#432621 - 09/25/03 10:23 AM
RAID me this...
|
Disco D
Senior Member
Registered: 08/06/01
Posts: 43
Loc: Brooklyn, NY,UNITED STATES
|
Offline
|
|
Ok, I had another drive die on me earlier this week, and even though everything is nicely backed up via Retrospect as we all know that have experienced this it's still a bitch. I have dreams of a nice multi-drive hardware-based RAID setup in my studio with nice little lights in the front saying "Disco, this drive will die in 205 hours. Please replace it" - pulling the drive out with the system still on, slapping a new one in, having it automatically redundify my data again and keep going no problems.
Basically, what I want to know is who is successfully using a hardware-based RAID level 1 or level 5 setup in their studio? If so, what is it - fibre channel, SCSI, firewire - any slowdown or issues? I'm running a Pro Tools HD setup and I usually record up to 16 tracks at a time and playback 64 or so. I know Digidesign does not recommend, encourage or approve the use of RAID arrays but screw them! So if you are using a RAID array in your studio, particularly with Pro Tools, please list away!
I was checking out the Firewire setups at http://www.granitedigital.com - anyone have any experience with them?
Thanks in advance!
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
#432622 - 09/25/03 12:03 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
ptuzer
Senior Member
Registered: 02/24/02
Posts: 479
Loc: Toronto
|
|
Offline
|
|
I am pretty sure that Protools does not support Raid drives for audio.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432623 - 09/25/03 12:51 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
Disco D
Senior Member
Registered: 08/06/01
Posts: 43
Loc: Brooklyn, NY,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Whether they are officially 'supported' by Digidesign vs. them actually working in a real world situation are two different things - I've heard many success stories of people using Apple's XServe RAID in a Pro Tools studio - if the RAID is being done on the hardware vs. the software, then the computer sees the setup as one drive anyway. I'm trying to see if people have had other successes with products other than XServe, as it starts at around $5000.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432624 - 09/25/03 09:34 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
AudioMaverick
Platinum Member
Registered: 05/19/01
Posts: 1790
Loc: Outskirts of Big Bear, CA,UNIT...
|
|
Offline
|
|
There is no *feul tank guage* that is going to tell you when a drive is about to fail. To be sure, some drives last much longer than others.
I run a Promise Technologies *RAID 0+1* card, with two pairs of drives. I will be pulling them in a few months and using them for archive drives. And, in goes newer drives. This is my best way of dealing with RAID's only major flaw...
Most people think a *RAID 5* array will protect them from data loss. Working in a large network, I can tell you, I have had a few RAID stripes disappear forever with a single drive loss. And, I've had a couple of them just pop the stripe in mid-use. That's it -- no more data.
I haven't had this trouble with a simple 2-drive mirror, or *RAID 1*... yet. And, yes, I keep backups... current ones. I've done OK, so far.
Don't fall into the false impression that RAID will protect your data 100% of the time.
_________________________
"It's all about the... um-m-m, uh-h-h..."
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432625 - 09/25/03 10:29 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
Disco D
Senior Member
Registered: 08/06/01
Posts: 43
Loc: Brooklyn, NY,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
I make automated backups and will continue to do so, I just want to RAID for an extra level of protection.
That being said, what are your experiences recording audio to that type of RAID setup
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432626 - 09/26/03 12:15 AM
Re: RAID me this...
|
Katiedawg
Senior Member
Registered: 02/24/01
Posts: 63
Loc: Birmingham,AL,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Actually, that's not true about drives not giving an indication that they're about to go. The high dollar ones will throw a "PFA" (pre failure alert) to the backplane, and the backplane's monitoring firmware will force it up to the OS level.
Again, high dollar. We're talking IBM server grade hardware here. You won't find these at CompUSA or the "HardDrives-R-Us" web sites. Still, it's nice. If you're betting your life on it, it's worth the money.
_________________________
If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432627 - 09/26/03 01:49 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
drmad69
Member
Registered: 12/14/02
Posts: 15
|
|
Offline
|
|
Well, they may not support it, but yeah it works.
I use the high-point one on the cheap side. However, one of the reasons sited for them not supporting it is, cards used to use much more cpu time when drives were in raid. Unless you have several spindles, you're not going to gain a good enough overall performance increase in a daw. This I've tested several times, 15% cpu or 20 more meg a second? hard call and the simplest thing for them to say was "no raid".
