Disk storage

[dwkomes]

I am using a apple XRAID for storage , but it doesn't seem fast enough for uncompressed HD.
could anybody give me suggestions on drives ?

[Linzi.T]

What capacity do you need and what’s your budget?
Since speed is your main concern, we might need to look at the protocols. Is there a particular protocol that you’re more familiar with or are looking for? Thunderbolt, PCI express, FC, SAS…?

[moreymichael]

I've been using Lacie thunderbolt drives with great success. I work mostly in HD. I now use a Lacie 1TB ssd thunderbolt 2 drive, which is about the size of 4 Samsung phones taped together...very small, very light (my system travels, so I'm grateful for small & light). But it is expensive, and 1TB can be limiting. The older Lacie thunderbolt 1 drives are bigger in size & storage, but half the price.

[lustrecolorist]

The Xserve RAID was great for it's time, but is from 2003 so uses PATA disks and 2Gb fibre connections.  We were able to get nice uncompressed playback out of several chassis striped into a large Xsan volume, but I'm not so sure about a single array.

Assuming you're on a legacy Mac Pro, an easy way to build an affordable, fast storage volume is to combine an ATTO R680:

http://www.attotech.com/products/product.php?scat=23&sku=ESAS-R680-000%20ESAS-R680-C00

With a basic SAS JBOD enclosure like the SansDigital TR8:

http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid-/tr8xplusb.html

There are lots of good drive options, but Seagate makes a very, cheap fast 3TB disk that does about 175MB/s per drive:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/847151-REG/Seagate_ST3000DM001_3_TB_Barracuda_Desktop.html

I have been using a similar 8-disk RAID5 for the last year and it does 3 streams of uncompressed HD/2K or one stream of UHD/4K. The entire kit, including everything should cost you around $2500 new.  If you want to go even cheaper you can take a look at a Highpoint Rocket RAID 3622 or 4522.

http://www.hptmac.com/categories.php?compatibility=21

Highpoint quality and support are not as good as ATTO, but they do work pretty well and should be fast enough.  Just make sure to buy one of their "Raid-On-A-Chip" models, becuase all of the others are just glorified SAS adapters that use your CPU for calculations, and not actual RAID controllers.

[A_Over_B]

What Jason said but also:

PCIe USB3 card - probably fifty bucks

Two x Samsung 840 Pro 1TB - probably 800 bucks

Two disk USB3 dock with RAID 1 - probably fifty bucks.

[JZutter]

Hey guys, I can't seem to create a new post, so I’m hoping toget some advice here.
Got any advice on bigger storages, say 30TB ?
The 32TB Pegasus 2 R8 looks nice, but I prefer to have more options. I now got LaCie 5 big Thunderbolt2 9000504U, Areca ARC-5028T2, ExaSAN A08S3-PS, have you guys tried any of these?

[JZutter]

oops, I now got LaCie 5 big Thunderbolt2 9000504U, Areca ARC-5028T2, ExaSAN A08S3-PS "in mind", have you guys tried any of these?

[JZutter]

I just came across Jason’s article on ExaSAN A08S3-PS, great work!
Is it the 8-disk RAID5 you mentioned about?

[A_Over_B]

If money is no issue then buy Autodesk/DotHill storage.
There are reasons why they certify the partnership

[mikeparsons]

Ran an accusys a08 for last 4 years on a smoke 2012 on mac. Zero data loss. Its a solid piece of kit and very affordable and quiet.
Dot hill are great but you don't want one near you...

Mike

[Linzi.T]

Also a huge fan of accusys A08 as @mikeparsons here.
I got a ExaSAN A08S3-PS with Seagate 4TB drives for my studio.

I googled Jason's article, here's the link if anyone is interested.
http://www.jasonmyres.com/2014/10/test-driving-the-accusys-a08s3ps-pcie-raid-array/

[davidjahns]

We have 2 Smokes - one on a 2012 Tower, and another on a brand new MacPro "trash can".

The tower has been using a CalDigit HDPro2 8 drive - 16 TB, and the trash can has a MaxxDigitial 32TB (same as the Areca).  Both produce speeds about 800 MB/sec.  Plenty for HD/2k Uncompressed, but 4k DPX is pushing the limits.  Sometimes it plays smooth, sometimes, they'll drop.

Both have been rock solid - been using the CalDigit for 5 years, never had a data loss.  (Started with 8 x 1 TB drives, then swapped in 2 TB drives a while ago.  Unfortunately, CalDigit does not certify 4 TB drives.  But I'm pretty sure it would work, and I may need to go there someday..

The MaxxDigital ThunderRAID is the same hardware as the Areca - I paid a little more to have a Maxx branded one just so that I could call someone for support if needed.  But it's been pretty solid for a year and half now. (Used to be used on an iMac before the trash cans came out.)

The one complaint I have about the Areca is that there's no software utility app - if you do have a problem to look into, you need to connect an ethernet cable to the device as use a web browser to get to the tools, which are very crude, unintuitive, and generally not so helpful.  I forget the details, but I did connect a laptop to it and ran some tests once, and I was not impressed with the utuility tools.