I agree that the 500GB drive is asking for a bit of trouble-- that's a lot of real estate to survey when miliseconds are at stake. Don't put all your eggs into one basket, so to speak.

The 500 GB drive might be good for backing up your VI samples to avoid reinstalling everything from scratch. Archiving/cloning the source drive will help save space. When Chamber Strings goes down, just reformat, drag over the set of folders, and then head out for a sandwich. You'll be up and running with the least amount of agony... and you will have enjoyed a good lunch besides.

Further, I'm not a big fan of firewire, personally. eSATA hosts and host mulitpliers work extrememly well and have proven to offer the best performance in my experience.

But as with anything, backup drives are second only to the breath of life itself.

It's so odd with hard drive brands-- different people report different experiences with all drives. I've had Seagate and La Cie totally go south on me more than once. I've been using Western Digital SATA, SATA2 and Raptors. I've never had a WD go out on me (knock wood) but I could either be extremely lucky or way past due.

"It's so odd with hard drive brands -- different people report different experiences with all drives."

That's for sure. Only this week I started looking for a back-up drive, thinking I'd get another LaCie. The feedback I found was horrible. All the while, my current LaCie D2 250 has been a workhorse for over two years. I use FW 800.

While Drew and I both shop for another hard drive, would anyone have experience or informed feedback on this RAID-0 set?

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/PerformanceRAID

I know there's been a lot of RAID discussion here, but I've never followed it closely. Do RAID setups make a A) filling the drive closer to capacity or B) using 500 GB drives any more acceptable for running VI / EXS?

Plowman,

No reason they shouldn't work as long as they are properly cooled in that fancy cabinet. That was the problem with the LaCie 500 Big drive. The cabinet ran real hot. When you put a lot of read commands on it (i.e., short audio pieces like samples) then they overheat. I lost all my VSL one time one a setup like that. I still do use one for the EXS version of VSL that doesn't get much use. It's kind of there only nostalgically.

I have all the VSL VI library on a RAID-0 with two 10K 300GB UltraSCSI drives. Ihave pretty much all of VSL except for the piano. It comes to just under 400GB. The Get Info readout sez that it will hold 559 GB. So I still have more room. Works like a charm. It might even be overkill.

If memory serves me you have an older G5? I suppose the FW RAID will work. You might want to check what kind of drives are in it. Hopefully it will be something that you might be able to take out of the cabinets and install them in a Mac Pro in the future when you upgrade. You will probably want SATA II drives for that.

Couldn't you simply get one of those Wiebetech internal or external eSATA II arrays. You can choose to buy their cabinets pre-loaded or with seperately purchased drives.

Bottom line is why don't you get eSATA? Of course you will need an empty PCI card slot for the eSATA host adapter.

This is very helpful, Jack. Ever have one of those computer thingies that for some reason never stakes a place in your vocabulary? eSATA is mine. Now I'm educating myself, searching host bus adapters and Wiebetech. And the point about a forward looking purchase relative to Mac Pro internal drives is great thinking.

Is this a safe statement: speed and type of drive being reasonably equal (and without respect to portability), a drive inside the computer is always better than a drive outside? Hmm. Maybe that's a hornet's nest of a question.

In my research I had read that the LaCie 250's were more reliable. I cheer your confirmation.

@Plowman said:

Is this a safe statement: speed and type of drive being reasonably equal (and without respect to portability), a drive inside the computer is always better than a drive outside? Hmm. Maybe that's a hornet's nest of a question.

All things in good working order, one should notice no difference between the performance of an internal drive and the same drive running externally. Of course, the wonderful thing about eSATA to date is its capacity. The G4s and G5s have been miserable about drive bays-- and users have made huge compromises to kit bash their PPCs to install more than one additional internal drive.

While the Intels have upped the internal drive ante, the benefit of having external drives on a host offers a few options in capacity that are still not possible with internally, despite the improvements. For example, I recently added a 1.25TB RAID using SATA II drives in a rather sophisticated enclosure:

http://www.satasite.com/5-bay-esata-port-mutiplier-enclosure.htm

LCD temperature and monitor performance readout, 5 independent fans that are clearly not silent, but quiet... No matter; my next quest is to investigate the feasibility of longer cable lengths and repeaters to isolate all hard drives and comptuers in another room... it seems like 20 feet or more is the only thing that will work.

SATA I is 1.5 Gbit/sec while SATA II is 3.0 Gbit/sec. There is apparently a 6.0 Gbit/sec standard in the works.

But, one thing I've not heard anyone talking about is SCSI (and perhaps there are good reasons for that). There are PCIe SCSI cards which are MacPro compatible from companies such as ATTO. WiebeTech indeed has at least one SATA SCSI enclosure:
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/prosata.php

Since 10k+ drives in capacities larger than 200GB are either rare or cost prohibitive, this must be imho the "autumn" of spinning data storage media. Heat, noise, general volatility, and stagnant spin speeds together are an equation for eventual obsolesence.

