Best MacMini Drive Configuration?

Hi There,
I'm replacing our aging Xserve with a new MacMini Lion Server. It will primarily serve job files to our 5 client machines via AFP.
My question is what is the best way to configure the 2 internal MacMini hard drives? Here is what I'm considering:
Option 1:
Drive 1: 256GB SSD would contain the OS only
Drive 2: 750GB 7200rmb Drive would hold Job files only and would be RAID mirrored to an external drive via Thunderbolt.
Option 2:
Drive 1 and Drive 2: 750GB 7200rpm drives configured as RAID mirror containing both the OS AND the Job files.
NOTE: For either option I have both onsite iterative nightly backups as well as periodic offsite backups so I'm well covered for data loss. Also, our Job files exceed 256GB so I can't fit them on an SSD drive, in case you were going to go that direction
My primary question is, would I see any considerable speed increases in accessing files via Option 1 vs. Option 2? (Option 2 is more straightforward and cheaper than Option 1).
Internal office network is pretty straightforward -- Cat 5e ethernet via a couple of Gigabit hubs.
Any advice appreciated!
- Keith

If I walked in to consult at your business I would pick what is behind door number 2. Here are some reasons.
1: It is simple and obvious.
2: It allows you to mirror the internal drives for redundancy (RAID is not backup)
3: You avoid startup inconsistency when trying to integrate external drives with internal drives (diskarbitration will mount internal drives before externals may be ready)
4: Look at your network and try to simplify. Having multiple hubs may be causing bottlenecks.
A mini running AFP on a gig network with decent switches should get you near 4 GB or transfer per minute. Smaller files will drop the transfer rate but your should be seeing 3 GB /min plus easy.

Similar Messages

What is the best hard drive configuration for disk/media cache?

I just installed a 480 GB PCI SSD for my boot drive. I also have a 240 GB SSD and a 1TB 7200 rpm hd. Can anyone suggest on which drives to place my source files, aep files, media and disk cache and output for the best read/write speed? Thanks for any advice. Same question for Premiere Pro too, if you know!
I'm using a Mac Pro dual proc, 12 core, 40 GB.

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

Best Hard Drive Configuration on New iMac?

Hi all,
I am in the process of purchasing a new iMac and will be installing Lightroom on it. This will be my first installing Lightroom on one of my machines, so I am not very familiar with the program, though I have read up on it (and will continue to do so) and have seen it in action before.
I plan to get a 27' iMac, 3.4 i7 CPU, with at least 8GB of RAM (will probably upgrade to more later). I have the option of selecting a 1TB Fusion drive, which is sort of a hybrid drive (a small part of which is SSD for most often used files/programs and the rest is a regular old hard drive), or a 3TB Fusion drive. I'm trying to decide which would be better for Lightroom.
Obviously, the 3TB brings the convenience of size and the ability to store more pictures on a single HD without the need of an external drive (at least right now). However, I am leaning toward the 1TB because the 3TB does not allow one to install Bootcamp, which is a program that let's the user run Windows on the iMac, which I may want to do at some point for work purposes.
All things being equal, and except for purely backup purposes, do most users split up their storage when using Lightroom or they just use one large internal hard drive? Would this have any impact on performance? To be honest, the whole catalog thing is throwing me for a loop. Sounds like I could store the physical images on an external drive, and just have Lightroom itself and the catalog file on the internal Fusion drive, but I'm wondering if this would at all degrade performance/speed of loading/viewing/editing pictures. Obviously, I'm assuming much will depend on the speed of that external drive.
I will continue to read up, but I would appreciate any tips regarding the HD situation before I place my order, as well as any general pointers for a first time Lightroom user starting fresh so that I can get off on the right foot.
Many thanks!

