HDD setup - Internal RAID, External RAID or single discs

I know variations on this question have been done to death on this forum, but I'm still struggling to understand how to apply it to my specific requirements and hardware.
I am looking to optimise the performance/speed of my Hackintosh for video editing on Premiere and grading on Resolve Lite, Colorista and AE.
I work mainly with Pro-Res files, sometimes with AVCHD, and occasionally with raw.
My Hackintosh specs are as follows:
Part
Component
Processor
4th Generation Haswell Core i7-4770 - Quad Core 3.4GHz (3.9GHz Turbo Boost)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE 8 Series GA-Z87N-WIFI
Memory
16GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical 1600MHz
Primary Graphics
Zotac Nvidia GTX 770 - 2GB Video Memory, 1059MHz Core Clock, 7010MHz Memory Clock
Secondary Graphics
Intel HD 4600 Graphics
Maximum Video Resolution
2560x1600
Hard Drive
240GB CRUCIAL SSD 32MB Cache (OS and Programs)
Hard Drive
1TB TOSHIBA SATA III 7200RPM 32MB Cache
Network Card
Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Wifi
Atheros AR9287 802.11BGN 300Mbps
Sound
High Definition 7.1 Channel Audio
Power Supply
Corsair CX600M 600w Modular PSU, 80 PLUS Bronze
Chassis
Bitfenix Prodidgy
External Ports
1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse Port
3 x HDMI Ports
3 x DVI Ports
1 x Display Port
2 x Antenna Connectors
6 x USB 3.0/2.0 Ports
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 Ports
2 x Ethernet Ports
1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Connector
5 x Audio Jacks
Operating System
OS X Mavericks
I have also purchased a USB3 Lacie 4Big Quadra 8TB external RAID.
I currently run the OS and programs from the SSD, and have partitioned the 1TB SATA III HDD, using one partition for scratch and the other for projects, media and exports.
My question is, what would be my best solution for optimising performance?
1. Buying a couple more HDDs, installing them internally and striping along with the existing disc as a 3-disc RAID 0, using the Lacie as backup/storage only?
2. Buying a couple more HDDs, installing them internally as single discs (SSD for OS & Apps; HDD1 for Scratch; HDD2 for Media and Projects; HDD3 for Exports), again using the Lacie for backup/storage only.
3. Using the Lacie as an external 4-disc RAID 0, and the existing internal HDD as storage. Buying further HDD(s) for backup.
Also, if RAID is the answer, what is the best configuration in terms of which disc(s) to point Premiere to? i.e does Premiere treat the RAID as a single disc for i/o purposes, creating a bottleneck with high bandwidths, or does it act as it would if different file types were pointed at separate individual discs?
Many thanks in advance for helping the IT dunce!

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Is external name space (e.g. companydomain.com) and internal name space (e.g. corp.companydomain.com or companydomain.local)
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Hello, I was curious to know if you were going to set up a RAID, is there a choice between going with internal drives or external? I've been looking at some external RAID set-ups (G-Technology, Lacie) and they look pretty good. But would a internal drive be better or is it more suceptible to failure?
Also, if I did go internal, is setting up the RAID done in the OS or would I have to buy some software to do it?
thx

I meant, are you interested in RAID because you are seeking automatic backup, greater throughput or some other benefit?
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Guys, I Finally got it to show up correctly I first did a mistake with changing the primary ide to nvidia's driver in which caused a BSOD lucky enough last known good option worked and going back to device manager, i noticed it mentioned a dual ide under secondary ide which i thought i'd try the nvidia driver on. sure nuff, after a reboot it found the 2 hdd's as raid and installing the drivers for them gave me access like before
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I'm starting with a blank slate and zero knowledge.
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I bought FCP X from the App Store and put it on my internal drive along with Motion and Compressor..
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Ok, Thanks
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Thanks for the response.
To clarify my question though -
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Thanks Shane for the reply! My last experience with 'hot swap' was ~5 years ago with a server. It required a bunch of special trays, and I had extra hard drives pre mounted into these trays for hot swap daily backups. What is hot swapping a drive like now a days? Is it simply plug and play?
How durable is the CalDigit FirewireVR? The front grill looks delicate :S. As I may bring the drive to different locations (though it would be reasonably cushioned), durability is important to me.
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Message was edited by: Phillip Roh

