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1. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JFPhoton Sep 12, 2013 11:36 AM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99).......in short.....NO !!
Use one SSD for OS, Programs, and Windows pagefile ONLY. Use the second SSD as the "global performance cache" if you are using After Effects, AND you may use it for the PPro previews, media cache, and media cache database files. ALL these cache files are easily re-created if ever lost. It is best to separate functions that are running at the same time, as each SATA device is "half-duplex"....meaning it cannot read and write at the same time.....it has to wait.
Once PPro is up and running and loaded into system memory......the program's performance is then dictated by the OTHER components....not the OS drive. Your CPU, and video card are fine. Bring system memory up to 32 GB.
The HDD RAID 0 you are proposing may yield a 300 to 200 MB/sec. peformance....which is ok.......not bad....not optimal.....should be ok for most things. Just make sure you BACK IT UP !!!
The single most IMPORTANT thing you can do to improve the performance of your proposed rig is to OVERCLOCK THE CPU !!! That Haswell CPU was DESIGNED for overclocking!!! Tom's Hardware reports that almost ALL of those Haswell chips can do 4.3 to 4.4 Ghz !!!! Some hand picked ones can go to 4.5 Ghz. So, OVERCLOCK.....AND be aware....CS6 PPro and CC PPro have had an issue concerning "multi-camera" functioning. I do not know if this applies to CS 5, or, 5.5.
If I were you....I would wait for the Haswell "E" ( Enthusiast) CPU to come out in late 2014.......the performance increase based around that chip is going to be SUBSTANTIAL. It will be needed with the shift coming to 2k and even 4k video resolutions which will soon tax editing machines unmercifully !!!!!
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2. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JSS1138 Sep 12, 2013 1:10 PM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)I'll throw in another viewpoint. It's not be a bad idea to RAID the two SSDs, just not in a RAID 0. Use RAID 1. That way if a drive fails your System will still boot, you can still work without interruption while you replace that bad drive.
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3. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
SAFEHARBOR11 Sep 12, 2013 1:11 PM (in response to JFPhoton)Hi Anthony,
Agreed to not RAID the C: drive. The system looks decent except the power supply seems nominal to me, would definitely go a little bigger like 750-800w. Just the graphics card will draw quite a bit, then several hard drives, etc.
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers
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4. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 12, 2013 1:41 PM (in response to JSS1138)Hi Jim and JF,
Thank you both the responses.
Please can you tell me where I should allocate the OS, Media Cache, Video and Audio previews etc.
I will have the following drives available:
2 x corsair force GT sdd (either in raid or separate, according to JF)
2 x 3T seagate barracuda 7200 rpm 64mb cache in raid 0
1 x 3T seagate barracuda 7200 rpm 64mb cache ( I intended to use this for generic resources)
Thanks very much for your advise
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5. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 12, 2013 1:46 PM (in response to SAFEHARBOR11)Hi Jeff,
Thanks, do you have any suggestions on drive allocation with respect to pagefile, video audio previews etc as I asked above please?
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6. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
SAFEHARBOR11 Sep 12, 2013 1:50 PM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)I don't normally have the extra drives in the system to do that, just C: and a RAID for video. Please check this link for more info as this is not an area of expertise for me - http://forums.adobe.com/thread/662972
Thanks
Jeff
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8. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JFPhoton Sep 12, 2013 2:31 PM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)Antiny......as they say in new York.....re-read my reply, ( 1.).........Windows 8 REQUIRES that there be a Windows page file on the C drive. So, On the C drive : Operating system,all program files, and Windows pagefile ONLY !!!
D drive...( your second SSD ).....ALL previews, media cache, and media database files. These are all assignable in Ppro preferences,etc. ALL of these files will be easily re-created by PPro if erased,or, lost......no worry... this SSD would ALSO be great as the "global performance cache" when using After Effects....which you probably WILL !!
E Drive would be your 2x 3TB HDDs, in RAID 0 off the motherboard.....place your media source and project files files here.....the speed of the RAID 0 will help avoid a slowdown due to the limited speed of a single 7,200RPM HDD trying to feed all the video streams at once while editing and playing back.
F Drive would be the single,3 TB HDD....use this drive as the NECESSARY BACKUP of what is on the E drive !!!! This is because a RAID 0 can FAIL at ANYTIME.....losing ALL the data on BOTH DRIVES !!!
This drive can also be for exporting to....especially when speed is not of the essence. However, MANY systems are setup with this F drive being a SECOND RAID 0 setup, so that exporting is fast.
If you did THAT....you would THEN need one MORE additional drive to be your backup as drive G !!!!
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9. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JSS1138 Sep 12, 2013 3:50 PM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)Here's how I'd configure those drives:
C: OS/Programs - SSD
D: Projects - SSD
E: Cache/Scratch - 3TB
F: Media - 3TB
G: Exports - 3TB
This spreads the load out very nicely so you're never reading and writing to the same drive at the same time. It also avoids the dangers of RAID 0.
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10. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 13, 2013 3:07 AM (in response to JSS1138)Hi Jim,
Thank you , so you are saying that I shouldnt raid at all then. Rather split all the drives up and keep each one separate and allocate the various items to the individual drives?
I read on Bills tweaks page that if you are editing .mov files then you should forget about raid. (he qualifies this by saying that the source material uses Quick Time 32 server add on.
My real concern is that the footage that comes from my canon 60D hdslr is in the .MOV format. Does this mean that my system would be crippled from the outset?
