Hey guys,

I have a G-Technology GRAID 8To Thunderbolt I bought a few years ago. It's a RAID 0 inside with 2X4To
and I wish I could replace them with 2X 8TO. I also need to buy a 10 or 12To and a 4TO SSD.
I know it's a lot but what model would you recommend for each of them ? Seagate pro or Western gold, red or red pro ... there are so many I can't choose !
Thanks

PS: before removing the 2 drives from G-RAID case, do I need to backup data ? I heard if I split them data will be lost as they are in RAID0 ...

 

. For a single hard disk in desktop the fastest is the Seagate BarraCuda Pro (from 2 up to 14TB), recommended, it comes with 5 yrs warranty and 2 years of free data recovery if something bad happens.
. For nas/das external raid case like your GRAID, you need WD Red, Red Pro or Seagate Ironwolf, Ironwolf Pro. These disks are designed for raid. You will hear some guy saying you can also buy the WD purple and blah. Nope. I don't mention WD purple because it is designed for video storage, Red is designed for file sharing. Also, WD Gold is aimed towards the data center server segment and i 'm pretty sure you 've no real use for it.
. Moving on, Raid 0, also known as "Striping", is a partition where 2 or more drives are "joined together" as one. For this to work properly you need at least 2 identical drives and best be those drives are suited/designed for raid usage. This raid mode is used for performance because you may see only one partition/logical drive but the OS writes data simultaneously on both drives so operations are sped up. There is no backup in raid 0 whatsoever. If you remove/split the drives your data will be lost! If one drive goes bad, again all data will be lost. So yes, you need to back up the Raid0 partition first and then remove the drives.
. SSDs due to much different architecture than hdds are much more flexible and faster but still very expensive when it comes to high capacity needs. For a 4tb Sata SSD the best that won't break the bank entirely would be the Samsung 860 EVO 4tb, costs around 560-570 dlrs.
In the pci-e SSD category there is a very interesting buy in Newegg, the Intel DC P4500 4tb costing 440 dlrs, it looks like a 2.5" drive but it's pci-e alright, this format is called U.2. Now if your motherboard has a NVMe M.2 slot, you can use this drive with a cheap adapter (25-30 dlrs) from u2 to m2. Some mobos have a U.2 slot or two but rarely in the desktop market. Even with the added cost of the adapter, the Intel drive is a better bargain as it intended to be used for intensive read scenarios, comes with 5 yrs warranty vs 3 yrs of the Samsung EVO and is much faster since it is a pci-e drive.
Cheers

 

Last edited: Oct 27, 2019

14GB on a desktop. Man, progress never changes, the best I can do on my Thinkpad 365XD is 820MB which is super noisy.
14GB...can you actually format that with FAT16?

 

go for seagate external brother ,i have 9 of them
the days of western digital are over for me (they come second best after seagate though as i rate these 2
but western gave me trouble few times opening the content even with usb connected to pc
which is the reason i switched to seagate externals and no issues here so far

anything else might be ok to try but not recommended

 

Thank you very much for your help ! it's very useful ... I'll go for 10 To barracuda Pro for single drive to backup my G-RAID first. But are Seagate really less good for RAID 0 than WD Red/Red pro ? SSD are very expensive in 4To, I was wondering about the 860 QVO which is cheaper than EVO. I can't put any pci-e in my 2013 macpro, do I ?

 

Ahahaha
Yes you are right, i write too fast and i didn't notice i was mentioning gb instead of tb. It's corrected now. Btw, i recently built a computer for light 3D Cad & rendering, those Ironwolf Pro drives are the best performers i have seen for raid/nas use, although somewhat expensive for mechanical drives.

 

What are your thoughts about cheap SSD in a NAS like Samsung 860 QVO as Raid 1 or 5 or even a JBOD?
Isn't it that for Kontakt libs there is not very much change in the files so that SSDs may live far longer (almost forever given 1400 TB TBW) that they would as a system drive (I won't recommend those cheap SSDs for)

 

Last edited: Oct 27, 2019

Yes. Too bad Ironwolf is 3.5" only. There's no suitable replacement for my 1tb 2.5" WD Red and the one I have is serving overtime (purchased Aug-2014)

 

