Mac Pro 5,1 PCIE SSD question

[jonathan murphy]

I have a 2012 MAC PRO 5,1 with the following specs:

2012 Mac Pro
12 Core 3.46
64 Gb of Ram
Slot 1: Nvidia Titan X
Slot 2: ATTO NT11 (for SAN)
Slot 3: Apricorn Velocity Duo PCIE SSD with (2) 1tb SSD's in raid 0
Slot 4: Decklink


I am trying to maximize performance for Davinci Resolve work and 6k footage (both editing and color)

I currently have my pcie ssd's in raid 0 for the boot drive and then 2 normal 1tb HDD's in raid 0 in the normal HDD slots.

My question is should I make the pcie ssds a cache drive instead of a boot drive and then put another ssd in the normal HDD slot? Or split it 50/50 and have 1 pcie ssd as boot and the other as cache?

I understand the pcie ssd's are much faster than the normal HDD slots but will i see a real world difference If i moved my boot to the HDD slot? I am just trying to MAXIMIZE performance. So basically whatever helps me the most I am up for. If that means super fast cache drive and a semi fast boot I am cool with that.

Any other general tips for this system are welcome! If you guys know of a cheaper CUBIX equivalent I would be up for that too but am about at the end of my budget right now.

What do you guys think?

 

[Flo Eckhardt]

we have been using this during our mac times : http://www.netstor.com.tw/_03/03_02.php?MTEx - worked great for us also I heared some complains around the forum ...

not sure how this is for davinci - for adobe it would for sure make sense to split the raid into two single drives , one for OS and one for cache. I suggest to monitor your system to find your bottleneck, hopefully you don´t find out that davinci is equal bad threaded as adobe and the only thing that´s holding you back is your software

 

[M.Halsell]

Sounds like you pretty much have it sorted out already. Recommend dedicating the fastest media to Resolve. From there use the onboard SATA for OS . I agree with Eckhardt to have a separate drive the OS and scratch disks, safer than RAID 0. The PCI bus of the 2012 (3Gb/s Serial ATA) will be bill a limiting factor on some the speed benchmarks. But you have a nice video I/O and adequate RAM.

 

[jonathan murphy]

Thanks for the reply Which one would be better? Ssd on reg HDD or splitting the pcie ssd?

 

[Simon Dunne]

you may get a better speed if you switch your ATTO and Raid card. The raid is in a 4x and the ATTO in a 16x. But you may see a little boost speed wise.

 

[jonathan murphy]

Yeah I would but atto only recommends that 2nd x16 slot.

 

[jonathan murphy]

Just trying to figure out the best option on the ssd's. Just don't know if there will be a noticble slow down if I put my boot on the sata II port. Or if I should split my pcie. Just trying to figure out what will be the MOST benificial

 

[M.Halsell]

Just trying to figure out the best option on the ssd's. Just don't know if there will be a noticble slow down if I put my boot on the sata II port. Or if I should split my pcie. Just trying to figure out what will be the MOST benificial

Boot on the sata II port. Sustained data read/writes will benefit from SATA 3. But the lighter demands of the OS can be handled comfortably with SATA 2. Also, if the OS breaks, its easier to repair on the native host bus vs a 3rd party host bus adapter. Good luck. Ease your mind on the machine, you've made some good choices, now go be creative.

 

[Eric Santiago]

I was using the SONNET TEMPO PCI with dual 1TB SSDs from Crucial.

These handled the RED clips in Resolve smoothly.

Of course your limited in space.

I wish I had another set and tried a massive RAID.

 

[Simon Dunne]

I look after 100+ machines with an ATTO in a 4x slot running 8gb fibre....you'll be fine

 

[M.Halsell]

I look after 100+ machines with an ATTO in a 4x slot running 8gb fibre....you'll be fine

Are those OSX or Windows deployments?

 

[Simon Dunne]

OSX, a mix of 10.6.8, 101.9.5 and 10.11.4 at different sites.