Hallo,
I have the same or at least very similar question.
Just ordered the 21.5" imac with 1TB fusion drive. I need to transfer 450GB of photos from my old windows PC to the new imac set-up. This set-up will include some drive(s) for back-up, but not sure yet which drives.
Just moving the 450GB of photos to imac HD seems a bit much: with photos, applications and some other stuff 60-70 % of the imac HD would allready be consumed up right from the start.
I am using Lightroom for organizing, editing, etc. of my pictures. So this should run as smooth as possible.
Any advice on a good configuration on how to work with iMac, Lightroom, 500 GB of pictures, external HD, back-up is welcome.
thanks,
Maarten

Best hard drive configuration with two drives

Hello,
I am considering adding a second hard drive to my blue and white g3. It currently has the original Quantum 12GB Ultra ATA/33 hard disk (ATA 33 is capable of about 33 MB/s).
I would install a FirmTek SeriTek/1S2 card (2 Internal SATA Ports) and then I would add a 160 GIG or a 250 GIG Maxtor hard drive. The hard drive would probably be a Maxtor DiamondMax 10, or a Maxtor MaXLine III. I will also consider the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 as well. I think all these drives are 7200RPM.
The final result will be that my G3 will have two hard drives, the original 12GB Ultra ATA/33 and also a 160 GIG 7200RPM drive.
What is the best way for me to manage my data with this setup?
What exactly is a "boot volume" or a "boot drive"? Are there boot volume strategies than enable your computer to be faster and more efficient? Do I need a boot volume and if so, on which drive should I create a boot volume?
I am currently using OS9 however I will be moving to OS10.1.5 soon and then perhaps to OS 10.4 panther later.
Should I put the OS on the original 12GB Ultra ATA/33 or on the new 160 GIG 7200RPM drive?
How about the applications? Which drive should they be stored on?
My main programs are the Adobe Creative Suite programs (Photoshop and Illustrator) as well as Macromedia Dreamweaver.
If my OS and apps are more than 12 GIGS and they are unable to fit on the 12GIG drive together, should I put the OS and apps on the larger 160 GIG drive and not use the 12GIG drive at all? Or does it make more sense to use the 12 GIG drive for just the OS and then the 160GIG drive for the apps and everything else (such as my stock photo collection)? Should I partition the 160 GIG drive?
Thank you for any advice.
PS Does any one know of a place to buy a SATA drive such as a Maxtor MaXLine III for a good price? Are Maxtor DiamondMax 10 as reliable as Maxtor MaXLine III? Is Maxtor MaXLine III worth the cost difference? Or would anyone recommend any other good brand of a hard drive? I will need about 160 GIGs or maybe 250. Thank you.

...Should I partition the 250 GIG drive as mentioned in my original post (system and apps in one partition and data in another all on the same drive)? Or is it OK to leave it as one large volume?...
Partitioning the drive "half-and-half" would probably be a good idea.
...What utility should I use to partition it if I decide to partition?...
Disk Utility can do that, just make sure to do the partitioning when you first install the drive.
... I will also need a good ATA card that will work with both OS9 and OS10- any recommendations?...
I have one of these and it has been working well.
It is $60, which is the lowest price I know of for a Mac card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816123110
...could anyone recommend a good ATA 250 GIG hard drive (PATA - not SATA) for the purpose of graphic design applications (photoshop and illustrator)?...
Any name brand drive should be fine (Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, etc.).
Stay away from PC-branded drives though (Dell, etc.),
some don't work on Macs.
Some drives in the 250GB size range have 16MB of cache, that and 7200RPM would have the best performance, but might be overkill considering the PCI speed bug (it wouldn't hurt though).
Note: Most regular ATA cards are 33MHz only.

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
-4x 300GB VelociRaptor 10k RPM SATA HDD in a RAID 0
-2x 147GB SAS 15k RPM HDD in RAID 0 with some large SATA drives for storage
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.