Plowman,

If you get an external eSATA setup then when you get a Mac Pro all you have to do is add the array to the new computer. I believe that if you take the drives out of its original bays you will need to restripe them thus wiping out the data on those drives.

You might have to purchase a new PCIe host adapter card for the Mac Pro instead of the PCIx that will work in your G5. But...there are some rumours out there that say the the 8-processor Mac Pro might have one PCIx slot. If that were miraculously to happen then you could even reuse your original host adapter card making your upgrade process much more enjoyable. We should be finding out for sure hopefully during the month of March. Please note that the PCIx slot won't have quite the throughput that the PCIe slot will have.

As far as SCSI is concerned, yes, it will be a technology that someday goes away just like G5's and Mac Pro's will eventually - and spinning disks for that matter. And it costs more money than SATA. But in terms of bus throughput, access time and rotational speed (the latter two being the most important for our application) UltraSCSI and Dual Gig Fibre Channel are the very best. My wallet simply chocked at the last moment and it thought UltraSCSI would be good enough even though Fibre Channel would be the King.

I don't allow my other samples the same luxury as VSL. VSL gets used a lot.

Maybe I need to reconsider this reflex, but when I hear SCSI, I'm back in the 90's, buying a new cable or pin adapter every year, with bulky, unbending wire, terminator hijinks and finicky settings. Anyone try to make a SCSI chain with a PC, external drive and a K2500? Those memories may be mis-representing the SCSI of today.

On Weibetech's webstie, on the prosata page, in the specs it says, "Hybrid Technology: SCSI-to-SATA." Might someone elxplain that term?

"I believe that if you take the drives out of its original bays you will need to restripe them thus wiping out the data on those drives." A "gotcha" of gargantuan size. Thanks.

"...there are some rumours out there that say the the 8-processor Mac Pro might have one PCIx slot." I've read this as well. But then, in my world, that would immediately get my current sound card.

Well, I've gone from simple plans for a second external drive to a reconsideration of all things data. I do hope March brings us some news. I think JWL is in a similar place -- waiting for clear-cut announcements on Clovertown et al. Sure, we may not be able to use it immediately, but how can we buy a quad core with an octo so close to market?

Maybe I need to reconsider this reflex, but when I hear SCSI, I'm back in the 90's, buying a new cable or pin adapter every year, with bulky, unbending wire, terminator hijinks, jumpers and finicky settings. Anyone try to make a SCSI chain with a PC, external drive and a K2500? Those memories may be mis-representing the SCSI of today.

On Wiebetech's website, on the prosata page in the specs it says, "Hybrid Technology: SCSI-to-SATA." Might someone explain that term?

"I believe that if you take the drives out of its original bays you will need to restripe them thus wiping out the data on those drives." A "gotcha" of gargantuan size. Thanks.

"...there are some rumours out there that say the the 8-processor Mac Pro might have one PCIx slot." I've read this as well. But then, in my world, that would immediately get my current sound card.

Well, I've gone from simple plans for a second external drive to a reconsideration of all things data. I do hope March brings us some news. I think JWL is in a similar place -- waiting for clear-cut announcements on Clovertown et al. Sure, we may not be able to use it immediately, but how can we buy a quad core with an octo so close to market? And this waiting in turn affects so many other decisions.

Make your life easy.

Get an eSATA. It'll work great. The upgrade path works for you.

SCSI is expensive and could be overkill. I was just being anal when I got the SCSI. I like it but I'll bet if I sat down with a system with eSATA I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a blind fold test. Just consider SCSI the 'Monster Cable' of disk transfer protocols. [:D]

@Plowman said:

Maybe I need to reconsider this reflex, but when I hear SCSI, I'm back in the 90's...

SCSI-- a term used quite regularly with such terms as "floppy disk" and "VGA". Your reflex is justified, and Mr. Weaver's advice about eSATA is sound.

Perhaps this ranks highest among the reasons why SCSI is not talked about. So many other elements of computer technology have come a long way-- it's actually a bit shocking to see that SCSI rates are still holding their own at this late date.

8-Core rumored to have a PCIx slot? Hmm. I sort of hate to see a precious slot *wasted* on PCIx. It would have made more sense with the sudden switch to Intel that Apple would have kept a PCIx slot on the 2006 models. The transition back then was quite a problem for many Intel buyers who cringed at the expensive of changing their cards over to PCIe. This sort of feels like a step backwards for the 8-Core, but I understand the reasoning. Now, if Apple would be so kind as to add a PCIx slot to the existing PCIe slots without a trade off, then I'd feel a lot better. If three open slots are all we get, then I'm max'd out already without having yet spent a dime!

The transition is frustrating, indeed. It's all I can do from running down to the Apple Store like an 'astronaut wearing a diaper'.

JWL,

Not that what we have heard about will make any difference in what really shows up in the final offering, but the way I heard it there will be 3 PCIe slots and a legacy PCIx slot. So it could be the best of both worlds. [H]

FWIW, the reason I went for UltraSCSI was the 4ms access time on the faster rotational speed disks. The best I saw on SATAII was about 11ms. I really wonder what happens with those arms when they're trying to access 2 stac. 16th notes at 160BPM in a phrase with several other differing articulations.

