Non-traditional RAID setup - 2 separate external enclosure

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
B

Brian Carrigg

Honorable
Jan 13, 2014
17
0
10,510
Would it be theoretically possible to use 2 external RAID enclosures as part of a RAID array? For example, 2 enclosures with 5 bays each, with those 5 drives striped for maximum speed, and the 2 enclosures mirrored for data security. Or something along those lines. Picture this with 4TB drives.

Enclosure 1 = drive1-drive2-drive3-drive4-drive5 - Drives striped - 20TB
Enclosure 2 = drive6-drive7-drive8-drive9-drive10 - Drives striped 20TB

Enclosure 1 and 2 Mirrored for security.
 
Solution
getochkn
Most NAS boxes offer a bunch of connections. USB, eSata, Ethernet. Get a multi-purpose one and test it out. The biggest thing is the number of drives you want, that will drive what box more than anything.

If speeds not that important, then get some good drives like WD purple or red line which are made for surveilance and NAS boxes. Just basically made for a lot of writing and/or reading. Depends on how often you'll access the info etc.

What do you plan to do?

Record 1 track at a time, or a vocal over a beat/instrumental? Record 64 tracks at once at 192bit 96khz rate? Are you going to record direct to the box or the PC and then copy to the box? Record direct to the box and mix from the box, adding effects, bouncing down...
Sort by date Sort by votes
getochkn

getochkn

Polypheme
Jul 2, 2006
12,407
54
65,040
What is going to control the mirroring for the two arrays? Then you need a 3rd raid-something to manage the mirroring. Would be better to use the 2nd as a backup and just do backups of the first array.

I don't know how fast 5 drives stripped is going to be over any other number.

Raid 0 and 1 are old tech anyways. A RAID 5 array of fast drives would work too.

What are you trying to do. That might help people.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
T

Traciatim

Distinguished
Nov 11, 2006
2,057
0
20,460
Doing it in a RAID is more than likely a terrible idea. It would be far easier and simpler just to set up syncing software to sync one of the drives to the other. Plus in that case if you had to you would have the option of writing something just to one set temporarily or easily changing their purpose, or moving one off site if you needed to in an emergency...

If it's in an external enclosure, there are very few ways to connect to it that would be able to not be saturated by 5 drives in a RAID0 anyway, so you are probably just better off doing each as a RAID5 to protect in the case of a drive failure.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
B

Brian Carrigg

Honorable
Jan 13, 2014
17
0
10,510
I'm looking for a solution for a recording studio that maximizes storage space, drive speed, and maintains data integrity. For long term archival I will be looking into tape storage. My thought was that with a setup like this, there is less chance of data loss than with raid 5, which is worth the cost of extra drives. I am going to use USB 3.0 and will in reality probably only use 2 Bay drives, I just wanted to see what the maximum possible setup could be. If the striping is handled in hardware by the enclosure, couldn't the mirroring be set up in software within windows?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
getochkn

getochkn

Polypheme
Jul 2, 2006
12,407
54
65,040
software raid has a lot of overhead, as does usb 3.0. I think a ethernet based NAS would be faster. Get a gigabit connection. Or eSATA, fibre channel, etc. Lots of more robust options than trying to mirror two boxes over USB. Also figure that if you connected two boxes via USB 3.0, you are cutting your bandwidth down more.

Is it going to be 1 PC in the studio recording to this and that's it, or multiple PC's? Better to take all the load off the PC, which USB recording will add, and leave all it's resources for processing. And hickups will introduce latency and add artifiacts, etc to the recording. I would go a gigabyte network storage, get a PC/motherboard with 2 gigabyte ports. 1 for the network, internet, etc and 1 directly for the NAS.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
B

Brian Carrigg

Honorable
Jan 13, 2014
17
0
10,510
Yes it will be pretty much the only computer in the studio. My audio interface will be pci or firewire most likely, so that won't take any USB bandwidth. Speed is honestly the least important part of this setup. At long as the array is at least as fast as a single disk it will be fine. What kind of nas box would do what I'm looking for?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
getochkn

getochkn

Polypheme
Jul 2, 2006
12,407
54
65,040
Most NAS boxes offer a bunch of connections. USB, eSata, Ethernet. Get a multi-purpose one and test it out. The biggest thing is the number of drives you want, that will drive what box more than anything.

If speeds not that important, then get some good drives like WD purple or red line which are made for surveilance and NAS boxes. Just basically made for a lot of writing and/or reading. Depends on how often you'll access the info etc.

What do you plan to do?

Record 1 track at a time, or a vocal over a beat/instrumental? Record 64 tracks at once at 192bit 96khz rate? Are you going to record direct to the box or the PC and then copy to the box? Record direct to the box and mix from the box, adding effects, bouncing down tracks, etc? Lot different needs of 2 tracks vs 64 being edited.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
B

Brian Carrigg

Honorable
Jan 13, 2014
17
0
10,510
I think probably the best way for me to do this is to have decently fast internal storage for projects that are currently being worked on, and some sort of nas enclosure for longer term storage.

What's the opinion on drobo enclosures? They seem to have a good balance of size and safety without needing as many drives.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom