RAID drive?

[Animal]

G4 800, 001, PT5/6

In my search for a new backup solution, I've started reading about RAID systems. I think that RAID1 is what I want....one external 300 gig drive mirroring another. But I'm a bit confused, maybe someone can help clear it up for me.

There are RAID enclosure's out there, and RAID controllers, and different controllers/enclosures seem to be geared toward RAID1, 2, etc.

I just want to be able to stick 2 IDE drives in a case and have them do the mirroring. What product should I be looking for (besided a pair of IDE drives)?

[beermaniac]

Sounds to me like you need a RAID PCI card.

This sits inside the computer in a spare PCI slot. There are many different brands. Make sure you get one that is MacOS compatible (check on the manufacturers web site for drivers).

The type of RAID card determines what type of hard drives you buy. The RAID card will either take SCSI, Serial ATA or Parallel ATA hard drives.

Install the card and hard drives into your machine. Make sure you have enough power connectors for the Hard Drives. If not, you can buy adaptors to split your existing ones. Connect the hard drives to the RAID card.

Boot the machine and install the drivers for the RAID card. You will then need to stripe the system as either RAID 0 or 1. This can be done with the card utilities or through Disk Utility in OSX.

Beware. Protools does not support RAID. If you don't intend to record to your array, then you should be fine.

Good luck.

[captainbonehead]

I don't think you need a controller card unless you are doing level 4 or 5. RAID 0 and 1 are both supported directly in OS X - it's not until you start needing to handle parity stripes that you need the hardware to control the data.

Disk Utility can handle the mirror setup.

[maccool]

I don't think a RAID is what you need. If a RAID 1 would work with PTLE, then yes, but it doesn't, I tried that.

If you're serious about a backup strategy, then you should think about having two backups, and one of them not inside the computer. Also, unless it's automated, it's not really a backup.

How about one more internal drive (if you have a spare drive bay), an external FireWire drive, and backup software to make the backups to both drives on a schedule. And/or backup to DVD.

The external FW option is also easily portable.

[Animal]

Thanks for the replies. There are a few point that the posters brought up which are causing me a bit more confusion.

1. One poster said that RAID would not work with PTLE. I don't understand how that could be. Again, I'm strictly looking for backup storage: no recording on these drives. I wouldn't think that a storage device should care what audio software I'm running.

2. There also seems to be some disagreement about whether or not I would need a controller card. I want to run these drives EXTERNALLY, and I'm only considering RAID 1. I'm kind of under the impression that with an external RAID enclosure, the controller is build in.

Maccool: why weren't you able to use a RAID with PTLE? Also, i'm trying to get a pair of mirrored drives running externally using RAID. I don't care about portablilty too much as I'm not planning on taking the drives any where. I have a seperate external drive for projects I need to move around.

Anybody else care to weigh in?

[***BBOY***]

try this solution i have and its great

http://www.cooldrives.com/qubayredk1st.html

[maccool]

1. PTLE won't record to a RAID. Backing up session and audio files, no problem

2. For RAID1 you don't need a controller card. External FireWire RAID enclosures are available which control the RAID. FireWire is slow, but maybe fast enough for your needs. Other external RAID solutions are available using SCSI or SerialATA. In those cases you would need a SCSI or SATA host card with external ports. SCSI is very fast, and very expensive. SATA is fast, and much cheaper. If you used external SATA, then you could set up the RAID with Disk Utility.

If you have 2 empty drive bays in your G4, then you could use an internal SATA host card and have the RAID right in the case, which is by far the cheapest solution.