Best practice for configuring virtual drive on UCS

Hi,
I have two C210 M2 Server with LSI 6G MegaRAID 9261-8i Card with 10 hard drives of each 135GB. When I tried the automatic selection for the RAID configuration, the system has created one virtual drive with RAID 6. My concern is what the best practice to configure virtual drive? Is it RAID 1 and RAID5 or all in one drive with RAID6? Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Since you are planning to have UC apps on the server, Voice applications have specified their recommendations here.
http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Tested_Reference_Configurations_%28TRC%29
I believe your C210 server specs could be matching TRC #1, where you need to have
RAID 1 - First two HDDs for VMware
RAID 5 - Remaining 8 HDDs as datastore for virtual machines ( CUCM and CUC )
HTH
Padma

Mac Pro Drive Configuration - Home User

Hi all
I'm trying to determine the 'best' drive configuration for my needs... I'm not a pro-user (although, I do use DVDSP and Motion for some DVDs I make from EyeTV) and so I don't think I want to set up a RAID or anything like that... here's a little background
I was recently having my MP operate really slowly (in terms of disk paging) because of my boot drive (a Seagate ST3500630AS at 3.AAC) was
1) Rather full - < 100GB free - lesser impact, I think
2) Some directory corruption - drive stopped booting from diskarb error
I was able to resolve the issue by wiping out the drive and it's working much better now.... but the whole thing got me thinking about my config... I had pretty much just been 'slapping' drives in as I needed drive space (I have the shipping 250GB, my old 200GB Seagat, a new ST3500630AS and a FW800 500GB Maxtor)
I've been doing some reading and it seems that it's optimal to not have one's boot drive have anything but the OS (w VM swap files too, right) and Applications... it seems that the two best options are either a WD 'Raptor' (either 74GB or 150GB) or a Maxtor Maxline III to serve as the boot drive... I understand why the 'Raptor' is a better option (compared to my ST3500630AS - faster RPM) but why is the Maxtor (laying aside the firmware issue on the ST3500630AS)? Is it because the Maxtor's are supposed to be better at handling small files (the OS and the swap files are that, right?)? It seems to me that the 'Raptor' isn't the option I want to choose because I don't think I actually 'need' it... 74GB seems a little small to me (but perhaps not) while the 150GB seems a bit expensive when considering if I even 'need' the 'Raptor'
I'm anticipating that the Maxtor MaxLine III will be what I want to get for my boot drive... how would I want to back that up? Does it really matter if it's external? Someone had mentioned that you can do it to a disk image but then how do I boot off of that if I have an issue? Or is that just for the purpose of 'snapshotting' the system?
As I mentioned, I have the ST3500630AS and the external FW800 500GB Maxtor... they're a perfect match in size and I like having access to all of my home data on an external drive... that way if my MP dies (as my old G5s did), I can simply connect my FW drive to my old PBG4 and I'm up and running without a hitch... but I'm a little peeved about the whole firmware thing and the handicapped performance (is there anyway I can address this or should this drive be relegated to a backup status?)...
Another question - the Seagate's have the new perpendicular technology... it seems to me that people aren't that concerned about it - I thought it was supposed to be a really good thing?
What would people do in my shoes? If a solution needs more than one additional drive - I am game for ditching my smaller existing SATA drives.... Any and all suggestions would most appreciated...
Thanks!

