but no RAID between them, unless you can get a RAID controller card on your laptop.


Jeremy Wiles said:
Yeah, if I can edit at decent speeds while on the road, then all is good. But, my project is going to be about 20TB, so how will I be able to work on it on the road? Would it be possible to get a laptop with 2 eSata ports and have the laptop read two 12TB RAID's as each separate RAID's?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
Nicos Ambatzis said:
Hi Dino,

How you connect the 4 G-Speed es Pro units with one ATTO R680 ? Also how 2 GSESP unit give you 14Tb (4+4=8 disks x 3 Tb = 24Tb) ? Thanks.
Click to expand...

there are two r680's one for each pair of gspeed es pros and i got them two years ago so they only have 2tb drives in the sleds.

btw the jmr's go about 950 MB/s - read and write

and the gspeeds go about 850 MB/s - read and write

but obviously as they get filled up they slow down...the speed difference is because it is 10 drives (JMR) versus 8 (Gspeed)
 
Jeremy-
As I previously mentioned, I have not used the ES pro, primarily because I couldn't find an immediate laptop solution for Mini-SAS... I'm sure they exist, but I wanted a quick answer, and could'nt find one, so went with the esata, which I am very happy with.

I primarily use an older model 17" MacBook Pro (No thunderbolt, but still has a PC card slot), and a 2 channel Esata PC card to connect to one or two G-Tech ES Raids when I need to go mobile.

While there are faster solutions, I'm quite happy with the mix of portability, small form factor, low power draw, and overall system performance. I also try to bring along a 4 outlet APC UPS backup, so both drives + the laptop + a small monitor can perform safely in spite of the commonly wonky power I often find while mobile.

If you are using a thunderbolt Mac Pro, I'd def research the Thunderbolt G-tech Drives...

http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid-thunderbolt.cfm

Yes, they are smaller both physically and data wise (only 8TB per unit) but you can daisy chain up to six of them for up to 48 TB of nice performance right out of the box, no adapters/ dongles or other junk... I just have no darta to show how well they perform in this type of situation... Perhaps someone else can chime in?

Hope this helps!
-CK
 
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