Internal SATA RAID5 for 2/3" Scarlet

[Ruby Quincunx]

I'm going to be building an editing/post Windows-based machine to work with footage from the 2/3" Scarlet. I want to have an internal RAID5 using 4 SATA drives (haven't decided if I want 1TB or 2TB disks yet). Would good WD/Seagate/etc. 7200 SATA drives in RAID5 give adequate throughput for editing 3K/2K/1080 material (in Premiere Pro)?

Also, in this scenario, is a separate RAID card necessary? The motherboard I am favouring is the SUPERMICRO MBD-X7DWA-N-O server motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182154), which does RAID5. Would this give satisfactory results?

Thanks for any advice.

RQ

 

[James Liu]

the RAID on your motherboard are software RAID, its uses your CPU to simulate a virtual RAID environment. Unless you have an ultra-fast cpu or using SSD for raiding, a hardware RAID solution outshine software RAID.

A software RAID is also harder to manage and will require significant longer time to rebuild if your drive degrade. A 4 port internal RAID controllers are not that expansive now days. (less than 300 for one at newegg) You will want a controller from a quality manufacture (I suggest LSI or Areca) because performance and reliability will be your number 1 concern in video editing/rendering. An areca RAID controller with four 7200rpm drives (also suggest enterprise level drives for reliability) can deliver 250+mb/s sustained read and 300+mb/s sustained write under RAID5.

Happy RAIDing :beer:

 

[James Press]

If you can afford 2TB drives I'd get them--you'll use 'em.

 

[Chris Romero]

Actually, If you compare software RAID vs Hardware RAID...Performance wise there would be no difference in a 4 drive raid5 environment. However, once you have a drive failure which is inevitable, you'll notice a big difference in the rebuilding times. During a re-build, your system resources (CPU+Memory) will dedicate itself to the re-build, putting a big impact in the system performance. A hardware RAID controller, let me rephrase, a GOOD hardware RAID controller has a dedicated IO processor and cache to take the hit instead of your system resources. So while your RAID is rebuilding, a good hardware RAID controller allows you to keep working without noticing a performance hit in your system.

Besides the performance load concern, here are other drawbacks of software RAID.

Vulnerability to viruses: Software RAID runs as an application on your system, which can be impacted if a virus hits the OS.

No write-back cache support: Write back mode enhances the write performance of a RAID array.

BBU assisted: Not availabe in software RAID

If your motherboard takes dies...so does your RAID.

Conclusion, Software RAID is better suited for simple RAID 0, 1, 10 scenarios. RAID 5 involves more complex parity calculations that would be better suited for hardware RAID controllers. I have had a good run with ATTO and Areca RAID HBA's, would stay away from Highpoint and Promise stuff.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

4 drives in RAID-5 will most definitely be fine for editing. I also recommend the 2TB HDD's if the budget allows. They're faster due to the increased areal density and you can never have too much space.

You will want a good hardware RAID controller for RAID-5 operation. ATTO, Areca and 3Ware have served me best under Windows the past couple years... And if you go 2TB you will definitely want to get the Hitachi Enterprise Class drives. The drives are still really new and the jury is still out about how reliable they actually are. Not only is the warranty longer on the enterprise units, but they treat you a lot better instead of like an end-user dummy if you need to RMA one of them. At least that has been my experience.

I don't have any experience with that SuperMicro board you have linked, but I would definitely give the onboard RAID a try. I do have a dual Xeon PC with their onboard SAS RAID host and it handles hardware RAID-5 just fine. It's an LSI RAID controller on that one I believe.

Make sure you have a good backup solution in place. And I would spend money there to ensure good backups before spending the budget on 2TB and hardware RAID. I would personally prefer 4x1TB with software RAID-0 and a good backup solution over 2TB hardware RAID-5 and no backup or half-assed backups...

 

[Ricardo Reyes]

Here's a performance test I ran using the WD 2TB RE4-GP SATA Drives. (WD2002FYPS)

4x Drives - RAID 5 - 128 Stripe Size

Areca ARC-1221X

MAC PRO - OSX 10.5.8

CineRAID EditPro T04 chassis

I'll be running the same test at 50% and 80% filled capacity and will post shortly.

RAID is meant for data redundancy. By no means should it be considered as a backup solution.

 

[Ruby Quincunx]

I don't have any experience with that SuperMicro board you have linked, but I would definitely give the onboard RAID a try. I do have a dual Xeon PC with their onboard SAS RAID host and it handles hardware RAID-5 just fine. It's an LSI RAID controller on that one I believe.

Make sure you have a good backup solution in place. And I would spend money there to ensure good backups before spending the budget on 2TB and hardware RAID. I would personally prefer 4x1TB with software RAID-0 and a good backup solution over 2TB hardware RAID-5 and no backup or half-assed backups...

According to the motherboard manual, it has an Adaptec RAID controller.

So how about this set-up? 4x1TB RAID-class internal drives in RAID-0 on the motherboard controller, & nightly backups to something comparable to a Drobo (maybe homebrew with ZFS & FreeNAS)? Feasible little set-up for a Scarlet 2/3" user making small experimental films & some freelance work on the side?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

For 4x1TB drives on the internal RAID, I think that will be just fine and dandy. I wouldn't trust a Drobo (or any other such external RAID system) for anything other than temporary backup. What do you anticipate your backup needs to be? I know that's hard to estimate if you're not familiar with RED workflow. But what do you expect to be doing over the next year or two?

Also, if you don't need this until the Scarlet 2/3" ships, you probably have at least 6 months to wait for prices on 2TB drives to fall. And they will.

 

[Ruby Quincunx]

For 4x1TB drives on the internal RAID, I think that will be just fine and dandy. I wouldn't trust a Drobo (or any other such external RAID system) for anything other than temporary backup. What do you anticipate your backup needs to be? I know that's hard to estimate if you're not familiar with RED workflow. But what do you expect to be doing over the next year or two?

Also, if you don't need this until the Scarlet 2/3" ships, you probably have at least 6 months to wait for prices on 2TB drives to fall. And they will.

What would you recommend as a more durable backup strategy? Tape? What is a reasonably priced tape setup? Yes, it is hard to foresee exactly what my storage needs will be with Red material. I have been working with DV (Canon XL2) till now, & my last short used a $20 spy camera from eBay (those parts that weren't almost hundred-year-old family footage or CG synthesized), if that tells you anything. I want to start small, but not hamstrung by inadequate gear, with the ability to move up in stages. I hope to bootstrap myself up to a somewhat more elaborate setup with the income from a number of music videos that I have an angle on (fortunately I have personal relationships with a few established musicians who are interested in creative collaboration). Plus occasional harvesting of my money tree.

Anticipated price drops are sort of fundamental to the way I am putting this package together, & yes it's timed to co-ordinate with the estimated Scarlet release, or around that time at any rate. So that is why I am vacillating about drive capacity, although I'll certainly have a more definite idea six months hence.

RAID 0 to Drobo (clone) for temporary working storage, then off to tape for archival purposes?

RQ