RAIDS (which ones do people like?)

I’ve got a synology drive that I like, so much that I just bought a newer, larger one.

It connects via Ethernet and is fairly speedy, but I’m not using it for playback or project storage, just backups and long term archives of things like setups and old photos.

You can, if you’re feeling crafty and have the right switch/hub, bond Ethernet ports together and get better performance, but I haven’t gone that far yet.

The question, as always, is what are you trying to do? From there, it’s a matter of price per gig between a NAS and a thunderbolt RAID.

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Right now the issue seems to be that the thunderbolt connection is shaky as fuck and just won’t mount. The Thunbderbolt bus appears to see the drive enclosure, and delivers power to it (which is to say the fans power on when it’s connected–the thing has it’s own power supply), but the drive won’t mount, or even lurk around “unmounted”. OWC/SoftRaid says it’s an Apple/Intel issue and you get one guess where Apple/Intel lay blame.

I’m trying to decide between getting different storage or a new computer that would (hopefully) not have the same connectivity problems.

got any other machines you can connect it to?

Andy,
I had that happen to me, and bought a new cable and the problem went away. I cracked open the old cable and it was showing signs of burnout on the circuit board.

I don’t know if you tried a different cable yet. But I was surprised to learn it was the cable.

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That was one thing the support guy was saying, so it’s definitely a possiblity. I swapped out the cable with another one and it didn’t help, but one of the enclosures is a Thunderbolt 3, so I have the “apple certified” adapter and it could be that badboy that’s shit its pants.

I’ve got a new enclosure coming tomorrow. Say what you will about OWC, they ship fast.

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I’ve had decent luck with Owc. I picked up the Owc raid card (I think the name is stupid) and it’s been good. It will play back anything I’ve thrown at it. I wish I could have held out for a high point like Randy, but I need fast storage fast, and they were shipping.

I also picked up a Flex 8. I’ve been very happy with my Flex 8. It is where my big projects get stored. I like to think of it as my internal client tier. 1080 project, to the flex with you! The read and writes aren’t what Owc promised. I’ll have to trouble shoot that with them. I’m getting the read speed, (1200) but not the write (700 at best).

And putting a nvme card in the open slot has great read 2669, but awful writes. 738.

Hope the new enclosure helps!

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I really want to do a site visit at OWC. They are just about an hour north of where I live in Chicago and they have what appears to be a really impressive physical space with windmills and all types of green initiatives.

This topic could not have better timing for me!! in the past few months I’ve been struggling with lots of things, and storage is one that I can’t postpone no more.

Before the pandemic, 95% of my work was onsite so back then I’ve felt it didn’t make any sense to invest on system at home. After the pandemic, that changed really fast but like everyone else, everything was very uncertain so I delay any investment again. Now I’m working like crazy from home but USD x BRL (sorry to be repetitive with this complaint, but is always a huge obstacle), the best way to work for me was to rent an Imac on demand, but storage is becoming a headache, I’ve been using dropbox smart sync tool to help me deal with space, but not only is getting very stressful, but also I’m reaching the single user max space. So I decided to go with an external raid to help me out. Specially because it will make my life a lot easier when I have to switch between computers.

Now the other problem The cheapest solution I found is Lacie 5big with10tb thunderbolt, which actually sounds good to me, but I’ve never seen no one of you guys ever even mentioned Lacie for raid, so I could use some opinion and maybe some ideas.

I think the reason people don’t discuss the LaCie’s is they’re usually two drives striped raid 0 for speed, giving you half the safety of a single drive since either one failing is a complete loss of both. For that cost, and level of security you’re about as well served by a single external SSD on USB3 (please note I am one of the less informed people on these matters, so I could be wildly wrong).

The problem is there aren’t a ton of options between “two drives striped together” and “twenty four drives in a 2U Rackmount” that serve us, the single-serving professionals. I think Pegasus and OWC are the main two in Mac-Land. There may be more options with USB3 that are Mac/PC compatible.

Thanks Andy, in this case is 5 disc bay. I checked an OWC and just the enclosure would cost me 14k

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Yikes! $14k is quite a lot for an enclosure. Mine cost about $450 each.

It is a lot. I ended with 10tb 5 drives lacie bay for 12k and I’m still shaking.

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If I remember correctly this is a known issue with the new Apple OS hopefully it gets sorted soon, one more reason to go with a networked mounted storage solution, I started out with a thunderbolt then realized it was more of a headache for me using multiple computers.

“Sorted out soon” yeah. I’ve been reading threads about this happening for years. My only hope is that the newer machines don’t do it anymore.

