Best way to store all this video / hard drive set up?

Jeff Brewer · August 1st, 2011, 08:45 AM

Throw in my setup for reference.

4-bay raid system set to Raid 5 for redundancy and striping. All bays loaded with Hitachi 2TB Sata III drives for a total of 6TB in Raid 5 mode. This is where all of my current projects are loaded and hooked up via eSata. This drive pushes about 200MB/s which translates to roughly 30 streams of DSLR video. Way more than I can ever use.

For archive, I use two 2TB drives and copy the archive material to both drives. One drive stays with me and the other goes to a different location for storage.

I recently added a blu-ray burner into the mix and have debated burning my SD cards from the wedding onto Blu-Ray discs. I think I will probably begin doing that, but still debating the cost increase it will bring.

I feel a raid 5 is the best way to go because you maintain the speed needed while allowing for fault tolerance. Don't forget to make sure your drives sit on a UPS unit in case of a power surge or failure.

This is the particular raid unit I use:

Newegg.com - Raidon 4 Bay eSATA, USB 2.0, FireWire External Hard Drive Enclosure With Built-in SATA RAID 5 GR5630-4S-WBS2

But, if I had to buy one today I would choose this one for the Sata 6gb/s ports, USB 3.0, and lower cost:

Newegg.com - Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2FW ProRaid 4 Bay HDD Enclosure - USB 3.0 / eSATA / Firewire

Granted, I run on a PC, so if you are into the latest and greatest for Mac, then the Promise 6bay raid is a killer unit when combined with Thunderbolt. It comes with a hefty price tag, but I have heard it rivals the speed of SSDs.

John Saunders · August 1st, 2011, 10:40 AM

We use a combo of what a lot of people have said. In the field we offload to a raid 1 drive and a regular drive with shotput pro. I keep the data on the cards as long as I can only reformatting right before using them. At the office we work on a internal raid 0 which is backed up nightly to a 6tb raid 5. After the project is finished we copy the deliverables to a raid 1 drive for the client, everything to an external drive for off site storage, leave it on the raid 5 and delete it from the internal raid 0. Once the raid 5 is filled we take out the drives and start a new raid while storing the old ones. I am seriously looking into tape instead of or in addition to the single external drive.

Nigel Barker · August 1st, 2011, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Brewer

I recently added a blu-ray burner into the mix and have debated burning my SD cards from the wedding onto Blu-Ray discs. I think I will probably begin doing that, but still debating the cost increase it will bring.

Don't bother. Aside from the expense there is the time involved plus the generally unreliable nature of optical media (proper WORM drives excluded). You could be looking at several hundred GBs per wedding & multiple Blu-ray discs.

Greg Fiske · August 2nd, 2011, 11:42 AM

When people buy hard drives, are you guys investing in enterprise level drives for any raid over raid 1? Should I listen to the warnings from western digital to not use caviar black (desktop drives) in a raid 5 configuration. Their RE4 drives cost twice as much.

Cost wise it looks like just mirroring your drives cost as much as using a raid 5 setup, just more hassle.

Nigel Barker · August 3rd, 2011, 02:30 AM

The original white paper that coined the acronym RAID referred to a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It was the disk manufacturers who redefined it as Redundant Array of Independent Disks. The idea was to use multiple cheap disks but with redundancy so that if one failed you didn't lose data. The same principles still hold. You will have less failures with server grade disks but your data is just as safe.

Cost wise RAID 1 mirroring is the most expensive as you duplicate your storage. RAID 5 is the cheapest as you typically have four disks plus a parity disk (conceptually at least although the actual layout of data on the physical disks may vary). So with RAID 1 you use eight disks but only five disks with RAID 5 for four disks worth of data.

Jeff Brewer · August 6th, 2011, 08:24 AM

Awesome Raid 5 deal today on Newegg. Just in case anyone is looking.

Newegg.com - Shell Shocker Deal. Exclusive Jaw Dropping Savings on PC Components and Electronics.

Jordan Nash · August 6th, 2011, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Brewer

Awesome Raid 5 deal today on Newegg. Just in case anyone is looking.

Newegg.com - Shell Shocker Deal. Exclusive Jaw Dropping Savings on PC Components and Electronics.

Sold out. :(

Oh well, I'm away from my desktop for a couple of more months anyway, so I guess it wouldn't have done me much good.

