RAID 0 or RAID 1 required?

[Don Chin]

I am shopping for a new pc workstation specifically to do Vectorks (esp. 3-D and radiosity) My Dell 2350 is 8 years and creaking along and would appreciate any feedback on the specs I have decided upon.

I do have some questions as to whether certain upgrade features are really necessary for Vectorworks:

1. Is RAID 0 or RAID 1 really beneficial? Are 2 hard drives recommended? I would like to buy a system that is flexible for new developments.

Specs I am planning on:

- Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

- 8 GB DDR2 RAM

- nVidia Quadro 1800 (768 RAM/8 GB) graphics card

Thanks,

Donald

[Ray Libby]

Raid 0 is very fast, writing to two disk simultaneously, striping every other packet of data to the drives, doubling the write and read speed. If you lose one drive all your data is gone, so you need to have a good backup scheme.

Raid 1 offers no speed increase but the same data is written to the two drives, if you lose one drive the data is still on the other drive.

So, raid 1=speed, raid 2=security. There are other flavors of raid involving more hard drives that give you both.

[brudgers]

Raid 0 (striping) just increases your risk of losing data without really benefiting vectorworks (given 8GB of RAM).

Raid 1 (mirroring) can provide some level inexpensive insurance against catostrophic data loss (depending on disk size).

A second non-raid disk can allow easier and faster backups.

I would put a quad core (i7) into the system, there's no point in using Core2. The additional cores allow better multitasking.

Edited September 14, 2009 by brudgers

[IanH]

Careful with RAID. Often RAID uses a proprietary controller. If the controller dies (or in the case of NAS, the enclosure), then you may loose the lot unless you can get a replacement controller of same model and/or manufacturer.

Personally, if you get a disc bottleneck that requires raid to solve performance issues within the scenarios that you are talking about, then you have a more fundamental issue with the configuration of the system - probably memory. Raid will just be a sticking plaster over something much more important to solve.

But, yes, yes, yes, you must have redundancy for data, but it can be a simple additional online or offline drive and a robust (and ideally tested) data backup/disaster recovery plan. I personally use a mix of backup plans using NAS and built in second hard drive on disc plus a mix of file shadowing plus incremental daily backups.

Yes. My NAS is mirrored but I also have a spare redundant NAS enclosure.

[Kool Aid]

I believe the MacOS RAID-functionality does not require such arcane knowledge of Scripture.

[Ray Libby]

I disagree with you on the benefits of Raid 0 and VW. Opening the program is faster, opening files is faster, and saving files is faster. If you backup you won't ever lose data. I've been using Raid 0 for years and would never go back.

[brudgers]

I believe the MacOS RAID-functionality does not require such arcane knowledge of Scripture.

Seeing that the least expensive Mac capable of software RAID is $2699 and the least expensive verion using hardware RAID is $3399, even moblile me begins to look like a bargin.

[Kool Aid]

bargin.

Methinks Master Brugders confuses price with functionality.

[Pat Stanford]

Slightly incorrect:

In order to use a hardware raid you have to have a MacPro tower machine. Cheapest is $2499. Apple RAID hardware card and second hard disk add $900 for the $3399 quoted above.

All Macs can use software RAID. it is built into everything, including the $599 MacMini, but you will have to add an external hard disk to use it.

[IanH]

I disagree with you on the benefits of Raid 0 and VW. Opening the program is faster, opening files is faster, and saving files is faster. If you backup you won't ever lose data. I've been using Raid 0 for years and would never go back.

You have obviously never lost a drive from a RAID set then

There is no way that I would ever use raid 0 for holding critical data even with a backup in place. You are doubling your chance of losing data - its better not to have a failure in the first place than rely on recovering from a backup even if its just to avoid the time needed to rebuild a machine and recover from backups, let alone relying on potential deadline critical access to data of dubious integrity. Yes, raid 5 may be an option, but its certainly not green and quiet.

I too used raid for many years, but never bothered with it when I upgraded. I could not justify the cost/risk for the benefit - an application taking 20 seconds to load rather than 10 is really no issue when I only do this once per day. The speed improvements are insignificant in real world use unless your machine has an inherent performance issue causing excessive disc i/o or the application is i/o bound which the o/p's requirements of VW 3D and radiosity is his main requirement.

