RAID 5 external Thunderbolt drives
- Thread starter nathanjrb
- Start date
nathanjrb
Prolific Poster
Hi Ricbai,
The motherboard is already thunderbolt enabled:
http://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/P8Z77V_PROTHUNDERBOLT/
The motherboard is already thunderbolt enabled:
http://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/P8Z77V_PROTHUNDERBOLT/
Ah fair enough - I know the Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard I have has a Thunderbolt Header which needs an addon card/module to actual supply the ports.
External drive wise - we've had good experiences with Drobos (I've currently got a Drobo 5D USB connected to my Linux machine and will be moving it to my Raspberry Pi once I fully migrate to my PCS Windows machine: Drobo's only support a single format standard - so ext3, NTFS or Mac OS). My wife has a Drobo Mini connected to her Apple Thunderbolt display which is then connected to her Apple Macbook Pro which is running Windows...
Drobo's aren't the cheapest external drive solution, but does allow for drive failure (rebuilding a 12Tb+ ext3 array does take a few days after drive replacement) and additional larger drives "automatically" increases the RAID size.
There are some external Thunderbolt enclosures you could use with "any" drive (usually SATA in 2.5" or 3.5" sizes: differs per enclosure), but I can't really recommend any at the moment as I haven't tried them.
External drive wise - we've had good experiences with Drobos (I've currently got a Drobo 5D USB connected to my Linux machine and will be moving it to my Raspberry Pi once I fully migrate to my PCS Windows machine: Drobo's only support a single format standard - so ext3, NTFS or Mac OS). My wife has a Drobo Mini connected to her Apple Thunderbolt display which is then connected to her Apple Macbook Pro which is running Windows...
Drobo's aren't the cheapest external drive solution, but does allow for drive failure (rebuilding a 12Tb+ ext3 array does take a few days after drive replacement) and additional larger drives "automatically" increases the RAID size.
There are some external Thunderbolt enclosures you could use with "any" drive (usually SATA in 2.5" or 3.5" sizes: differs per enclosure), but I can't really recommend any at the moment as I haven't tried them.
nathanjrb
Prolific Poster
Interesting! Thanks, I'll be sure to check it out. I wonder if it would be cheaper to buy my own drives and enclosure? The G-RAID devices are quite popular in my industry - but the price tag is quite unappealing. I'll have a look at the Drobos devices you mention. Cheers!
It'll certainly be cheaper to buy your own enclosures. Drobos retail for around 300GBP+ for the "bare bones" enclosure, but some Amazon sellers do sell it with drives (4x2Tb WD Red drivers re-populated £715: it'll provide about 7Tb of storage) we just installed our own - a 5 bay Drobo will operate with 2 drives and just add more as your budget allows: it'll auto-scale up. However, "basic enclosures" are a lot lot cheaper (I used to buy a lot - and I mean I've got a dozen of them - single drive enclosures (USB only though) for machines before I switched to the "single unit with redundancy" Drobo: they were about £20 sans drives but obviously no redundancy in case of drive failure and needed lots of USB ports and power).
nathanjrb
Prolific Poster
Nice! Yeah I've just had a look at the Drobo ones. They look really nice. The only off-putting thing is they are Thunderbolt and not Thunderbolt 2. My motherboard isn't Thunderbolt 2 either - but if I'm going to be moving to 4k editing it might be best to get a Thunderbolt 2 enclosure for the future! I'll take a look at some of the cheaper ones too. I do like the Drobo ones though - especially adding more drives as you go along and also the flash SSD function.
mishra
Rising Star
Not familiar with thunderbolt solutions but I know a good gigabit networked NAS is usually enough. It also depends on what sort of drives you will use. I suspect the cost of drives is going to be a deciding factor in your case. A fairly decent 3TB hdd is around £100 so getting few of these will rack up your costs.
Also re-consider using RAID 5 as it's not a safe solution. With RAID 5 you have only one point of failure. If one drives fail before rebuild is completed then all your data is lost. In case of using RAID 5 I would suggest using another drive as a hot spare! (you need to check which NAS can do that)... or simply use RAID 6 instead where up to 2 drives can fail at the same time.
And then we are back to dreaded cost of drives.... As if you want 6TB let's say using RAID 6 (or RAID 5 with hot spare). Assuming you will be using 3TB drives you need 4 drives for 6TB and 5 for 9TB. There is £500 just for the drives.
Plus if you are really concerned about your data - RAID is not enough - as it's not backup! You also need another physical device (with enough storage) where you going to keep your backups (including retention). Obviously you can add that later on... but make sure you plan for it in advance.
Also re-consider using RAID 5 as it's not a safe solution. With RAID 5 you have only one point of failure. If one drives fail before rebuild is completed then all your data is lost. In case of using RAID 5 I would suggest using another drive as a hot spare! (you need to check which NAS can do that)... or simply use RAID 6 instead where up to 2 drives can fail at the same time.
And then we are back to dreaded cost of drives.... As if you want 6TB let's say using RAID 6 (or RAID 5 with hot spare). Assuming you will be using 3TB drives you need 4 drives for 6TB and 5 for 9TB. There is £500 just for the drives.