PP Crashing when opening collected project from a RAID system on a single drive system

Hello,
I have a very serious problem with Premiere Pro. I've created a project in Premiere Pro CC on a Windows 7 system, utilizing a RAID system.
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Here are my specs:
Model Identifier: MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
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Any help with resolving this would be appreciated!

Off the top of my head, because I haven't worked with SCSI in years--
"The problem is that using the internal as the capture scratch can only be a short term solution. The drive is only so large and I have a problem with finder if I try to move files from the internal drive to the external. Finder freezes up and I can't even force quit properly. So being able to once again use the external as the main capture scratch is the only real solution. The external is fully functionally and communicating with the Mac."
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You might try powering down the mac and the raid, unplugging and letting the machine sit for a while to discharge the capacitors. Then try reseating the scsi card. (pull it out carefully and plug it back in.)
On another note, when you upgraded fcp, did you do a clean install?

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Any solutions? Is the drive dead? Can I disconnect one of the RAID drives and see if that will mount or would that hopelessly mess up my data?
any advice would be most welcome, thanks!

Hi Mark Ankcorn-
It sounds like one of the drives in the RAID is bad. Don't overlook the obvious and be sure to try a new USB or firewire cable.
The problem with a 2 drive RAID is when one drive goes bad there goes the RAID. Your data is already hopelessly messed up.
Luck-
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AP3 collaboration, referenced files on external RAID

We are a small photo-studio with three photographers working together.
Here's how we work now:
- we import into AP3, unreferenced.
- when we finish the project we export as new Library and save it to an external RAID-solution (Synology) for all to have access to the project(s)
problems with this:
The weight of the exported projects, hence the time to copy and import
what we would like to do:
- use referenced for the RAW images
- keep these on a shared drive
- pass around projects which weigh less and speed up the process
Will the Libraries pick up the correct referenced files after importing them into each users Library or after opening them as a stand-alone Libary?
Any problems we can expect?
Any good references or help on the subject is welcome and appreciated.
many thanks
Henk

Yes it may work but also yes you can expect problems. Aperture is a single-user application not designed for the collaborative workflow you describe.
Apple badly needs a pro single-user laptop/desktop Apple-supported synch workflow. Badly needed and requested since v1. Here we are years later still dealing with workarounds, some flaky. Filemaker, Apple's other database app, has had this capability for decades.
Hopefully other folks will post solutions that may work, but remember that multi-user workarounds of this single-user app are prone to being flaky. Plan accordingly, including most importantly to back up original image files on and off site prior to import into Aperture or any other images management app.
Good luck!
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Hello,
I have an Apple XServe running 10.4.9 Server, serving a handful of Apple 10.4 clients. We were looking to add inexpensive storage to this server, so we purchased three Lacie External BigDisk Extreme Firewire drives, daisy chained them together via Firewire connections, and set them up as a striped RAID set using Disk Utility. This setup has worked very well for us for the last six months.
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This is why you shouldn't use striped volumes for server storage. I don't even like using firewire drives for that.
A RAID 0 doesn't have redundancy so a rebuild isn't possible.
Maybe if you could copy the content of the failed drive to a new drive with block copy using dd or something (a drive in a stripe-set doesn't have regular partition, files or filesystem) you might be able to save the RAID. But if the drive "clicks" that is probably very hard. It could be the powersupply acting up in the failed drive enclosure. Maybe try moving it to another one.
If you need a big volume a concatenated disk set is a better choice and a hardware RAID controller (RAID 5 or better) is even better.
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