Best "Storage" Setup for AE/PP?

[NoThanksMan]

Hey everyone!

I am running a 2013 Mac Pro (12 core, 1TB, D700, 64GB) for video editing.

My current drive setup is as follows:

4x 512GB Samsung Pro SSDs in an OWC ThunderBay Mini (Raid 0 — 1200MB Write, 1320MB Read)

1 TB Mac Pro SSD (980MB Write, 1110MB Read)

8x 8TB IronWolf HDDs in an Areca 8050 (Raid 1+0 — 850MB Write, 1050MB Read)

How would you suggest I set up my AE/PP drives? How should the "workflow" of my setup be in terms of file movement?

I am very new to this all, but I was thinking:

1) Move files from camera to the SSD Raid 0.
2) Edit files.
3) Render to Desktop
4) Transfer all files to HDD Raid 1+0 for storage.

Does this seem like it would give me the best rendering speeds or whatnot? Is there a better way to set this up?

Like I said, I have no real idea how to go about this all.

THANK YOU!

[NoThanksMan]

Side question: would you suggest, instead, doing 8x 256GB Samsung Pro SSDs in a Raid 0 (instead of 4x 512GB)?

Would the increase in speed make any difference in rendering?

any other suggestions?

[NoThanksMan]

Anyone??

[Bill_Gehrke]

I am a little in tthe dark on Mac configurations.  Where are your OS/Applications located is it on the 1 TB SSD?

I hate to see you move your files to a RAID 0 initially.  A failure there would loose your media.

I assume your Areca based array could be set up differently and our now past away Harm Millaard's suggestion would have been to use RAID 30 for the safest fastest storage.

You have much faster choices than the typical user let me think about it but the other array could be the "cache" array which are generally temporary in nature so RAID 0 would not be as much a concern.

[NoThanksMan]

Yes -- if you could help me figure this out, I would greatly appreciate it!

I know RAID 0 is technically unsafe-- but i feel that using SSDs makes it relatively safe, no?

[RoninEdits]

since the 1tb ssd in the mac pro is somewhat fast, you could also use it for cache and use the 4x 512GB Samsung raid-0 to hold the active projects media, like you were planning. another alternative would be to use the 4x 512GB Samsung as cache and the Areca 8050 raid-10 for active projects media, but with hdd's it might be less responsive when compared to the 4x 512GB Samsung raid-0.

i would echo bill's concern with placing the media on the 4x 512GB Samsung raid-0. anything of importance on that raid-0 should be backed-up immediately/first. i think the raid-0 with ssd's is fine for a working drive for good performance, just treat it as a temporary work drive and not a storage drive. raid-0 with ssd is safer than it use to be as ssd's are generally more reliable these days, even more so than hdd's. but any raid, including the raid-10, can fail or loose data. so no raid is a substitute for another backup copy. if you are counting on the raid 10 to be your only copy of data and that raid parity will be enough, you are playing with fire. also, you should have a decent battery size UPS that the computer and external raid boxes are plugged into, to prevent data loss/corruption from a sudden power outage.

i doubt you would see much benefit with rendering speeds by using 8xSSD, of course it would depend on what is being done in the projects, but typically rendering is more cpu intensive vs storage speeds.

[NoThanksMan]

I'm confused. What would the purpose of the Raid 10 be then? My goal was to use that as a backup. Do you mean I need 2x the backups all the time as SOP?

[RoninEdits]

raid is used for speed and/or to help protect against drive failure and some data corruption. raid can be a more reliable solution to hold data vs a single drive, but its still a single copy of the data which could be accidentally deleted or overwritten, or deleted by software or viruses, or lost due to electronic damage/failure, stolen, etc, etc...  so important data should have two completely isolated copies, and critical data that absolutely cannot be lost should have 3 isolated copies of the data with at least one copy offsite.