If cost is no object, then go raid 5 and still maintain a backup plan in some form. If you want to go raid 0, consider the implications if you get a single hd failure in the raid set and if you go raid 1, realise it is not a backup solution in its own right.

I can guarantee, if you have a render that takes 1 hour to perform, its still going to take one 1 hour whether or not you are running raid - as long as you are not memory bound in which case, there is nothing to stop you running raid 0 (hardware or software) on non critical page file but you would better spend your money on maxing out the memory.

@petri - im not going to argue as its been nearly 20 years since I last programmed a lisa/mac at low enough level to have to consider the internals and a lot has changed since then but if hardware raid was being used via a dedicated controller I would assume (a dangerous thing to do I know) that the mac os would be blissfully unaware of it - raid via a controller makes a raid set appear as a single drive to the os and has to do this before the os starts to load. That said, Apple may well have unified the raid format for all of their controllers so a failed controller may be able to be swapped out for another one. Software raid is a another thing and the OS will be involved and can control the raid format - so its down to hoping that apple don't change the raid format between os versions. Software raid also has the potential to impact on the performance of the machine, so what you gain in disc io speed, you may lose some to availability of cpu cycles on the machine.

However, Donald is upgrading his dell and last time I looked, dell didn't sell Macs so he is probably (he states pc workstation) upgrading to another PC so all the talk of macs is immaterial.

[Kool Aid]

@petri - [yackety yak]

However, Donald is upgrading his dell and last time I looked, dell didn't sell Macs so he is probably (he states pc workstation) upgrading to another PC so all the talk of macs is immaterial.

So, it is immaterial to get reliability? What is material is to remain a devout Windows-adherent? OK.

[brudgers]

Aren't OSX's software raid somewhat limited such as no boot camp from RAID volumes and no support through airport extreme or Time Capsule?

I also recall that a number of Intel based Macs don't support booting from Raid disks, including some Mini's.

I'm curious as to how much advantage one would have by combining an external disk with the internal disk in a software RAID. Though I guess technically it could be a RAID.

I suppose that if you go NAS from a third party you could sport RAID on you Mac Mini.

But then again, you could do that on any machine with a USB port or firewire.

Edited September 14, 2009 by brudgers

[Ray Libby]

I have lost a drive in raid 0. Since I have VW backing up to a separate drive every 10 operations (which I don't notice because it's lightning fast), I lost about 2 minutes of work. That was the only one in 8 years. Hard drives are way to reliable these days to be afraid to go for speed.

[grant_PD]

Used to have a Raid tower. Now I have an 500 gig USB2 self powered backup drive that's barely bigger than a pack of smokes. I never saw any difference in the rendering time writing to one drive or two. I don't think it's worth the money. When looking to speed up rendering times in VW, I would suggest getting good RAM, nice fast single hard drive, good bus speed, and working to make one's file more efficient.

[Ray Libby]

Raid has no impact on rendering. Only reading and writing files.

[IanH]

Raid has no impact on rendering.

Which was Donalds requirement - "Vectorks (esp. 3-D and radiosity)"

[Ray Libby]

Rendering is only part of the requirement. "To do Vectorks" and "3-D" will both be faster.

[Don Chin]

Thanks to everyone for all your input. I kind of expected my question would start a healthy and spirited debate. After digesting your comments and some more research I am leaning toard forgoing RAID and multiple hard drives (for cost reasons) and go in the direction mapped out by Grant.

I am trying to stick to around a $2000 budget (monitor not included) and am leaning toward SYS Technology, a company I read about on CADalyst's web site.

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 processor

- 8 GB DDR2 1066 MHz

- WD Velociraptor 300GB 10K rpm 16MB hard drive

- PNY Quadro FX1800 768MB graphics card.

Thanks again everyone,

Donald

[Ozzie]

Don - look at my signature -$2300.00 AU

[Don Chin]

Ozzie - could you elaborate? Are you recommending the i7-920 processor or the Asus specifically?

[Ozzie]

Don - sorry so long to get back

I was just comparing the prices

i7 is a good processor

my set up includes a 24 inch Benq monitor at $2300.00 AU which today is $2007 US

Research your card against the ASUS

I also have two 1TB hard drives but your 300 GB would be faster

I do not buy brand - I just try to be sure the components are good quality