I too have had half million dollar raid arrays just go poof. Programmers make mistakes. Bad memory and firmware bugs will completely hose you still today. Simple drive mirroring functions are safer, provided the card does compatible mirroring. Not all cards are equal, allowing you to take the mirror drive and use it somewhere else. And, if you look at the say http://www.tomshardwareguide.com, you'll see reviews on cpu usage for mirroring vs raid, etc.
Even striping caused a cpu increase in cards without dedicated processors. If it was was me, and I had the funding, I would use the same backplane raid I use for fileservers. Or even better a dedicated fibre disk array. I think the larger yamaha setup has something like that. Making a nightly filesystem backup while your sleeping is simple, allows you to place it anywhere on the network and as long as you are secure in nightly snapshots, keeps you from the whole mess. To maximize my space, I just striped and did nightly snapshots.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432628 - 09/26/03 05:07 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
AudioMaverick
Platinum Member
Registered: 05/19/01
Posts: 1790
Loc: Outskirts of Big Bear, CA,UNIT...
|
|
Offline
|
|
Disco D, you are seeing a trend here...
I did fail to mention that I DO NOT use the monitoring software. This is because it uses valuable CPU processes better left for my DAW work.
As for the RAID... I do a pair of 2-drive stripes (RAID 1). The reason is that the faster drives still tank out before 60MB/second of transfer. And, that is in the first 30% of the drive. The rest of it drops off rapidly to about a third of that. To record 16 tracks at 44.1kHz and 32-bit depth, you need a minimum write speed of 22.5MB/second. By striping two drives as a single *RAID1* I get about 115MB/second transfer in the first part of the drive. This pushes the drive speed/latency issue way down on my concern list. And, it perks up the IO time during multi-track sessions. I use Cool Edit Pro (Adobe Audition), which utilizes background mixing in real time. I can keep this feature off, with the RAID. But, I have no redundancy or online data protection.
This works for me. But, I am not sure it is the direction you were going with the RAID idea. If you do a hardware mirror with a promise RAID controller, you can pull a single drive and use it with a standard Promise IDE controller. I do this, too. And, it works.
Hope this helps you make a decision!
_________________________
"It's all about the... um-m-m, uh-h-h..."
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432629 - 09/26/03 05:58 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
Disco D
Senior Member
Registered: 08/06/01
Posts: 43
Loc: Brooklyn, NY,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
I was really thinking a dedicated external RAID setup like a Medea, those have built-in processors - I'm assuming this doesn't put any additional strain on the processor in my computer then?
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432630 - 09/26/03 05:59 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
Disco D
Senior Member
Registered: 08/06/01
Posts: 43
Loc: Brooklyn, NY,UNITED STATES
|
|
Offline
|
|
Oh, and THANKS BTW 
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432631 - 09/27/03 01:55 PM
Re: RAID me this...
|
AudioMaverick
Platinum Member
Registered: 05/19/01
Posts: 1790
Loc: Outskirts of Big Bear, CA,UNIT...
|
|
Offline
|
|
Good point... SCSI controllers (RAID or otherwise) and IDE RAID controllers use onboards micro-controllers (porcessors). This takes most the load off of the CPU. The built-in IDE controller on most boards rely on the CPU.
So, either way, getting a dedicated controller for your audio drives, and NOT loading the monitor software, will give you what you are looking for.
Sorry about missing that point... I didn't really concentrate when I read your first post.
By the way, if you go with IDE, getting obnoxiously large drives will almost guarrantee you work exclusively in the fastest part of the drives. I'd say mirroring a pair of 200GB drives and making a 30GB to 50GB partition in the beginning for work space. Then, the rest could be set for pagefile, swap space and temporary off load.
And, have I overmentioned the importance of backups?  The price of a drive is pretty cheap compared to not having to tell the talent how their great recordings were lost.
Now, back to the important part... recording!
_________________________
"It's all about the... um-m-m, uh-h-h..."
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#432632 - 09/28/03 03:02 AM
Re: RAID me this...
|
Oz Nimbus
Senior Member
Registered: 11/05/00
Posts: 115
Loc: Windsor,,CANADA
|
|
Offline
|
|
Been there, done that. I've lost some really imortant work due to RAID. I had one of the original Promise controllers, and ran dual stripes.... and it gave me no end of nightmares. Everything's running great, then boot up one day, the drives are toast.
Basically, for a negligible speed boost,you've doubled your chances of HD failure.
I pulled my RAID card out 2 years ago, and haven't had a problem since. With drives being as fast and cheap as they are today, It doesn't make much sense to run a RAID array. I still use dual drives, one labelled "production" and one "Backup." And it's ran GREAT.
-0z-
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
