MediaSonic Raid vs. eBox-R5 Raid vs. ???

[axiomshift]

I've done a fair amount of research into getting a small raid system. And I've come down to these two options. Before I take the plunge, I wanted to ask tom's community of experts.

The two set ups

RJ Tech ProRaid 4 Bay eSATA/Firewire 400/800 USB 3.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure - HFR2-SU3S2FW

USB3.0/eSATA 5x tray-less SATA bay hardware JBoD/RAID0,1,3,5 enclosure - eBOX-R5


This will primarily be used for movie editing 4k files

If anyone has any other recommendations I'm all ears.

Thank you.

 

[axiomshift]

I forgot to mention, that I'll be running a raid 5 with Western Digital RE4 2TB.

And I'm most concerned with the quality of these devices. Are Mediasonic devices known to be stable. Are eBox well made, ect.

Thank you in advance

 

[sk1939]

I know absolutely nothing about either device, although the R5 looks to have more features than the Mediasonic, but is more expensive.

 

[axiomshift]

sk1939, do you know any devices in the same class that you would recommend.

 

[sk1939]

What kind of price range are you looking at?

 

[FireWire2]

I look at HFR2-SU3S2FW.

I won't trust a manufacture/vendor, who calls JBOD as a SPAN/BIG volume. It seems, they do not know about RAID...

JBoD is JUST A BUNCH of DRIVES. It will show all the drives as individual drives, where SPAN or BIG is combine all drives as ONE big drive w/o discriminate drives size.

Beside that, 4x vs x5 drive some time can make or break project. As ANY drives/RAID when fill beyond 80%, transfer rate start decrease.

I have the eBOX-R5 it'd been running over 2years+ without problem, btw i use Hitachi Deskstar 2TB (I may upgrade to 3TB later) less cost .
238MB/s~245MB is W/R speed. It very quiet and HDD never goes over 40 degree, because each HDD has 2x individual fans and sit on a shock/vibration absorb tray

 

[axiomshift]

I look at HFR2-SU3S2FW.

I won't trust a manufacture/vendor, who calls JBOD as a SPAN/BIG volume. It seems, they do not know about RAID...

JBoD is JUST A BUNCH of DRIVES. It will show all the drives as individual drives, where SPAN or BIG is combine all drives as ONE big drive w/o discriminate drives size.

Beside that, 4x vs x5 drive some time can make or break project. As ANY drives/RAID when fill beyond 80%, transfer rate start decrease.

I have the eBOX-R5 it'd been running over 2years+ without problem, btw i use Hitachi Deskstar 2TB (I may upgrade to 3TB later) less cost .
238MB/s~245MB is W/R speed. It very quiet and HDD never goes over 40 degree, because each HDD has 2x individual fans and sit on a shock/vibration absorb tray

Have you been running a RAID5 by chance?

 

[axiomshift]

What kind of price range are you looking at?

$500 would be the upper end for just the encloser

 

[FireWire2]

Yes, that is what I use RAID5 with 5x 2TB Hitachi drive...

I heard the 3TB Hitachi Green ever faster - go figured

 

[axiomshift]

Yes, that is what I use RAID5 with 5x 2TB Hitachi drive...

I heard the 3TB Hitachi Green ever faster - go figured

That's good news. I had ready many a review that said that I must use Western Digital's RE drives if I'm going with RAID 5. And that the others would crap out, breaking my RAID. This sounds like a much more inexpensive solution,

 

[sk1939]

That's good news. I had ready many a review that said that I must use Western Digital's RE drives if I'm going with RAID 5. And that the others would crap out, breaking my RAID. This sounds like a much more inexpensive solution,

Be very careful about generalizations. If you run true RAID5 on hardware with a hardware controller (vs something like ZFS), then if one of your drives times out connecting to your controller, your entire array will go down. This is why the RE4 drives are so critical in that situation. Not so important in software RAID.

As far as enclosures, take a look at the areca ARC-5020.

 

[FireWire2]

" If you run true RAID5 on hardware with a hardware controller (vs something like ZFS), then if one of your drives times out connecting to your controller, your entire array will go down."

Not quite . If the raid level is set as 1/3/5/6 then it will be a degrade raid volume. Just replace a new drive and get a RMA

Here is my 40TB drive server - still serving as of now...
http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22898&page=4

I do not buying the RE theory crap.

My conspiracy theory . HDD manufacture just wants to make more money...

 

[sk1939]

" If you run true RAID5 on hardware with a hardware controller (vs something like ZFS), then if one of your drives times out connecting to your controller, your entire array will go down."

Not quite . If the raid level is set as 1/3/5/6 then it will be a degrade raid volume. Just replace a new drive and get a RMA

Here is my 40TB drive server - still serving as of now...
http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22898&page=4

I do not buying the RE theory crap.

My conspiracy theory . HDD manufacture just wants to make more money...

Degrade, that's what I meant. There is also the possibility that your data will corrupt as well. However, if your using hardware RAID, you have other issues to deal with, such as if your controller dies, you are stuck with that brand of controller as a replacement.


Firewire, what the heck do you do with all that space? I'm sitting on 4.5TB in RAID 1 with much room to spare....

 

[FireWire2]

BD.ISO my friend. It streams to four places... Home Theater Rooms, Master Bedroom, my computer and my Galaxy NOTE

Can't stand the SD LOL

 

[sk1939]

BD.ISO my friend. It streams to fours places... Home Theater Rooms, Master Bedroom, my computer and my Galaxy NOTE

Can't stand the SD LOL

That would do it; most of my ISO's are software (thanks Microsoft for charging extra for physical media via MSDN). Really? I don't notice a whole lot of difference personally, then again the last TV I had was a 19" Sharp CRT made in the early 90's (don't really watch TV all that much).