Optimal Hard Drive Configuration for Premiere Pro CS5 and Pro Tools

I am in the process of upgrading a workstation that is used primarily for multi-track audio recording in Pro Tools to use the following Adobe CS5 products for production of promotional videos in HDV (and AVCHD for the web) as well as printed marketing materials for bands and musicians: Premiere Pro, Encore, Photoshop, Illustrator and Soundbooth.
Since Premiere Pro is probably the most demanding application of the group, I have been studying the suggested hardware configurations on this forum with great interest, particularly HARM's suggestions (including his Generic Guideline for Disk Setup) to determine which hard drives to purchase and the optimal manner in which to configure them.
I am upgrading an HP Z800 with dual quad core 2.44 GhZ processors with hyperthreading (16 virtual cores), 12 GB of memory and an overclocked GeForce GTX 470. Without setting up a RAID configuration (which I cannot afford at the moment), I would like to use the 4 available HDD bays in the Z800 in the optimal manner for Premier Pro, using currently available drives. I am currently considering purchasing a 300GB VelociRaptor to use as my C drive because of the extended load times and demands placed on the drive by ProTools and the associated Waves plug-ins.
I would appreciate suggestions to improve my following plan: C (300GB WD VelociRaptor) for OS and Programs; D (1 TB WD Black Caviar) for Media and Projects; E (1 250 GB WD Black Caviar) for Pagefile (approx. 18 GB) and Media Cache; and E (2 TB WD Black Caviar) for Previews, Exports and Pro Tools audio files.
I have great respect for the knowledge of the members of this forum and eagerly await your suggestions.
/Bill

I very much appreciate the responses to my email because I know that all of your time is valuable and that you have chosen to use some of that valuable time to help an unknown individual. This forum is remarkable because of the wealth of knowledge available and the willingness of so many to assist others.
I now wish to narrow my questions to save you time and so that I can get specific advice. I may not have not been clear that I have already upgraded to the HP Z800 with dual quad core processors and overclocked GTX 470, primarily for the improved performance it will provide in ProTools. My question now is how to optimize its performance for Premiere Pro CS5. Based upon my research, I am considering the following two upgrades, but I am open to other suggestions if they would provide better results at a similar cost
1. I am considering purchasing a 600GB WD VelociRaptor ( WD6000HLXH) for my C drive on which I would place OS (Windows 7, 64 Bit) and programs in an effort to reduce loading times of large programs. I have two questions: (1) Are members of the forum seeing a significant improvment in program loading times with the VelociRaptor because I am still not convinced that the price performance of SSD's justifies their use; and (2) There are so many models of VelociRaptors now that I want to be certain that I am purchasing the best version for my needs. In addition to the usual 10000 RPM speed, this model has 32MB Cache and a 3.5" form factor as well as a SATA 6.0GB/s interface (which I doubt my motherboard can take advantage of but it might extend the useful life of the drive with future configurations).
2. I currently have available for installation in the Z800 the following drives: (1) WD 2TB Black Caviar; (1) WD 1TB Black Caviar; (2) Hitachi 1TB. I believe that the Z800 can accept up to 5 SATA hard drives which I will have if I purchase the Velociraptor. Although I am reasonably knowledeable when it comes to hardware, I have never set up a RAID configuration. Therefore, it would be helpful if someone could recommend one of the various RAID configurations and brieflyexplain why it would seem to be best for my needs. I can then focus my research on understanding that one configuration.
I was planning to follow Scott's suggestion for my current 3 drives: OS and programs on C (WD 600 GBVelociRaptor), media and projects on D (WD 1TB Black Caviar), export files and Pro Tools files (all live musician tracks, no samples) on E (WD 2TB Black Caviar). However, I have been reading about the benefits of a RAID configuration so I am interested in further suggestions now that I have clarified my questions.
Thank you all for your help.
Bill

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Which is the optimal hard drive configuration for Logic Pro ?