Kind regards
Anthony
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11. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
cc_merchant Sep 13, 2013 3:45 AM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)Anthony,
I would suggest you send a mail to Colin Brougham. He can be found under the Top Participants on the PR forum. AFAIK he has information about which files with the .MOV extension can be handled natively by PR and thus bypass the QT 32 Server, with its 4 GB limitation and gamma shifts.
If the .MOV files from your camera do use the QT 32 Server, then the system is crippled from the outset.
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12. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 13, 2013 3:58 AM (in response to cc_merchant)Hi CC,
Thanks, good idea but im not sure how to send him an email? How do I find his email address please?
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13. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
cc_merchant Sep 13, 2013 5:17 AM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)Click on his avatar and then select Send a Private Message.
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14. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 13, 2013 5:46 AM (in response to JSS1138)Thanks JF,
Sorry about not reading / understanding your 1st post. I guess I needed the spoon feeding. I really appreciate everyone's comments.
I read the tweakers page (thanks cc) page and it also helped me understand the concepts that you're referring to.
Regards
Anthony
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15. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 13, 2013 6:58 AM (in response to cc_merchant)Thanks CC
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16. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JSS1138 Sep 13, 2013 8:35 AM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)are saying that I shouldnt raid at all then.
My recommendation is to get all five drives in that basic config first, and only then start to RAID them.
The System, Projects and Media drives should be RAID 1. RAID 3 is also a good option for the Media drive. Only use RAID 0 for Cache/Scratch and Exports.
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17. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JFPhoton Sep 13, 2013 9:04 AM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)...I also had to edit those Canon 60D .mov files .......as Jim says......no RAID is needed for THOSE files. HOWEVER, those files are highly compressed and difficult to edit natively. With CCloud you can NOW transcode them to the 64bit DNxHD .mxf to edit in an easier manner, OR, you may edit them natively and EXPORT them as the .MXF DNxHD for broadcast. Like I said before......some have claimed that simply changing the file extension from .mov to .mp4 on those videos can "fool" PPro into NOT using the Quicktime 32 bit process and instead, remain totally in 64 bit. Read the info from Colin...it may help......DNxHD worked for me !
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18. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 16, 2013 7:22 AM (in response to JFPhoton)thanks JF
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19. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 16, 2013 7:32 AM (in response to JSS1138)Afternoon Jim:
cc pointed me to the extremely informative tweakers page on which I have read:
" On 1155 and 1156 platforms with a Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge or Haswell CPU there is no practical possibility to install a dedicated raid controller, because the chipset design limits the number of available PCIe lanes to 16, all of which are used by the dedicated video card. Well, you can install a dedicated raid card, but the severe drawback is that the video card is throttled back from PCIe-16x to PCIe-8x, resulting in a performance loss of 10 - 15%. Using on-board software raid5 on these platforms is also ill-advised, because a parity raid is just too slow without a dedicated IOP, especially when rebuilding, to be comfortable and carries too much overhead in CPU utilization on a quad core system and consequently really drags down performance."
Does this mean that there is no real performance benefit to me (other than redundancy)?
It would be simpler for me not to RAID because im not too clued up about how to do it and just to set the drives up as you initially said ie:
C: OS/Programs - SSD
D: Projects - SSD
E: Cache/Scratch - 3TB
F: Media - 3TB
G: Exports - 3TB
Having said that if you strongly advise otherwise I will ask the guys building the PC to RAID.
The mother board would be MSI Gaming H87-G41PC MATE SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Motherboard Or a ASROCK H87 . Im told that the motherboard allows for hardware RAID. Is this just sales speak or is it actually software raid Do both of these provide a software RAID.
This is what tweakers page says " There are two kinds of software RAID's. One is controlled by the BIOS/drivers (like Promise/Highpoint) and the other is solely OS dependent. The first kind can be booted from, the second one can only be accessed after the OS has started. In performance terms they do not differ significantly"
Do you know which category of RAID support my potential motherboards would offer please?
Thanks very much
Kind Regards
Anthony
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20. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
cc_merchant Sep 16, 2013 9:02 AM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)Both. BIOS based and as all Windows machines, OS based.
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21. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JSS1138 Sep 16, 2013 3:56 PM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)I will ask the guys building the PC to RAID.
I wouldn't. You've only got five drives. My recommendation is to get those five in place before you start to RAID, which means a RAID setup needs a minimum of six drives.
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22. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
Anthony Freeman 99 Sep 17, 2013 1:11 AM (in response to JSS1138)Hi Jim, we have decided that be purchasing an additional 3TB Seagate barracuda, 64mb cache, so there will infact be a total of 6 drives.
If we are going to RAID as per your suggested do you have any easy resources for me to understand the process of setting up the RAID 1 for Programmes and Raid 3 for source media. please?
Thank you
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23. Re: Should I RAID 2x 240G Corsair SSDs as C -drive
JSS1138 Sep 21, 2013 8:08 AM (in response to Anthony Freeman 99)RAID 1 requires two drives, so that's a possibility if you have a total of six. Given this, I'd recommend using that sixth drive to RAID 1 the Media. It's the most critical drive when it comes to project completion. You can always reinstall the OS, regenerate the cache files, reexport the finished project, hell you can even reedit the project if need be. But once you lose the media, your dead in the water with no chance of saving that project.
You can set up the RAID 1 in the BIOS of the motherboard.





