8x SSDs Raid 6 vs Raid 10

[adgjk]

Theoretically for a large sample drive (for music software), what would be better? If I were to get 8x 1TB SSDs, should I get an LSI Raid card to deal with Raid 6 or 10 (I like the capacity of raid 6 but have seen that it could come with some cost too? something about calculation times etc?)

 

Or, should I just get a SATA card (similar to a Raid card but without extensive raid functionality) and have an additional 8x SSDs in my computer, then spread my libraries out across these so that when I start a session I'm writing data to the RAM from multiple places. Would this still create data bottlenecks? 

 

Thanks

[Oshino Shinobu]

Definitely not RAID 10. It's insanely wasteful and has a bad minimum fail rate before data loss. That said, RAID 6 is also a bad solution for what you're doing. What you may be thinking of is the rebuild times and initial setup of RAID 6. It can take a while for all of the parity partitions to be created for a rebuild. 

 

Do you really need so much SSD storage? A large (or a couple of) storage HDDs, a large scratch SDD and an effective backup solution sounds much more cost and space effective to me. 

[adgjk]

10 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Do you really need so much SSD storage? A large (or a couple of) storage HDDs, a large scratch SDD and an effective backup solution sounds much more cost and space effective to me. 

Well I'm definitely after silence. This is my recording (and only, for that matter) computer and I don't have the space in my house to have the desktop setup up in a different room and run cables through a wall (similar to Linus in his updated personal rig using thunderbolt). That would be an ideal solution as I could just go all out with multiple noisy HDDs and it wouldn't matter to me, but it can't be done currently... 

 

It's not so much write speeds that I need, so I don't know how effective an SSD cache would be? It's read speeds I'm after. Sure, initially when I set everything up I'll need to write to the drives, but once that's done, things shouldn't really change too much unless I buy new libraries. Currently I have around 2.5-3TB worth of sample libraries. Now, I certainly don't use all of them consistently, but I have used them all for a job at least once, so they're useful to keep for any new jobs, or in the event I need to recall a previous session. 

 

The furthest I can feasibly keep my desktop away from me is about 3-4m (around 10-12ft for those not dealing with metric). That would be under my desk. I will have a couple of HDDs anyway for backups, but the intention is not to have them running during the day whilst I'm working/recording. They'll just be there for the end of the day when I can dump everything onto them, or after something has been saved that I feel needs to be backed up imminently. So they're always plugged in, I'll just have them spin down when not in use. 

 

Does this change your answer at all? Would the cache SSD still work, or not really for read speeds?  

[Mikensan]

Raid10 is useful if you need the performance at the cost of storage. This is normally something you'd want for databases or dedicated to other applications that are heavy on IOPS. **You can increase redundancy by doing a 3-way mirror stripe, but it just further reduces usable storage.

 

Will you be accessing this raid array over the network or locally?

 

Like @Oshino Shinobu says, a better solution is a combination of SSD(s) and mechanical disks. Anything not being actively used/hit can go on the mechanical disk array while anything that needs high performance can go on the SSD array. 

[adgjk]

Just now, Mikensan said:

Will you be accessing this raid array over the network or locally?

 

Like @Oshino Shinobu says, a better solution is a combination of SSD(s) and mechanical disks. Anything not being actively used/hit can go on the mechanical disk array while anything that needs high performance can go on the SSD array. 

This will be local. It might be available to share on a network occasionally just for ease, but primary access will be local through the desktop it's installed in. 

 

So are you not suggesting an SSD cache, or at least an automatic cache? More of a manual cache where I choose what I want on the SSDs at the time and switch stuff myself as and when? If this is the case, I'd still need at least 2TB worth of SSD storage I think, so would you suggest just having 2 drives, or to run them in Raid 0? 

 

Thanks

[Mikensan]

Just how much read speeds do you need? Are you reading 100s of files all at once? Or just 1 file at a time? (To my recent schooling) - new mechanical disks easily hit 140-150mbps read speeds (even write).

 

I can't argue over noise, just that if you have something like a Define R5 with no window, you won't hear the average consumer disk. Disable power saving tech so you don't hear that initial chatter upon spinup.