hello people
i would like to ask your advices about possible hard drive configurations for Logic Pro
I have a Mac Pro and thinking to buy 4 x 500GB drives .
there are several combinations in my mind to configure , but first of all i would like to ask which is the best for an optimal system for Logic Pro
model 1 :
1 stripe Raid 0 array drive for ''System'' (500+500 = 1000)
1 stripe Raid 0 array drive for ''recording + sound banks'' (500 + 500 = 1000)
which means to using 4 hard drives as 2 drives
model 2 :
1 stripe Raid 0 array drive for ''System'' (500+500 = 1000)
1 Single drive for Sound banks (500)
1 Single drive for Recording (500)
which means to using 4 hard drives as 3 drives
Or , it is more healthy to use the drives as single , without raid , stripe sets but with its own capacity instead of combining .
and also if someone has an idea regarding to compare of Seagate and Westerndigital drives (which is the best for audio recording) , would be really helpfull
I am kinda rookie for these subjects :/
thanks in advance

heelo blayzay
thanks for the reply and assistance.
1) how can i create a back up set for the 4th HD to be make back up of the 2nd and 3rd HD
2) what about to make 1st HD for system and 2nd3rd4th (1.5TB) for audio recording, and an external drive for backups ?
For the back ups , is there a special process for the backing up HD (internal or external) ? Or should i just need a Clone software to make the back up
thank you again.

Hard Drive configuration for speed

I've got a question regarding the best hard drive configuration for my mac pro. I'm looking to increase the boot speed, application load speed and particularly the speed with which hard drive intensive photoshop processes complete. Right now I'm just using some normal SATA II drives. I'd appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on the various options I am currently considering.
-2x 64GB SSD in a RAID 0 for OS X and applications with some large SATA drives for storage
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I am particularly in the dark about the controllers I'd use for each solution. Clearly, I would absolutely require a PCIe card for the SAS drives, but would there be a marked advantage to using a hardware RAID card for the SATA drives over the software RAID in OS X? Also, how easy is it to get the mac pro to boot off drives connected to a controller card rather than the standard setup? And lastly, if there is good reason to use a card, are there any in particular that you would recommend?
Thanks a lot!

2. No. Do not make two partitions unless you do not plan to use Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows on that partition. If you plan to create a Boot Camp partition then you must partition the drive as one Mac OS X volume. Boot Camp Assistant will then create the Windows volume.
3. This drive must be repartitioned and reformatted as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two. Use the graphic resizer to set the desired sizes for each volume as you want. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the first volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. Select the second volume you created and repeat Steps 4-6.
4. Now here I don't know what you think is your best option. You can buy any two hard drives you want. The ones I identified were only an example of what you could purchase for under $300. There are others, slightly more expensive, that would work, and you would still be under your $300 budget. The Samsung drives are good drives and reasonably priced, but they are just one of several alternatives. You should do some checking on your own before making your decision. I'm just giving some guidance, not trying to tell you what you should do. I've provided three sites where you can read reviews and benchmarks before you decide. You need to "own" your decision.
As for how you configure these two drives that's a secondary issue. I would recommend using them for backup. Two possible arrangements are a Mirrored or a Striped RAID array. A mirrored RAID array would create one volume that has a 1 TB capacity. Everything saved to that volume is essentially saved twice - once on one drive then a copy is mirrored to the other drive. This is not what you described in your Item 4. That's not how it works. Anything saved to the mirrored RAID array is saved the way I described it just above. It makes no difference where the files come from.
Now you can use the mirrored RAID array as a Time Machine backup drive if you want, but then you should not use it for other data storage. You would need the entire capacity as backup for both of the 500 GB drives you currently have. A mirrored RAID provides some data redundancy by having a copy of everything one each drive. Thus, if one drive fails the other drive still functions and your data backup is intact. Mirrored RAIDs are generally no faster than an individual drive that makes up the array.
The second suggestion was to make a Striped RAID array. This type of array produces one volume that is twice the size of the the two drives that make up the array. Thus, you would have a single volume that is 2 TBs in size. You can use this volume for your Time Machine backups also. Striped RAIDs do not provide any data redundancy. If one drive fails all the data stored on the RAID will be lost. However, Striped RAIDs are nearly twice as fast as either drive that makes up the array. This would give you very fast storage and backup.
You could also just leave the two drives to operate independently. Use on for Time Machine backups, use the other for more storage space.
Other possibilities abound. It's pretty much up to you to decide what will fit best into your needs today and in the future. Don't feel obliged to do what one person tells you. Five different users on the Discussions will give five different opinions.
I suggest you educate yourself a bit on backup and restore by reading the FAQ about backup and restore at The XLab FAQs.
Following is more information on RAIDs:
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison>.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?
OS X has software for creating RAIDs by using Disk Utility. Open Disk Utility and select DU Help from the Help menu. Search for "raid" without quotes. You will find information on how to set up mirrored and striped RAIDs using Disk Utility.

