How to set up 3HD and 2 SSD?

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tomer_123

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Hi, I am a video editor with a 4k camera so I have large and difficult files to process.
I currently have a ssd for the system and programs, a 1.5HD for Data and another spare ssd from a different brand that I use for temp date like exports.

I just bought now 3 3TB HD thinking I should do a rade05 but then read here that it has a slow write speed? is that true? slow compared to what?
What should I use the extra ssd for? I thought to separate system and programs, will that make anything any faster?
 
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RealBeast

RealBeast

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Yup, OS on one SSD, one SSD for your scratch drive, and the three HDDs for your storage -- RAID 5 is fine for writes if the drives are fast, particularly if you have a good controller (a real RAID controller not a motherboard RAID controller).

OS and programs on different drives will not matter at all.
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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1) It is RAID not Rade lol 2) Unless you have a proper and expensive RAID controller then yes RAID 5 can be a bit slow. You might be better off bying another 3Tb and doing a RAID 10 which is a lot less overhead and you don't need an expensive RAID card to have the speeds stay fast so long as your PC supports RAID 10 built in.

So need some info. All your PC specs.
 
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tomer_123

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What do you mean by a scratch drive?

I use Windows 7
4770K 3.5GHz
Z87X-UD4H-CF
2X8GB ram - Corsair 1600 c11
Geforce GTX 760 2GB
The HD's I bought: Seagate 3TB Barracuda
The HD I have: 1.5 WD caviar Black
The ssd Samsung 840 (I think) 128GB for the system
The spare ssd corsair M4 128GB
what else do you need?
btw, I also have another ssd like the Samsung with a working Mac OS (hackintosh) on it. (I don't have any additional internal drives for it)


 
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drtweak

drtweak

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So your motherboard will support RAID 0 1 5 and 10 out of the box. RAID 5 though since it isn't a real RAID card will be a little slow BUT it will NOT hurt to build the RAID 5 and test it. If it is slow I would just buy another 3Tb and make a RAID 10 (You will only have Half the hard drive space though but it will be the same amount of space as a RAID 5 that you get to use).

Also Scratch drive is the temp folder or dive when you edit videos. A buddy of mine has a Mac with 64Gb or ram and he makes a RAM drive (Where you use some of the ram and make a temp hard drive) and uses that as a scratch drive where all this temp files go to. This spends up the process a lot especially since he uses 2.5 and 4k video as well. Using a seperate drive just for that like the SSD could be a good choice and will speed up your rendering process as well.
 
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tomer_123

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Thanks a lot for your help.

Since it seems I will anyway end up buying something. What would provide better preference, and what is cheaper? An extra HD or a RAID controler.

How do I set up the extra ssd as a scratch disk? I separately have to set in every program the cash/temp files there or is it a windows feature?

Last question, if I set up a RAID 5 now, will I have to format and delete all files in order to upgrade to a RAID 10?
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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lol an Extra HD would be cheaper. Like 110 bucks or so VS like 150+ for a proper Controller. You can find some older used ones online but most of them might only support 2TB max and you have to get speical breakout cables.

Just plug in the SSD, format it, give it a driver letter, go into whatever program you use to edit video, and look up how to change the scratch disk location. Then just change it to the SSD you put in.

And yes anytimes you break a RAID, change a RAID, or even add another hard drive to an existing RAID you have to delete the RAID, erasing all your files, and then rebuild it.

I would make the RAID 5 first, Then download Crystal Disk Info and bench mark it. Then maybe copy a big 1GB + file from the SSD to the RAID 5. See how it runs. If you get 200MB or faster on the read and write I would say you are ok as you won't get a whole lot faster with a RAID 10 but i doubt you will get that fast with the RAID 5 though but you never know. There is a lot of CPU over head with RAID 5. The reason why a Real RAID card (And you would have to get one with a BBU (Battery backup Unit) to really get the max speed because what it does it write the files to the Cashe first and then to the hard drive so it seems like it is writting but it isn't quite to the hard drive yet. That is how you get fast read and write speeds out of a RAID 5 and a proper RAID card. if you get a RAID card that doesn't have a BBU it will still be better but not great.
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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RealBeast

RealBeast

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You set up the scratch drive in the specific video or audio (etc) program. For example in Adobe programs you set the scratch disks under edit, preferences, performance.

 
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