Guy.
RAIDing drives is the way to make more than one drive appear as a single drive. These drive groupings can also be made into smaller partitions called volumes.
It is done with software in just a few clicks. There is software already resident on your G5 that will allow you to do this. There is also another product for Mac called softRAID that is a bit more elegant. Also, chances are that whatever hardware solution that you purchase will have their own RAID software and should come with detailed instructions on how to do this.
RAID level 0 is when you stripe two or more drives and use them as one larger, and ususally faster drive. The only problem with this configuration is that if (or probably when) there is a failure of one of the drives you most likely lose all the information on the drive set.
RAID level 01 occurs when you stripe two or more drives to act as one and simultaneously mirror (duplicate) their activity with an exact hardware copy of the first set of drives. In other words, if you use two hard drives for your first drive set (which need to be entirely identical hardware) you need two more entirely identical hard drives for your mirror set and they will become clones of whatever is on your first set of drives. In the event of catastrophic failure of your first drive set you will probably have to relink your VSL and VI instruments to the data on the mirrored drive set.
For your purposes, I would not spend anytime trying to wrap your brain around the other RAID types. For safey you might want to find a local Mac technician when your drives arrive to help you install the SATA PCI card and create the RAID striping.
However, since cm has pretty much confirmed that VI will sit comfortably on one 500GB drive - you don't necessarily need a RAID configuration. This will simplify your life and be easier on the pocket book.You still might want to get two drives simply to make a backup clone of your VI samples.
Always remember to have your drives no more that 85% filled with data - individual or RAIDed.
Best regards,
Jack
RAIDing drives is the way to make more than one drive appear as a single drive. These drive groupings can also be made into smaller partitions called volumes.
It is done with software in just a few clicks. There is software already resident on your G5 that will allow you to do this. There is also another product for Mac called softRAID that is a bit more elegant. Also, chances are that whatever hardware solution that you purchase will have their own RAID software and should come with detailed instructions on how to do this.
RAID level 0 is when you stripe two or more drives and use them as one larger, and ususally faster drive. The only problem with this configuration is that if (or probably when) there is a failure of one of the drives you most likely lose all the information on the drive set.
RAID level 01 occurs when you stripe two or more drives to act as one and simultaneously mirror (duplicate) their activity with an exact hardware copy of the first set of drives. In other words, if you use two hard drives for your first drive set (which need to be entirely identical hardware) you need two more entirely identical hard drives for your mirror set and they will become clones of whatever is on your first set of drives. In the event of catastrophic failure of your first drive set you will probably have to relink your VSL and VI instruments to the data on the mirrored drive set.
For your purposes, I would not spend anytime trying to wrap your brain around the other RAID types. For safey you might want to find a local Mac technician when your drives arrive to help you install the SATA PCI card and create the RAID striping.
However, since cm has pretty much confirmed that VI will sit comfortably on one 500GB drive - you don't necessarily need a RAID configuration. This will simplify your life and be easier on the pocket book.You still might want to get two drives simply to make a backup clone of your VI samples.
Always remember to have your drives no more that 85% filled with data - individual or RAIDed.
Best regards,
Jack