Setting up a RAID system?

[Animal]

001, G4 800, PTLE 6, osx

I want to set up an external RAID system, but I'm not sure what products I need. Clearly I need a pair of hard drives. But do I need a "RAID" enclosure, or a RAID controller card, or both? What about Apple's software?

[albee1952]

I thought PT did not support RAID?

[Animal]

Just for backup; no recording to those disks.

[PhiDelta308]

You shouldn't need an enclosure, unless you've maxed out the expansion bays in your computer, or unless you want to do some more elaborate raid stuff (0+1, 5, etc). Most of the reviews I've read on raid products recommend using a controller card as opposed to a software raid setup, as dedicated cards tend to have better throughput. Also, there are now firewire RAID set ups you may want to investigate. From what I gather, with the firewire arrays, you get the best throughput if each drive is on a separate firewire bus.

-chris

[Animal]

You shouldn't need an enclosure, unless you've maxed out the expansion bays in your computer, or unless you want to do some more elaborate raid stuff (0+1, 5, etc). Most of the reviews I've read on raid products recommend using a controller card as opposed to a software raid setup, as dedicated cards tend to have better throughput. Also, there are now firewire RAID set ups you may want to investigate. From what I gather, with the firewire arrays, you get the best throughput if each drive is on a separate firewire bus.

-chris

Chris:

Yes, my internal bays are maxed out. So you're saying that even if I'm using a pair of external firewire drives, I can do the raid with either a controller card or software, just that the controller would probably be better?

And my other option would be to get a dedicated raid firewire enclosure...in which case, would I still need a controller, or is it built in?