DIY RAID Advice please.

Hey,

I wonder if I could gently abuse your wealth of expertise and ask for a little help. I'd like to build a software RAID from scratch for as reasonable a price as possible. I'd want to be going for speed with 4 bays in RAID 0, and my OS is OSX.
I know there is a complete lack of affordable thunderbolt enclosures on the market, so I guess it'll be a bit of an impossibility to have that. Is USB 3.0 fast enough in the real world for my needs?
So could someone suggest a shopping list of the components I'd most likely need? I've had a search through the forums here, and whilst there is a wealth of information and I've learnt a lot, I haven't found anything for my specific needs.

Thank you,

Dan

I've reached in conclusion that there isn't any that would do the job. They all are 3Gb/s internally to USB3.0 which hurts the RAID0 aspect. I was hoping to get external RAID0 case but there just isn't anything worth buying.

...but is it possible to build one from scratch though? I'd be happy to build as enclosure if it was giving me what I wanted. Also, I don't think it wouldn't matter if each drive was restricted to 3gb/s btw. As long as their combined effort wasn't being bottlenecked between there and the computer. I think that's right...

http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/ss/raidstripe_2.htm Not sure what changes with newer or older OS versions

If you're using HDD's, you're probably fine with USB 3.0, as the software RAID0 read/write speeds for the array probably won't hit the theoretical max ~625MB/s (of course, this will depend on the drives).

If you're using SSD's for the array, the interface will be your limiting spot.

It would be hard to know for sure without knowing what drives you are considering.

Daninski said:

...but is it possible to build one from scratch though? I'd be happy to build as enclosure if it was giving me what I wanted. Also, I don't think it wouldn't matter if each drive was restricted to 3gb/s btw. As long as their combined effort wasn't being bottlenecked between there and the computer. I think that's right...

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That wouldn't be issue. The issue is that it doesn't go directly to USB3.0. They are all SATA 3Gb/s port multiplier/raid chips. They do not have built in USB3.0 support, thus the 3Gb/s limit (multiple SATA 3Gb/s ports -> RAID chip -> SATA 3Gb/s interface -> USB 3.0 chip). You would end up with ~280MB/s at max.

Build one yourself? Good luck finding board that has chip that supports USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gb/s natively internally. You'd have to use some kind of PC case for HDD's or build one from scratch.

So building one from scratch is a no-go... Ok. Let me consider my options.

How much space do you want ?
What kind of mac do you have ?

Here are some ideas:
- The cheapest Thunderbolt enclosuer that can do daisy chaining is a dual drive LaCie for about $190. $360 + 2x hard drives.
- OWC makes a thunderbolt to pcie chassis. It's $350. Add a raid card to it (something like that $100 IBM one everyone has) for the cost of $450 cost of hard drives.
- Build a cheap PC that has a thunderbolt port. The cheapest board with thunderbolt is the MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt, at $145 (with free ram). Figure about another $130 for other parts ($50 cpu, $40 case, $40 psu) and you're at $305 plus the cost of drives.
- Plug your mac into an ethernet port, then use a networked nas or pc. Forget about thunderbolt altogether. About $350 for a networked NAS. Less for a pc (instead of a $145 motherboard, you could use a $60 one, bringing it down to $245)
- Matrox and Belkin make Thunderbolt docks. They both have USB3. Not sure if there's an additional chip inside that limits it further, or if you can get full on 5gbit speeds on it. The Matrox is $250, and the Belkin is $300.
- Seagate makes the (so far) cheapest thunderbolt "enclosure." It can't daisy chain. it's $100. It's slower than attaching the drive natively. Pair it with a big ssd (like that $500 crucial 1tb drive).
- Take that seagate goflex adaptor, and a sata to esata cable. Then buy a sandigital 4 bay esata enclosure for $150. You won't get amazing performance, but you wouldn't get that with 4 hard drives anyways.
- Take that seagate goflex adaptor and also a sata port multiplier. I have no idea how much a decent port multiplier is.
- Upgrade your existing drive or add on (if you have an imac, mac mini, or macpro) a big ssd. It'll be faster than any thunderbolt hard drive raid you can find, and it's native sata.
- Comedy option: firewire. hahahahaha

Hey BBQ, excellent name there - BBQ is by far the best school of cooking,
I've a imac, the 27" so it's not going to be popper open by me. I need some big read/write speeds with at least a tb. I'm using big big AE files with 50+ layers, and some chunky FCX files. I have thought about SSD but I figured with thunderbolt and 4bays I could mix and match a bit more as funds become available. eventually two SSDs in RAID 0 and two SATAs in RAID 1... I guess if I wait a while I'll be able to get a thunderbolt enclosure without hardware RAID for pretty cheap - but where's the fun in that.
Some interesting options in there, but the speed aspect loses out mostly. I've seen things like this: http://www.amazon.com/DataTale-RS-M4T-Thunderbolt-Storage-Enclosure/dp/B00CC0VRQC But I'd rather have something without the RAID controller to keep the costs down.

The 27" imac is still openable (unless you have the very latest one, and you can remove the optical drive and use that spot for an ssd.

The next best is an option I forgot to mention above, the Pegasus J4. It's a 4 bay 2.5" enclosure that can do raid or individual drives (which you can then use disk utility to make a raid). The only downside is that i can only take 7mm or 9.5mm drives, so the largest hard drive you could fit in is a 1tb hard drive. Which isn't really a benefit over the 1tb SSDs available. This enclosure also supports daisy chaining, and it's the size of a mac mini. Throw in 4x 1tb Crucial M500 ($2000) and this enclosure ($388) and you're in business. 4tb of ssds in raid 0 for $2388.

Short of that, I would say the single big ssd (That $500 crucial 1tb drive) plus the $100 seagate adaptor is the option that gives you the most bang for your buck.

It's the very latest one, unfortunately. Sorry for the late reply - was away on business. Thanks for those suggestions!

Daninski said:

DIY RAID Advice please.

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my advice is "don't" -- if what you need done can't be done by a $650 1TB SSD or a $500 4TB 7200rpm HDD, come back and lets talk again about what you really need done.

We're comping at least 80+ layer comps in AE mostly. The SSD will probably do it over thunderbolt, but I'd want bigger than 1TB. Another option might be a 1TB SSD and a bigger HDD and get them to play like a fusion. I've read it's possible.