drive configurations

offcenter2005

offcenter2005

New member
I have bought all the parts for my new daw and went with the asus p8z68 v pro gen 3 mobo. I will be using 1 crucial m4 128 gig ssd with two 1tb wd caviar blacks 6/gbs 64 mb cache What would be the best configuration for this setup? Ill be using the ssd for os and programs but im still not sure about raiding the others or what the full benefit is. I also heard that there is some king of a problem with raiding on that mobo. Any help would be great, thanks in advance.
 
I hope i explained this well enough. I just need to know if anyone has experience using a ssd and 2 hdds with the asus p8z68 v pro gen three. Thanks again
 
You could put the other 2 drives in a RAID 1 config, which means one mirrors the other. Basically, a simple backup drive. It depends if you really care all that much about having a backup. I have a 3 drive setup too. OS+programmes, Audio work+plugins and my third drive is full of my music collection. Also have a 4th, smaller drive that is in my hotswap bay, but haven't found much use for it yet. =P Still have space for another 2 main drives. Next one will probably be a backup of my OS drive, then add another for more music collection, as that one I have now is almost full.=P
 
In one case, the second drive simply mirrors, or backs up the other. The data automatically goes to both places in case something happens to the first drive. In another configuration, the data is split between multiple drives, to decrease the access time to retrieve it. There are other setups, but I can't remember them all. It's been too long since I had to do any of that stuff.

BTW, to the OP, I would think you'd want your music, as it's being recorded, to go to the ssd, then stored on one of the others. I could be wrong, though.
 
notCardio said:
In one case, the second drive simply mirrors, or backs up the other. The data automatically goes to both places in case something happens to the first drive. In another configuration, the data is split between multiple drives, to decrease the access time to retrieve it. There are other setups, but I can't remember them all. It's been too long since I had to do any of that stuff.

BTW, to the OP, I would think you'd want your music, as it's being recorded, to go to the ssd, then stored on one of the others. I could be wrong, though.
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From what ive been seeing the ssds are more suited for reading and fast accessing and not for write transfer. I could be wrong but everyone that i have been asking these questions to say that the wd caviar blacks are more than capable of handling the write process. From my understanding that is why ssds are used for os and applications so boot and load times are very fast and mechanical drives are fast at writing. I might be wrong but if anyone else could chime in that would be great.
 
offcenter2005 said:
From what ive been seeing the ssds are more suited for reading and fast accessing and not for write transfer. I could be wrong but everyone that i have been asking these questions to say that the wd caviar blacks are more than capable of handling the write process. From my understanding that is why ssds are used for os and applications so boot and load times are very fast and mechanical drives are fast at writing. I might be wrong but if anyone else could chime in that would be great.
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Pretty much correct. Though you don't need an SSD at all. If you really want your computer to boot in 7 seconds, instead of 27, it might be worth the money to you. =P But a 7200 rpm spinning drive will do you just fine too. Especially the Caviar Blacks. Along with Barracudas and Spinpoints, those 3 make up some of the best drives at the moment. More than capable of running everything you need them too.

As for RAID, as mentioned, it can be for backup, performance, or a mix of both. Really depends how you use it. RAID 0 is striped, which means it splits the info between 2 or more drives, so that it can load them faster, but if one drive goes, both drives have basically lost the info. RAID 1 is mirror, which is just as it says, an exact backup. This is good in case one of your drives goes down, so you still have the info you need, but at the cost of writing speeds, as it's essentially writing the data twice. RAID 5 is a good mix of both, you get the drive with the main info, striping to 2 or more other drives. Raid 10 [1+0], or 0+1 is both 1 and 0 together, so you can have 2 striped drives backing up into 2 other drives [which would be copies of striped drives], or 2 mirrored drived being striped to 2 other drives. This is one of the best for great backup [as you can lose any 2 drives and still have all your data], but also one of the most expensive setups. For gaming, I'd definitely say use an SSD main drive and 2 striped drives for data and the performance boost, but for audio, I'd probably go for a RAID 5 as best bet, but you need a 3 drive minimum, or just a basic RAID 1. Simple backup and only 2 drives needed, but a little performance loss when it comes to writing.
 
somegeezer said:
Pretty much correct. Though you don't need an SSD at all. If you really want your computer to boot in 7 seconds, instead of 27, it might be worth the money to you. =P But a 7200 rpm spinning drive will do you just fine too. Especially the Caviar Blacks. Along with Barracudas and Spinpoints, those 3 make up some of the best drives at the moment. More than capable of running everything you need them too.