Sometimes I'm in awe of how well computers really work. Other times, well...

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Actually I managed to bring m disk back to life.
After two failed attempts to re-format it (quick), I did a bit level re-format and a chkdsk which seems to have sorted it out.

Thanks.

I have a dual 2.5GHz G5 and an external 1 terabyte SATA RAID 0 with two Seagate 500GB drives that I put in an inexpensive enclosure from Other World Computing. I use a 4 external port Firmtek PCI-X card. Firmtek cards have the added benefit of being one of the only - or perhaps the only - - E-SATA cards from which you can boot an external drive. This feature can be important if, as I do, you use hard drives for backup. I have an inexpensive hotswap external SATA enclosure (available from MacGurus) and several backup drives in interchangeable trays so that I can store all but the current backup offsite. Some aof the backups are in the form of clones of the startup disk (made with SuperDuper) - - which is useful for two reasons

1. if the main disk fails, you have the exactly the same data and software on another disk so you can keep working. (The only thing that doesn't work are authorizatons of Native Instruments software - - which have to be replaced.)

2. if you want to test a new or beta version of software on a system that is not your main startup disk, you can do it easily on a disk that is identical to your startup disk.

You can also create a disk which has disk images of your Vienna Instruments DVDs
and use these images instead of the DVD's to install your libraries. Since this disk will only be used during installations it should have a long life. (theoretically).

One important fact about SATA drives is that the they do not need bridge circuits as do FireWire drives - - the circuitry is in the card. I've had several FireWire drive enclosures fail because something went wrong on their bridge circuits. (Didn't lose data, but had to buy another enclosure).

As far as the functionality of the SATA RAID 0 array is concerned there have, so far, been no problems even with passages involving highly complex textures with multiple patches playing simultaneously (and switching around as well) including 16th spicatto quintuplets racing by at 210bpm, together with fast legato triplets and every other sort of thing. However, if I were doing this again, I'd probably use Western Digital RE2 drives which are specially designed for use in RAID arrays and have significantly lower power consumption - - and lower operating temperatures - - than the Seagates.(Least expensive source for drives I've found is Newegg.com.)

Hope this is helpful.

I agree with the Newegg citing. Good people, good service, good prices.

Helpful, stevesong. Thanks.

Newwegg's done right by me so far too.

I'm now researching the RE2's. On WD's website, I saw this curiousity: "Your operating system, as well as your hardware, must support the hard drive you choose..." And then, WD SATA Hard Drive Compatability says "no" next to Mac OSX. That can't be so. Either I'm misunderstanding, or this is a very dated document.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/resources/DriveCompatibilityguide.asp

I am currently running external Western Digital SATA drives as backups for my G5 and one WD drive is the startup drive for my G5. I wrote to Western Digital a year ago to tell them that the information on the website was incorrect - - essentially what they are conveying is that Macs once had ATA rather than SATA capability. I pointed out that this misinformation would likely steer quite a number of potential customers away from purchasing WD drives. They said they would update the info on their website, but it seems that the corporate wheel turns slowly. It is true, however, that some Western Digital SATA drives (and some SATA drives of other manufacturers) are not compatible with the native (motherboard) SATA implementation in some G5's. To run these drives inside a G5 you'd need to have a SATA card with internal ports. (To discover which drives are and are not compatible with the G5's internal SATA implementation, you might check out the Other World Computing website.) WD drives are completely compatible with Firmtek and other SATA cards with either internal or external ports. So if you are going to create an external RAID for your samples, there is not going to be a problem. Nor would there, I believe be any problem with using WD drives internally in a new (Intel) Mac Pro.

sATA (and in the near future SAS = serial attached SCSI) as a fairly new standard has still some teething troubles, dpending if your controller and disk are sATA I (1,5 Gb/s) or sATA II (3 Gb/s) and the respective fallback or backward compatibility works or not.
there have been similar problems from pATA 5 (100 Mb/s) to pATA 6 (133 Mb/s)
sATA III is on the horizon (6 Mb/s) and some sATA I devices cannot handle NCQ correctly if applicable, because this became standard not till sATA II

currently device multipliers can be found on some motherboards and controllers (up to 15 sATA devices on a single bus) which does also not work in all configurations - often you need to configure a drive manually (using jumpers or a tool) ... this troubles will pass by within the next year or so ...

WD's responsability seems to be not too quick - i've been 15 minutes on an international line today and finally gave up ... too bad the raptors are really great drives.

you might want to look at the new seagate products too - up to 133 MB/s throughput, around 9 ms latency though ... all using perpendicular recording meanwhile ... the 750 GB seagate drives are pretty usable for VSL libraries

christian

"I pointed out that this misinformation would likely steer quite a number of potential customers away from purchasing WD drives."

I hope it is of some vindication that I so exactly proved your point. From WD, I also followed a link to Apple on this subject that was dated 2002, which in computer years would be the Jurassic Age. Who's minding the store?

Thanks to you and Christian for your timely advice.