RAID5 with onboard controller on AsRock Extreme3 Gen3?

[drewhoo]

I need a RAID solution for photo and video editing. I think the most sensible option is to put 4x2TB WD Caviar Black in a RAID5. I'm primarily concerned about keeping my workflow safe in the event of a disc failure, though I would like a performance increase also. I hear RAID3 is cool, but my motherboard doesn't support RAID3. This is my motherboard

Do I need to buy a separate RAID card or will the motherboard controller suffice? What would the difference be, if any? Am I asking for trouble if I don't have a UPS?

Is there another solution I should consider? For video work, I'm typically using <150GB for any particular project, but I typically have 3 projects at any given time. For photo work, I'm producing ~8GB/week and I keep a comprehensive archive. Everything will be backed up to an offsite NAS.

 

[popatim]

raid5 is not what you want.
You want raid0 and no you do not need a raid card.
You want a two drive raid0 as source drive for you work, this is not for the os just your video/picture files.
you want another two drive raid0 for the destination drive. These can be smaller drives as long as they are just as fast as the source.

This will leave you two sata ports. I would suggest an ssd large enough to hold your os and some programs while the other sata port will hold your optical drive. If you have lots of programs you can make the source raid0 with larger drives but dont install anything there that you will use while your edits are running. For example I use a simular setup, while my edits are rendering I typically browse the web so I install my browser to c: and not onto either raid0. using either raid0 at that time would only slow down the work they are already doing. When done, backup the file and move it off the destination raid0 for final storage which could also be either raid0. Just remember that the more filled they are, the slower they are.

Your video software may also want you to set a scratch disk/location, this can be on the ssd.

 

[drewhoo]

raid5 is not what you want.
You want raid0 and no you do not need a raid card.
You want a two drive raid0 as source drive for you work, this is not for the os just your video/picture files.
you want another two drive raid0 for the destination drive. These can be smaller drives as long as they are just as fast as the source.

This will leave you two sata ports. I would suggest an ssd large enough to hold your os and some programs while the other sata port will hold your optical drive. If you have lots of programs you can make the source raid0 with larger drives but dont install anything there that you will use while your edits are running. For example I use a simular setup, while my edits are rendering I typically browse the web so I install my browser to c: and not onto either raid0. using either raid0 at that time would only slow down the work they are already doing. When done, backup the file and move it off the destination raid0 for final storage which could also be either raid0. Just remember that the more filled they are, the slower they are.

Your video software may also want you to set a scratch disk/location, this can be on the ssd.

Thank you for the board-specific feedback! I like that plan because it isn't terribly expensive and it has a lot of performance, but at the end of the day, I need reliability above all else. I think I will incorporate your advice into my overall plan. Here's what I plan on doing:

1) SSD Boot drive on a Samsung 830 series 120GB

2) 4TB RAID5 that stores all of my photos (I've been a semi professional photographer for the past 5 years and I like having access to a very responsive archive, since they're all RAW files.) I've already ordered a 3ware Internal 9750-8i Controller Card and 5 Toshiba MGO3ACA (1TB enterprise HDDs) for this.

3) 3 or 4 drive RAID0 for performance in Premiere Pro and the like. I'm not sure what discs I want to use here, but I'd prefer to spend around $300, and I imagine I'd want the overall capacity to be 750GB - 1TB. Perhaps you have a recommendation on drives to use? I don't have to get this immediately, so perhaps 2 or 3 250GB SSDs would work well here.

4) Everything will be backed up on an interval to a NAS sitting in someone else's house.