The only real answer to your question is to do what you want. There is no such thing as an "optimal" configuration or "best" drive because what's optimal is dependent upon what you do and need. The best drive depends upon what you want from the drive.
The Raptors are very fast but also very expensive. About twice the cost of a Maxtor Maxline Pro. However, if you feel the need for speed on your startup drive, then the Raptor is what you want. If you would rather compromise between speed, storage space, and noise then the Maxtor is a good choice. However, Seagate purchased Maxtor some time ago. The Maxtor Maxline Pro drives are being phased out (in the 300 GB and larger sizes) so as not to compete with Seagate's line of products.
You can find useful benchmark tests on hard drives at http://www.barefeats.com/ and http://www.storagereview.com/.
Personally, I would configure the system in such a way that you have sufficient storage space on one or two separate drives that can be used to backup the rest of the system. As an example, in my system I use three 300 GB Maxtor Maxline Pros (this system was setup last September.) One drive is used as my main startup drive. The other two are configured as a mirrored RAID. I use the RAID as the backup for the main startup drive. The mirrored RAID provides both backup and redundancy for added data protection. I use backup software (Synchronize! Pro X) to perform automated backups on a daily, weekly (entire Users folder,) and monthly (entire drive) basis.
Of more importance than drive configuration is maintaining your system for optimal performance:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.0 is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.2 is Intel Mac compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. The current version, 1.5.1, is Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep.
OS X automatically defrags files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. PsynchX 2.1.1 and RsyncX 2.1 (Freeware)
6. Carbon Copy Cloner (Freeware - 3.0 is a Universal Binary)
7. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
The following utilities can also be used for backup, but cannot create bootable clones:
1. Backup (requires a .Mac account with Apple both to get the software and to use it.)
2. Toast
3. Impression
4. arRSync
Apple's Backup is a full backup tool capable of also backing up across multiple media such as CD/DVD. However, it cannot create bootable backups. It is primarily an "archiving" utility as are the other two.
Impression and Toast are disk image based backups, only. Particularly useful if you need to backup to CD/DVD across multiple media.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at www.versiontracker.com and www.macupdate.com.

Please tell me the step by step process of HP Tape drive configuration.

Dear all,
we are using ECC5.0 and windows 2003 server and oracle 9i .Please tell me the step by step process of HP Tape drive configuration. I Think initSID.sap file in to change the parameter,but which parameter configure.Please suggest.
Best Regards,
Thiru

Hello Thiru,
Once the backup completes,tape willl be automatically ejected.
I dont think there is any way by means of which you can see the data stored in the disk but yes what you can do is to run the backup with verify option
This BRBACKUP command option verifies the backup after the files have been backed up
Please refer to following for more info.
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/EN/55/c491f37407e74781bc0ebd96befba7/content.htm
Rohit

Best external drive and format?

What's the best external drive for backing up
imovie files and disc images? What format should the drive
be set up in for Mac usage and to accept the imovie projects?

If you simply talk about the spec and functionalities, caldigit's VR should have better spec over others
Interesting unit and something I will keep an eye on over the next year. Thanks for the links
I am primarily a LaCie d2 triple interface user (3-year old 320 Gb, 2-year old 500 GB, 1-year old 1 TB, and 1-month old 2 TB drives currently in use). For the most part I have been well satisfied with these drives even after having a power supply on the 1 TB model "weaken" on me to the point where the unit no longer worked in the "auto" mode. Since LaCie support provided a correct diagnosis of the problem within one work day, I was able to confirm the problem immediately, and they had a new replacement power supply in my hands in about 3 days, I have naught but high praise for their support people and remain a satisfied customer.
As I will probably need to replace the 2 TB drive in Oct or Nov of '09 as my iTunes/TV storage drive, I was looking at the LaCie 4 TB multi-drive unit but must admit I prefer the look of the CalDigit 3 TB unit. However, I am not sure I am willing to spend that much extra for the CalDigit's smaller configuration. Still, only time will tell and it is much too soon to make an preliminary, let alone, final decision.

Ideal FCP drive configuration on Mac Pro?

I'm configuring a Mac Pro that I'm going to order in the next day or so. I do 90% of my work in Final Cut. I'm not sure of the best way to configure the drives. I'm not worried so much about the sizes or RAIDs, but the way Final Cut uses files and how I can I lay out everything it needs so it's not working too hard to get at it. The last time I built a system I just had to subscribe to the 'render files on internal drive, footage on external' rule that I've heard for years. But now there's more options and I want everything to run as smooth as possible.
I read here on the forums that a drive that does nothing but hold render files speeds things up. It got me thinking: Should I have a drive just for render files? Should I have a drive just for music? Is there anything I should definitely keep OFF the boot drive?
Initially I was thinking of putting four internal drives in the Mac Pro. Two would be a RAID 0 as the boot drive with the apps and render files. The other two would be a mirrored RAID with all my music, graphics and permanent, frequently used footage. Then I'd use an external drive for project footage.
I don't need an internal TB for all this stuff, but Apple's minimum additional drives are 500G in size.
For all I'm spending I want this thing to hum with productivity. I just need to find out the best arrangement.
Advice?
Thanks!