 

If you're going all out SSDs, I'd just throw them in to FlexRAID or Storage spaces. I wouldn't bother with a hardware raid card (and trust it knows how to deal with SSDs, since the Raid card will need to scrub/trim since most consumer SSDs do not do this natively).

[leadeater]

SSDs are extremely fast, you'll be hard pressed to saturate one with this type of workload. Buy the biggest and best single one you can i.e. 2TB Samsung 850 Pro and then get a 4-5 bay QNAP/Synology NAS to archive completed or infrequently used work.

 

Copying large files to an from a NAS is actually very fast with many disks in it, where they are not so great is in random I/O which would be when you are seeking through the timeline. That is why you use the local large SSD and only keep required files on it.

[Oshino Shinobu]

10 minutes ago, adgjk said:

Well I'm definitely after silence. This is my recording (and only, for that matter) computer and I don't have the space in my house to have the desktop setup up in a different room and run cables through a wall (similar to Linus in his updated personal rig using thunderbolt). That would be an ideal solution as I could just go all out with multiple noisy HDDs and it wouldn't matter to me, but it can't be done currently... 

 

It's not so much write speeds that I need, so I don't know how effective an SSD cache would be? It's read speeds I'm after. Sure, initially when I set everything up I'll need to write to the drives, but once that's done, things shouldn't really change too much unless I buy new libraries. Currently I have around 2.5-3TB worth of sample libraries. Now, I certainly don't use all of them consistently, but I have used them all for a job at least once, so they're useful to keep for any new jobs, or in the event I need to recall a previous session. 

 

The furthest I can feasibly keep my desktop away from me is about 3-4m (around 10-12ft for those not dealing with metric). That would be under my desk. I will have a couple of HDDs anyway for backups, but the intention is not to have them running during the day whilst I'm working/recording. They'll just be there for the end of the day when I can dump everything onto them, or after something has been saved that I feel needs to be backed up imminently. So they're always plugged in, I'll just have them spin down when not in use. 

 

Does this change your answer at all? Would the cache SSD still work, or not really for read speeds?  

I was suggesting a scratch SSD, not SSD cache. Basically, you load everything that needs to be fast and frequently accessed onto the SSD and work from that. Once you're done, you move the data off the scratch disk and load up the next project. It's an effective way of maintaining the speed when working but not requiring a huge amount of SSD space. 

 

4 minutes ago, adgjk said:

This will be local. It might be available to share on a network occasionally just for ease, but primary access will be local through the desktop it's installed in. 

 

So are you not suggesting an SSD cache, or at least an automatic cache? More of a manual cache where I choose what I want on the SSDs at the time and switch stuff myself as and when? If this is the case, I'd still need at least 2TB worth of SSD storage I think, so would you suggest just having 2 drives, or to run them in Raid 0? 

 

Thanks

Wouldn't really advise RAID 0 in any situation. If you needed them to appear as a single volume, JBOD would do. 

 

I would suggest maybe 2-3TB of SSD storage and keep everything else on a NAS somewhere else. Connect to the NAS via hardwire and moving stuff won't take too long. It also allows you to have an automated backup system running on the NAS. 

 

EDIT: You can actually get 2TB SSDs now (and 4TB, but they're expensive). Mushkin have one for $520 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CO6FYPI/?tag=pcpapi-20

[Mikensan]

I like @leadeater suggestion. Money you save from buying only 1-2 SSDs instead of 8 could be spent on a small NAS device filled with a few big boy drives.

[adgjk]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

SSDs are extremely fast, you'll be hard pressed to saturate one with this type of workload. Buy the biggest and best single one you can i.e. 2TB Samsung 850 Pro and the get a 4-5 bay QNAP/Synology NAS to archive completed or infrequently used work.

 

2 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I would suggest maybe 2-3TB of SSD storage and keep everything else on a NAS somewhere else. Connect to the NAS via hardwire and moving stuff won't take too long. It also allows you to have an automated backup system running on the NAS. 

 

2 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

I like @leadeater suggestion. Money you save from buying only 1-2 SSDs instead of 8 could be spent on a small NAS device filled with a few big boy drives.

Well, this seems to be the general consensus, thanks guys! 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, adgjk said:

 

 

Well, this seems to be the general consensus, thanks guys! 

No problem. It's a solution that scales well and prevents you from spending a huge amount of money for SSDs.