LaCie, RAID or NOT?

[kd_rome]

I was reading a lot of articles about the 2 different LaCie (LaCie d2 250 Triple Interface and LaCie Big Disk Extreme) and I'm still confused.
The first one has only 1 drive and the second has 2, but the LaCie website doesn't say anything about it, I just saw it from the size of the case.
They told me on a previous thread that for pro audio use is better to get a non-Raid external drive, but then checking around on the DUC forum I found a lot of people that just use it!
So at this point, which system is the best and why?
Thanks guys!

[16yearsjeff]

is the lacie d2 triple interface A RAID hard drive? i dont really know what RAID means, i didnt know that you shouldnt use one with PT. sorry to respond with a question

[pk_hat]

I got the 200GB Extreme and very happy with it. I believe it's the 500GB "Big Disk" that is RAID.

[K.B.]

Well this is interesting.

When I bought my Lacie d2, the website I bought it from clearly stated that it was a RAID drive. Plug n play RAID - I was delighted. It seemed like a huge technical leap.

But now that site no longer mentions raid, and the pdf manuals that come with the drive only mention RAID in the context that it is RAID 5 compatible.

So it's not RAID at all...

Well, works fine anyway.

(And the RAID I have in my PC that acts as my PTLE data drive works fine too).

[kd_rome]

Do you know if it will be negative to get a RAID system if you're running audio?

[K.B.]

There are several threads on this in the PC forum.

It's not a simple matter at all. If you look at this overclockers forum they say

RAID 0 block stripe size:
Users report generally best results with a 16K or 34K stripe size. Anything above 34K seems to reduce performance and is not recommended unless the array is used for working with exceptionally large files such as in video editing

From my reading on it, sound files tend not to benefit from a RAID array, as they're not the optimum size to take advantage. For video it's a different matter.

RAID definitions here.

I've got RAID 0 as PTLE data drive on my PC. 2 years, no problems. However, next time I put a system together I'll go for RAID 1 for the added security.