Do not raid the system drive. No no no...the system drive needs to be on it's own. If you have 4 drives in the machine, and you want to raid them, leave one alone and raid the other 3. There is no point in raiding the system drive.
And never store any media on the system drive, all media should be stored on separate media drives. Because the system drive is very busy doing system stuff, and if FCP needs to access those file when it is busy...dropped frames. So yeah, definately keep ALL MEDIA referenced by FCP off the system drive.
Shane

Hard Drive Configure for MacBook Pro HD Editing

Can someone give me some advice on a two hard drive configuration that could be hot swappable.
I was told that I need two hard drives together to maximize speed for Proress 10 bit hd editing. Can you explain how configuring two hard drives gives me more speed to give me more real time cap.
I have seen a Lacie 2big swappable ext hard drive system and if I get the e sata connection. would that be fast enough if so what Raid system would be best.
Thanks for any input.

www.caldigit.com
FirewireVR
S2VR Duo
Explaination of the various RAID levels:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StandardRAIDlevels
what Raid system would be best.
For...? What type of footage are you trying to work with? RAID 5 is the best...Protection and speed. Look at the HDone for that. And look at www.maxxdigtial.com, sonnettech.com, g-technology.com...
LaCie? Consumer level...bad rep.
Shane

June-July 2013 Video Editing Hard Drive Configuration - ideas welcome!

Greetings Adobe Community,
I am a new member and this is my first question. I appreciate any knowledgable and experienced advice for my Hard Drive Setup.
My new system:
CPU: Intel i7 3930k
MOBO: Asus P9X79 DELUXE
CPU Cooler: CM TPC 812 (Starting with Air cooling, hestitant to use liquid for now)
RAM: 64GB Corsair Vengeance (1600MHz) (8GB ea. obviously)
GPU: GTX 650 Ti Boost (went slim here with plan to sell & upgrade as needed or suggested)
Case/Tower: CM Storm Stryker
PSU: Seasonic 80+ Platinum 860W (currently overkill)
OS: WIndows 7 Pro (with option to upgrade to 8)
Optical Drives: Pioneer BD writer & LG DVD writer (excited about and anticipating a commercial version of new Petabyte optical technology
--> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/159245-new-optical-laser-can-increase-dvd-storage-up- to-one-petabyte
Now, I am open to any suggestions that might be a bottleneck above, but my main question is about my my Hard Drive Configuration:
I have the following hard drives:
2 x Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD
2 x 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD (7200RPM)
2 x 3TB Seagate Barracuda HDD (7200RPM)
I am looking for the best speed, performance and usage of these drives for cs6 Master Collection, with special consideration given to Premiere Pro, AE, and Photoshop.
(FYI: I will be backing up all important files to an external HHD and burning final projects to BD)
My plan inspired by suggestions on AF and elsewhere:
1.) C: 1 x Samsung SSD: OS & Programs
2.) D: 1 x Samsung SSD: Media Cache & Previews
3.) E: 1 x Seagate 3TB HDD for Exports (Should I buy another and raid it?)
4.) F: 2 x WD 1TBs in Raid 0 for Projects
5.) G: 1 x Seagate 3TB HHD for Media (should I add buy another and raid it?)
6.)))<BONUS Drive> I am planning on running some tests to see how much max RAM I can use, and whatever is not being used, I am hoping to hear some positive feedback on making a RAMdisk or a couple of them. (I have seen unbelievable benchmarks for them.) If it is recommended, could I use a RAMdisk for {2.- Media Cache & Preview} or should I just use it for Pagefiles and other Caches and temporary files? (or forgo it altogether?)
I know this is a loaded question, and I am open to other suggestions that might include buying ~$300 in additional drives if it will increase speed and performance tremendously.
Thank you all for reading & I am really looking foward to learning from your knowledge and experience in this area!