As for RAID, as mentioned, it can be for backup, performance, or a mix of both. Really depends how you use it. RAID 0 is striped, which means it splits the info between 2 or more drives, so that it can load them faster, but if one drive goes, both drives have basically lost the info. RAID 1 is mirror, which is just as it says, an exact backup. This is good in case one of your drives goes down, so you still have the info you need, but at the cost of writing speeds, as it's essentially writing the data twice. RAID 5 is a good mix of both, you get the drive with the main info, striping to 2 or more other drives. Raid 10 [1+0], or 0+1 is both 1 and 0 together, so you can have 2 striped drives backing up into 2 other drives [which would be copies of striped drives], or 2 mirrored drived being striped to 2 other drives. This is one of the best for great backup [as you can lose any 2 drives and still have all your data], but also one of the most expensive setups. For gaming, I'd definitely say use an SSD main drive and 2 striped drives for data and the performance boost, but for audio, I'd probably go for a RAID 5 as best bet, but you need a 3 drive minimum, or just a basic RAID 1. Simple backup and only 2 drives needed, but a little performance loss when it comes to writing.
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The reason I went with a ssd for os and programs is because in some projects i will open and vstis and plugins often. Load time on certain virtual instruments take a while so i figured this will speed up my work flow. Also they are supposed to be very reliable since they have no moving parts and last a very long time. The two 1tb caviar blacks i bought are supposed to be top rated for mechanical drives and have a 5 year warranty for replacement. That is a great warranty. Ill be doing backups regularly on an external for my project files just in case. I think at some point ill buy another storage drive because the case i bought has a swappable esata bay on top that i could use to frequently backup my system. I have also heard that raiding your hard drives for striping is not really necessary because todays 7200rpm really don't need the performance boost.
 
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offcenter2005 said:
The reason I went with a ssd for os and programs is because in some projects i will open and vstis and plugins often. Load time on certain virtual instruments take a while so i figured this will speed up my work flow. Also they are supposed to be very reliable since they have no moving parts and last a very long time. The two 1tb caviar blacks i bought are supposed to be top rated for mechanical drives and have a 5 year warranty for replacement. That is a great warranty. Ill be doing backups regularly on an external for my project files just in case. I think at some point ill buy another storage drive because the case i bought has a swappable esata bay on top that i could use to frequently backup my system. I have also heard that raiding your hard drives for striping is not really necessary because todays 7200rpm really don't need the performance boost.
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Your virtual instruments and effects would really do better on a separate drive to your programmes and OS anyways. So it could be good to have VSTis and such in the SSD if you want that extra performance from them, but have your OS/programme drive as one of the HDDs. I'm not sure what real advantage that could give you though, as your RAM and CPU are going to play the biggest role when it comes to the plugins. So just having them on one of the spinning drives is more than enough for them. I'd say 8GB of RAM is a good place to be, 16GB is also pretty cheap now though, so it could be worth that doubling. With that motherboard, there's a good range of CPUs to choose from too. I find my first gen i5 to be plenty more than I need as of yet.

EDIT: and yes, striping is not necessary. I'm a big gamer myself, and being as striping is mainly used in high performance machines like that, I've never needed a use for it. My hard drives are awesome enough doing the work solo. =P I'm sure the Caviar Blacks would be too. So i definitely see no need for it in audio either.

Also, as you mention you already have an external drive too, which you already plan to use for backups, RAID seems almost pointless. Just use both the extra drives for storage. I'm sure you'll find you use it up pretty fast.
 
Well, I would think the point of Raid 1 would be that your data is backed up as you go, so that if drive A takes a dump before you've had a change to back things up to drive B, your not SOL for perhaps a day's worth of work. As you said, though, you'd pay a performance price for that. I guess it depends on what your needs really are, and what your work methodology is. If you're doing a lot of live band studio stuff, you don't want to always be stopping to do backups.
 
notCardio said:
Well, I would think the point of Raid 1 would be that your data is backed up as you go, so that if drive A takes a dump before you've had a change to back things up to drive B, your not SOL for perhaps a day's worth of work. As you said, though, you'd pay a performance price for that. I guess it depends on what your needs really are, and what your work methodology is. If you're doing a lot of live band studio stuff, you don't want to always be stopping to do backups.
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That's why I mention RAID 5. It's a good mix of both. RAID 10 is really the best to go for here, but at a greater cost. 5 is just a good compromise.
 
First let me say that I pretty much 100% agree with everything Somegezzer said.

But you might want to consider another configuration - Put your second WD drive in an external case and connect via USB or ESATA. Use your internal WD drive for data, and back all data up to the external. Don't make the mistake of not having a backup solution - anything worth saving is worth backing up, drives DO fail. I have similarlr config (except my boot drive is another standard hard drive) and I find it very handy to be able to move the external drive around when I want, to record elsewhere or travel with it. Each drive has the same data so each backs up the other.
 
RWhite said:
First let me say that I pretty much 100% agree with everything Somegezzer said.

But you might want to consider another configuration - Put your second WD drive in an external case and connect via USB or ESATA. Use your internal WD drive for data, and back all data up to the external. Don't make the mistake of not having a backup solution - anything worth saving is worth backing up, drives DO fail. I have similarlr config (except my boot drive is another standard hard drive) and I find it very handy to be able to move the external drive around when I want, to record elsewhere or travel with it. Each drive has the same data so each backs up the other.
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I'd say the SSD would make a much better portable than a spinning drive, just because moving pricise mechanical things around can often damage them fairly easily. I, myself use a 32GB USB flash drive for portability. So I do like your idea about having a portable drive. If the OP does a lot of moving around, it could be a valuable asset.
 
I will be purchasing another wd 2tb hdd for backups. My case has a swappable drive bay on the top so that would be perfect for a backup solution. Could i only raid that to mirror my main projects drive in the event the internal one goes south?
 
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