Jeff Brewer · August 6th, 2011, 02:22 PM

Whoa that was quick.

August 1st, 2011, 08:45 AM	#16
Jeff Brewer Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 119	Re: Best way to store all this video / hard drive set up? Throw in my setup for reference. 4-bay raid system set to Raid 5 for redundancy and striping. All bays loaded with Hitachi 2TB Sata III drives for a total of 6TB in Raid 5 mode. This is where all of my current projects are loaded and hooked up via eSata. This drive pushes about 200MB/s which translates to roughly 30 streams of DSLR video. Way more than I can ever use. For archive, I use two 2TB drives and copy the archive material to both drives. One drive stays with me and the other goes to a different location for storage. I recently added a blu-ray burner into the mix and have debated burning my SD cards from the wedding onto Blu-Ray discs. I think I will probably begin doing that, but still debating the cost increase it will bring. I feel a raid 5 is the best way to go because you maintain the speed needed while allowing for fault tolerance. Don't forget to make sure your drives sit on a UPS unit in case of a power surge or failure. This is the particular raid unit I use: Newegg.com - Raidon 4 Bay eSATA, USB 2.0, FireWire External Hard Drive Enclosure With Built-in SATA RAID 5 GR5630-4S-WBS2 But, if I had to buy one today I would choose this one for the Sata 6gb/s ports, USB 3.0, and lower cost: Newegg.com - Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2FW ProRaid 4 Bay HDD Enclosure - USB 3.0 / eSATA / Firewire Granted, I run on a PC, so if you are into the latest and greatest for Mac, then the Promise 6bay raid is a killer unit when combined with Thunderbolt. It comes with a hefty price tag, but I have heard it rivals the speed of SSDs. __________________ MediaBrewer Films

August 1st, 2011, 10:40 AM	#17
John Saunders Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Frederick MD Posts: 69	Re: Best way to store all this video / hard drive set up? We use a combo of what a lot of people have said. In the field we offload to a raid 1 drive and a regular drive with shotput pro. I keep the data on the cards as long as I can only reformatting right before using them. At the office we work on a internal raid 0 which is backed up nightly to a 6tb raid 5. After the project is finished we copy the deliverables to a raid 1 drive for the client, everything to an external drive for off site storage, leave it on the raid 5 and delete it from the internal raid 0. Once the raid 5 is filled we take out the drives and start a new raid while storing the old ones. I am seriously looking into tape instead of or in addition to the single external drive. __________________ Connectivity Group LLC www.CGLLCproductions.com

August 2nd, 2011, 11:42 AM	#19
Greg Fiske Major Player Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Santa Ana, CA Posts: 499	Re: Best way to store all this video / hard drive set up? When people buy hard drives, are you guys investing in enterprise level drives for any raid over raid 1? Should I listen to the warnings from western digital to not use caviar black (desktop drives) in a raid 5 configuration. Their RE4 drives cost twice as much. Cost wise it looks like just mirroring your drives cost as much as using a raid 5 setup, just more hassle.

August 3rd, 2011, 02:30 AM	#20
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	Re: Best way to store all this video / hard drive set up? The original white paper that coined the acronym RAID referred to a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It was the disk manufacturers who redefined it as Redundant Array of Independent Disks. The idea was to use multiple cheap disks but with redundancy so that if one failed you didn't lose data. The same principles still hold. You will have less failures with server grade disks but your data is just as safe. Cost wise RAID 1 mirroring is the most expensive as you duplicate your storage. RAID 5 is the cheapest as you typically have four disks plus a parity disk (conceptually at least although the actual layout of data on the physical disks may vary). So with RAID 1 you use eight disks but only five disks with RAID 5 for four disks worth of data.

August 6th, 2011, 08:24 AM	#21
Jeff Brewer Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 119	Re: Best way to store all this video / hard drive set up? Awesome Raid 5 deal today on Newegg. Just in case anyone is looking. Newegg.com - Shell Shocker Deal. Exclusive Jaw Dropping Savings on PC Components and Electronics. __________________ MediaBrewer Films

August 6th, 2011, 02:22 PM	#23
Jeff Brewer Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Greensboro, NC Posts: 119	Re: Best way to store all this video / hard drive set up? Whoa that was quick. __________________ MediaBrewer Films