Hard Drive Configure for MacBook Pro HD Editing

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www.caldigit.com
FirewireVR
S2VR Duo
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StandardRAIDlevels
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Regards,
Jim

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Hi YoshBear,
Welcome to Adobe forums,
We recommend you to go through following link as it provides more information about setting up hardware for Premiere pro and After effects :
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/878520
http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/improve-performance.html
http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/creativesuite/produ ction/cs6/pdfs/adobe-hardware-performance-whitepaper.pdf
Regards
Abhishek

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heelo blayzay
thanks for the reply and assistance.
1) how can i create a back up set for the 4th HD to be make back up of the 2nd and 3rd HD
2) what about to make 1st HD for system and 2nd3rd4th (1.5TB) for audio recording, and an external drive for backups ?
For the back ups , is there a special process for the backing up HD (internal or external) ? Or should i just need a Clone software to make the back up
thank you again.

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how do I format the drive so I can write both windows and mac files to it.
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(45687)

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This is more of an apple operating system combined with windows operating system question, but being that my OS will upgrade an fluctuate there is not option to choose in the operating system section.
Anyways to the question(s)
This whole prbolem came about when my computer started having issues, I want to back it up and whether I can continue to use my laptop or not I will still be owning an apple in the future. I went to buy a hard for back up and got told that it is not as easy as one would think to transfer files from mac OS to windows OS and vice versa. I have a mac, my boyfriend has a windows computer; we share files. Mostly I just copy his files, but once in a while I give him files too. I have read up and talked to people and only found one solution so far to format the external drive to fat 32 or exfat. I think only mac has the exfat option, but works well between both OSs, correct me if I am wrong.
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A user posted some good info about formatting. More specifically .Drives, partitions, formatting w/Mac's + PC's
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3044
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And a silly question, Can you dual format a hard drive?
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I still do not know which format would be the best. That is so that I can use it easily between mac OSX and windows. Is FAT32 the only true option? How limited is it? I heard it is limited to 4GB file size for windows and 32 GB for Mac. Are there other sources I have not found with more concrete information on the limitations of this format?
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I have a MacBook Pro and an 1TB WD my passport for mac. I bought a second hard drive to act as back up and when I went to do this the original passport won't mount. It is showing in disc utility but it will not repair. I am told the mac cannot repair it.

I have a MacBook Pro and an 1TB WD my passport for mac. I bought a second hard drive to act as back up and when I went to do this the original passport won't mount. It is showing in disc utility but it will not repair. I am told the mac cannot repair it and I need to back up the files and then restore the hard drive. But I can't open the hard drive to move the files onto the new one!
Help me please. I am not very technical so please answer as if I have no clue!! This hard drive has my iPhoto on it and all my pictures of my son, wedding and my current photography course so I desperate to get it back!
Any help will he appreciated!

disk0s2: I/O error.
disk0s2: I/O error.
The MBP's disk is damaged and requires replacement.
Genius Bar Reservations: http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/

Optimal Hard Drive Configuration for Premiere Pro CS5 and Pro Tools

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