Mike,
Check. SATA 6G port. Add a static pagefile of 1 or 2 GB here.
Check. SATA 6G port.
Check. SATA 3G port. No sense in raiding this and doubling the risk of data loss. Even a 25 GB export will only need ± 3 minutes or less to write.The time for export is spent on encoding, not on writing. Why take the risk and spend the money for a potential 80 - 90 second gain on each export of 25 GB? How often do you do that?
Check. SATA 6G ports on Marvell. Make regular backups of your projects.
Check. SATA 3G port. I would be very hesitant to raid0 the original media because of the risk of data loss.The X79 platform is designed for dedicated raid controllers and parity raids. If you need more speed, go that route.
Forget about it. It is not practical. Windows does not allow booting without a pagefile, so it will always create a dynamic pagefile on C: if it does not find it. With 64 GB memory the pagefile will hardly be used if at all. A static pagefile of 1 GB is enough. Everytime you turn off your machine, the RAM disk gets erased and upon booting must be newly created. That means that the media cache must be newly created, indexing, conforming and creation of peakfiles must be done every time you open a project. That time lost far outweighs the potential gain of a faster RAM disk.
Just my $ 0.02

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.

P45 Platinum - NB Drive Configure

In the BIOS Cell Menu is one item that does not appear in the User Manual:
NB Drive Configuration {May help memory strength when OC}
It is set to AUTO but has options for Drive Settings 1 throught to 4.
The explanation is not really clear as to what it is supposed to accomplish or what it is doing.
JacktN, I have to rely on your experience and hope that you have a better explanation than the BIOS description.

I am not very experienced with the practical effects of that option on the P45 Platinum (I never ran any systematic tests).
However, as far as I understand it, those settings affect the "strength" at which the mainboard "drives" the memory data bus signals. In theory, a higher drive strength means a "stronger" signal in effect, which can (theoretically) improve the system stability when there is a lot of memory load and/or the memory & memory controller is overclocked. [On the flip side, higher drive strength may increase electromagnetic interference, which may have negative effects on other parts of the system.]
Unfortunately, the fact the BIOS just allows us to choose between pre-configured Profiles, we do not really know what is actually set when we select any one of them.
So the best thing would probably be to simply play around with those profiles to find out the actual effects @higher memory clock speeds (or with all four memory slots populated).

What is the "best" way to configure iTunes on an iMac with personal user acounts so each user can access the media library but sync devices on their personal user account?

I am trying to determine the best way to set up our imac so each user account can access the same media (songs, movies etc.) through itunes and also back up and manage their personal devices under their own personal user account. There are 4 users on our iMac. Me, my wife, and our 2 children. We have built an extensive library of music/media together using the same iTunes store account. I would like to establish a seperate apple id and iTunes store account for each of us going forward but have the ability for each of us to share our purchases. What is the best way to configure our system and devices in order to allow shared access to media and at the same time allow for individual management of devices including contacts, apps, photos, etc. Please help, I would like to do this once!
Thank you in advance!

OK, seeing as no-one replied (presumably because a lot of this information is on the forums in bits elsewhere) here's how I've got on so far.
Applications - just went through them. About the only one I needed was my media server app. Just downloaded and re-installed, had a quick look back though my email to find the license key and it all went on fine. Installation never seemed quite right on my old machine so solved that problem too.
Movies - New iMovies just copied across the clips and projects into their respective folders. Seems to have worked but haven't checked it all that thoroughly. Some duplicate footage here but I can trim this out at some point when I get a chance to go through here.
Documents - Just copied these across.
Photos - used an app called iPhoto Library Manager. You can download for free but have to pay to use the part that consolidates your libraries. Possibly if I was willing to spend a bit more time I could have got away without using this but given I didn't know the state of my different libraries and just how many duplicates I had this was too much of a convenience to ignore. Also got my library into a state where I can now spend a few hours organising it a bit better with Faces / Events etc.
Not attempted Music or iPhone sync yet as been stuck trying to solve a problem with my power adapter.

Best MacMini Drive Configuration?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for