Sample Library Storage?

[robmanning]

Hello,

I am looking to get the best storage system for my sample libraries (currently 250 GB and growing). By best I mean I am looking for the fastest data transfer rate that I can afford (approx £500 odd).

People have mentioned FW800 external HD, RAID (0 or 1) and external hard drives connected by ethernet.

If someone could check my brain I would really appreciate it.......

As I understand it, FW800 is a cheap and stable option that should be able to deal with most DFD streaming demands but is not the quickest choice. I have been looking at :

http://www.cancomuk.com/products/search.htm?Brand=Formac&category=06&name=formac%20Fire%20wire%20800&code=56422&Formac%20500GB%208Mb%20Cache%20XTR%20Platinum%20Ha rd%20Disk%20Mac/Win%20Firewire%20800

RAID systems seem faster but I am still confused as to whether I should go for RAID 0 or 1, hardware or software RAID's, and which manufacturer or complete system is best and compatible with my Mac.

I have also been recommended the following networked hard drive which I don't really know anything about but an IT friend seems to think it will do the job well.

http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=109_198&products_id=613&osCsid=cd2b0458c5873703639ebf98bc800377

If anybody has any advice I would be very greatful,

Many thanks,

http://northernsounds.com/forum/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Tobias Erichsen]

If you are looking excusively for an external driver, then I would
opt for an e-SATA drive with additional USB-connector.

In this case you have best of both worlds: Highest performance
when using eSata and highest compatibility when you want to
use your drive with computers not equipped with an eSATA-
connector...

Tobias

[mattdean]

If you can get them where you are....Glyph makes a fantastic drive for audio/video with FW400,FW800,eSATA and USB 2.0 connections. (GT 050Q model)It's dead quiet and very reliable. Comes up to 750Gig.

http://www.glyphtech.com

[wst3ae]

I am looking to get the best storage system for my sample libraries (currently 250 GB and growing).
Aren't we all?


People have mentioned FW800 external HD, RAID (0 or 1) and external hard drives connected by ethernet.

five cent version...

these are really two issues, how the data is stored, and how the data gets where you want it.

RAID originally stood for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk, and it is a collection of techniques for using multiple disks to increase speed, reliability, or both.

There are three fundamental technologies at play:

mirroring - RAID 1 - two disks are configured as exact duplicates. If one fails the other one can be used to rebuild the pair.

striping - RAID 0 - two (or more) disks share the work, data is spread across the disks so that many heads and platters are involved in any read or write. The performance improvement is dramatic, but lose one disk and you lose everything! (back in the day of tiny disks, striping was also used to create a virtual large drive, but that really isn't all that necessary these days!)

parity disks - RAID 3, 4, or 5- to help mitigate the lose one, lose it all nature of striping, and because disks were not cheap back then, most RAID arrays used some form of parity disk to optimize performance and cost (or reliabiltiy). In this model data is striped across N disks, and one extra disk is used to keep a checksum that can be used to rebuild if one of the other disks fails.

There are also hybrid schemes that leverage the benefits of mirroring and striping. These started as proprietary solutions, but I believe most have become standards as well. RAID 1+0 or RAID 10 means a stripe of mirrors, and RAID 0+1 means a mirror of stripesets. In the old days there really was a difference<G>!

USB, Firewire, etc, are all ways to connect a computer to the disks, and have nothing to do with whether it is RAID or not.

USB, Firewire, eSATA, and even SCSI and fibre channel are all "Device Attached" connections, aka Device Attached Storage (DAS).

iSCSI and various other ethernet based connections, including simple file sharing approaches, are called Network Attached Storage (NAS).

In general, DAS is faster than NAS, and for samplers that is pretty important! iSCSI is one exception to that rule, it is remarkably fast, but I don't believe it will coexist with other network traffic.

DAS also offers the option of sharing storage, so a single disk array can be shared by multiple machines. This can be very handy!

NAS, especially networked file systems or shares, are not going to be fast enough disk streaming! NAS does allow sharing!

So what does all this mean?

If I had the bucks, I would use DAS for transport, and a mirrored stripeset for physical storage.

Specifically, I'm torn between iSCSI and eSATA - iSCSI is shareable today, eSATA could be, but no one has brought it to market yet.

I have no doubts about the mirrored stripe set!

That's about as brief as I can be... I hope this helps...

Bill

[robmanning]

Thanks for all the help people,

I have spoken to Glyph in Eurpoe and me thinks Im gonna go for the GT 103, sounds like a good fast affordable solution,

Many thanks,

[mattdean]

Don't let a sales person convince you to get the "Q" line of drives. The performance improvement for audio is minimal. It's mostly for video and file transferring. The regular line is perfect for audio.

[alanb]

That's about as brief as I can be... I hope this helps...

It does... :D