Plus if you are really concerned about your data - RAID is not enough - as it's not backup! You also need another physical device (with enough storage) where you going to keep your backups (including retention). Obviously you can add that later on... but make sure you plan for it in advance.
mishra
Rising Star
To be honest I think it is a smart move for now. Until you figure out what exactly you need and what sort of storage you need. RAID systems shine in a multi-user environment, where you cannot afford any downtime. For a personal/home use a single drive (no redundancy) is enough - for as long as you keep on top of backups (windows - SyncBack, linux - rsync).
Simply saying sticking to your main PC will only cost you some drives... once you know where you want to go... you can invest in either NAS enclosure or Linux server (I suggest Linux... as it's cheaper, more fun and way more flexible - plus you will learn a lot along the way). Any questions feel free to ask... it's a really good forum this one, I do enjoy reading stuff here.
Simply saying sticking to your main PC will only cost you some drives... once you know where you want to go... you can invest in either NAS enclosure or Linux server (I suggest Linux... as it's cheaper, more fun and way more flexible - plus you will learn a lot along the way). Any questions feel free to ask... it's a really good forum this one, I do enjoy reading stuff here.
nathanjrb
Prolific Poster
Thanks Mishra! I agree I have learnt a lot on this forum.
Basically what I want is a total of 6TB of space optimised for video editing but also securely backed up in case one drive fails. I've been reading about and to be honest the more I read about RAID the more it confuses me!
Basically what I want is a total of 6TB of space optimised for video editing but also securely backed up in case one drive fails. I've been reading about and to be honest the more I read about RAID the more it confuses me!
nathanjrb
Prolific Poster
This has been really helpful:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora...on/hard-drive-solutions-video-editing-studios
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora...on/hard-drive-solutions-video-editing-studios
On the Drobo calculator, using 4x 4Tb gives a "usable by the OS" capacity of 10.89Gb of the total 16Tb ( http://www.drobo.com/storage-products/capacity-calculator/ ) hence why I prefer Drobos "custom BeyondRAID" solution than normal RAID. If you would prefer dual-drive failure redundancy, it's reduced to 7.26Gb
mishra
Rising Star
I think he was after 4x2TB not 4x4TB. In this case Drobo "beyondRAID" solution would still give him the same size as raid 5, which is just shy of 6TB of usable space.
When it come to usable space DROBO "beyondRAID" works almost the same as any other raid system but can easily mix different size of drives without loosing any space (which is a great feature tbh - the same feature can be had with unRAID solution by LimeTech). So in that respect DROBO units are awesome + build quality and what not, but to be honest I found setup dashboard for DROBO units very limited ... as in seriously limited!. Where a typical Synology/QNAP NAS would give you like hundred more options, modules, customization to play with. Having said that these are rock solid - and maybe simplicity is their greatest asset.
When it come to usable space DROBO "beyondRAID" works almost the same as any other raid system but can easily mix different size of drives without loosing any space (which is a great feature tbh - the same feature can be had with unRAID solution by LimeTech). So in that respect DROBO units are awesome + build quality and what not, but to be honest I found setup dashboard for DROBO units very limited ... as in seriously limited!. Where a typical Synology/QNAP NAS would give you like hundred more options, modules, customization to play with. Having said that these are rock solid - and maybe simplicity is their greatest asset.
nathanjrb
Prolific Poster
Ok folks!
I'm going to go for 4x 3TB Caviar Blacks, which should give me 9TB of total space and a 3x Read speed gain.
For prices saving I'm going to use my motherboard as the RAID controller. These are the specs:
Intel® Z77 chipset : *5
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology, Intel® Rapid Start Technology, Intel® Smart Connect Technology *5
ASMedia® PCIe SATA controller : *6
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), navy blue
The only thing that is concerning me now is the speed of the SATA ports - will that make loads of difference?
Thanks!
I'm going to go for 4x 3TB Caviar Blacks, which should give me 9TB of total space and a 3x Read speed gain.
For prices saving I'm going to use my motherboard as the RAID controller. These are the specs:
Intel® Z77 chipset : *5
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology, Intel® Rapid Start Technology, Intel® Smart Connect Technology *5
ASMedia® PCIe SATA controller : *6
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), navy blue
The only thing that is concerning me now is the speed of the SATA ports - will that make loads of difference?
Thanks!
grimsbymatt
Enthusiast
I think the slower sata 2 ports are faster than a mechanical drive.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Definitely... on a SATA2 port it can go up to around 300MB/s over a mechanicals 70 - 100 MB/s (that's for a WD Caviar Black)
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nathanjrb
Prolific Poster
Ah ok - so it won't matter if I have 2 drives plugged into the 6Gb/s ports and the rest in the 3Gb/s? I'm going to use my current 2TB drive as a scratch disk, that way I'm reading from the RAID and writing the project files to the 2TB. I can empty the media cache every now and then when it gets full. I also need to back up that 2TB drive somewhere too...