Is network storage fast enough for drive arrays?

sure anything is possible with fiber but it will cost ya.
I don’t really use my storage that way though, internal ssd for drive array, and network storage for elements, in/out plates and archives.

That’s the direction I’m thinking of going going.

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Call me andy
I might have some gear that you can use while you decide.
I have a 24 bay dual SAS controller and some SAS cards in the garage.
I think there are 12 ssd in it but maybe more.
It’s in a mil spec flight case and ship able.
Call me
I may even have a thunder bolt to SAS device somewhere.
If I was spending the same money now as I spent ten years ago I’d be looking at some pretty exotic stuff now.
If I was spending someone else’s money I’d spend a lot more on even more exotic stuff.
Happy to hook you up with some reasonable suppliers and gear heads.
Or you can go through the usual channels.

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Hi,
i recently watch the Logik Live Episode #21 where @randy describe how he set up is home studio (thanks @randy , really helpful!)
I’m about to set up a workstation for myself and i’m in doubt between two option of storage for framestore and backup. Maybe it’s a silly question because they are basically the same but maybe, one has more advantage than the other.

OPT 1: NVMe raid PCIe 3 16 inside a mac pro for framestore and some thunderbolt 3 raid disk for framestore backup and Autodesk project and db backup.

OPT2: basically the opposite… NVME raid external via thunderbolt 3 (thunderblade) for framestore and internal pegasus r4i mpx raid that should be configurable in raid 5 for backup. This is the option described in the Logik tv episode if i’m not mistaken.

Anybody as any thought about it?
My worries are the thunderbolt connection and it’s stability. Anyone would recommend one or the other considering a future scalability in framestore disk space?
Also does anybody works with multiple framestore on the same machine depending on the res of the project? Could that be done to save high speed disk space for HD projects?
Thanks Francesco

Hi,

Advice please. Think I’ve got an idea of what to get but would like to throw it out there to see if I’m on the right tracks.

Heading to here: https://datastores.co.uk/

Can I get a budget friendly example of best option for a framestore drive quick and fast for caching (raid0) And a drive to use as storage for media. Then I’d need a drive for archives…

Will be hooked up to my iMac, only have 1tb on Mac and would rather use ssd for framestore.

Probably a stupid question as size equals price but it’s for home stuff and occasion shots small projects. Ideally from said website appreciate there are better options elsewhere, links for second options maybe??

Thanks

No idea as to your specific site/reviews as I’m not UK based, but, in general, here are some options…

Without knowing how much storage you need and what kind of workflow you typically use, its tough to provide a detailed response, so, here are some generic thoughts.

First, it’s a year old, but this isn’t a bad place to start. Andy and I talk about storage at the 37 minute mark.

On the low end is a single SSD or NVME in an thunderbolt 3 enclosure. I like Samsung SSDs and NVMEs and if budget is an issue then Sabrent NVMEs are a good compromise. Heck, you can even assemble your own with something like this… https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/envoy-express/thunderbolt-3. Turnkey would be something like this… OWC Envoy Pro SX - Thunderbolt Bus-Powered Portable SSD

Stepping up is some kind of external thunderbolt 3 chassis that has x2-x4 NVME sticks in it that you can RAID 0. This will give you 2-16TBS and something in the 2500Mb/s range. That would be something like this… OWC ThunderBlade

For backup, and, here’s the kicker, you should ideally have 2 yes 2 local backups of your data and one offsite. A common direct attached storage solution (DAS) is something like these… OWC ThunderBay 4 - RAID Thunderbolt 3 External Enclosure . At minimum you’ll want 4 disks, 6 are better, 8 is even better, and 12 is way better. RAID 5 them at a minimum, but preferably RAID 10 them. Lotsa people like the Ironwolf Pros as disks. And 8-10TB is the sweet spot for $/TB at least in my region/shipping/experience.

Don’t overlook a simple NAS either. Synology makes a ton of super great affordable NAS which you can easily setup Snapshot Replication to have 2 local copies and cheap cloud storage of a few TB wouldn’t be expensive, and you could likely hide them in existing Dropbox or Google Drive subscriptions. A couple of 4 or 6 bay options would be great. There’s a few super cheap 10GB option switches which would get you sorted quickly.

I know you dont want to hear this, but, I recommend getting 2 of whatever you decide. It takes the pressure off of early data hoarding and keeps your data protected from operator/hardware error. And, if you do amass quite a bit of data, a 2nd local copy is a few minutes away from being restored instead of hours/days/weeks of restoring an offsite backup over the internet over typical home internet speeds.

Hope this helps.

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