- Seagate Ironwolf Pro vs the WD Red Pro wins in speed. There is always a catch of course, so in reliability, they have a higher overall failure rate. Hence, Seagate give 2 years of data rescue with their Pro drives for free.
- The fastest drives for raid use will always be the data center ones, intended for database 24/7 usage, so typically WD Gold and Seagate Exos are the fastest performers but they are very expensive for what you get and most likely you won't be able to fully leverage their potential as the latter is materialized when those drives are in large quantity raid arrays.
- 2013 Macpro ? The cylinder (trash can lol) ? If so, it has a pci-e slot for NVMe SSD but it uses it for the main system drive and yes it is upgradable with something like the Intel drive i mentioned in my previous post, that is if you find a way to fit it somewhere in the case lol. If i recall correctly, the macpro cylinder is one of the first machines to incorporate a pci-e x4 NVMe SSD slot so it fits the case for any M.2 nvme ssd. Just check that your mac's nvme slot is a normal m2 and not some proprietary one. Btw, as have mentioned in the past, good SSDs can handle easily about 10 times the tasks even the best hard disk can. For this reason you can upgrade to a large m2 ssd and have both system and libraries on it with no apparent toll in performance, that is always if the drive is a top notch one.
- The QVO drive is Samsung's answer to everyone else's budget drives, Q stands for quad cell and these SSDs are suitable only for long term storage, so, if it's instrument & sample libraries you want to store on it, a qvo will be just fine. But if it's write intensive workloads you want to use it for like recordings, projects that keep changing etc., performance can be from mediocre to abysmal, meaning that speed can fall in lower than hdd levels with those quad cell ssds. If possible, i'd stay away from these drives, even if they are ~10% cheaper than the EVOs, they are very specific in the way they handle data and quad cell ssd endurance is the lowest on the market as well. The difference in price just isn't worth it imho.
Hope this clarifies a few thingies.
Cheers
PS: If indeed you have the cylinder mac, the best seller and top performer desktop option in nvme m.2 ssds is the Samsung 970 series, in particular the Evo, Evo Plus and Pro. These though come up to 2tb capacity, so always check your needs first.

 

Hi mate
As mentioned, the QVO will be ok for long term storage like Kontakt libs. I haven't tested any QVOs in raid, though technically something like a raid 5 array with 3 drives (1 drive used for parity) would seem ideal on paper and hitting about 800-900mb/sec in sequential read.
For me it depends what kind of comp you want to use the drives with.
For instance, desktop comps are more expandable and give more options to create internal arrays and external storage may only be needed for backup. I figure for most Kontakt pro users (or enthusiasts), 8 tb is enough to hold their mostly used libraries. So late last year, i had this client who does crazy huge orchestral scores, so i implemented a nvme raid 0 with 4 dirt cheap Intel 660p drives (these are quad cell) using a HighPoint SSD7100 series nvme raid controller. This card costs about the same as a typical midrange raid card (about 370 dlrs in amazon) but uses 16 pci-e lanes so if you run a gpu and this on a typical desktop board you will run out of pci lanes. We went for Intel x299 because he wanted a TB interface too and the outcome was impressive. The build for the 8 tb raid array alone cost about 1200 euros, raid card + 4 x2tb nvme drives. Now this babe hits ~7gb/sec with no sweat. And it's all the size of an internal GPU. Why do i mention this? Because if i was to implement the same in a typical 4 drive external NAS with SATA quad cell drives (like the QVOs) i would pay the same money for the drives, more for the NAS because it has to be a TB3 NAS, and in the end i would get about 1/4 or less the performance.
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/CS-product_nvme.htm
Since last year though, a lot have changed, with most noticeable being the advent of pci-e 4.0 found on all new AMD powered chipsets like the x570. It is also implemented in AMD's server line where it shines hitting crazy figures for storage breaking one record after the other.
So, i am eagerly awaiting the launch of Threadripper 3 coming shortly in about a week's time, where the boards on this enthusiast HEDT platform will have enough pci-e lanes to hold multiple nvme arrays on pci-e 4. For storage geeks it is a game changer hehehe.
Cheers

 

X2 Seagate. Worked like a charm for me for kontakt libraries.

 

where to order hdd's for best package..i had to send 2 hdd back to amazon cause defect cause loose flying around package

 

This happens a lot when you buy bulk HDDs. Buying a boxed hdd is a bit more expensive, but the boxes prevent most shock damage. I 've had many bulk disks being DOA but never boxed ones. With that said, i have purchased much fewer boxed ones as well.
Cheers

 

hhmm
ok

 

I'd like to clarify a couple of thingies i forgot to mention. In general, people consider that cheaper SSDs (triple cell/quad cell) can be less worn out if we store some data on them, like ie. Kontakt libraries and leave it there from here to oblivion. So the ssd will only be called to do a read job which is the area where most ssds excel. While theoretically this may sound like a legit claim, in practice it really isn't.
As i see it, this whole idea is basically derived from 2 facts:
1) Even the very best NAND flash memory (which is what typical ssds are made of) has a limited write/erase cycle.
2) Those who already have some ssd in their systems, already know that all ssds come with some sort of software which may either automatically or manually check, report errors (and average ssd "life" left) and in many cases perform fixes on the ssd's blocks by imposing what we call "wear leveling". (In this, i should also note that apart from the NAND type, the SSD controller is also very important, as it is the part of the ssd which performs these tasks.)
Therefore it's logical for one to think that if you write some data on an ssd and leave it there, it will be safe for many years, since you also have the additional soft to check and fix some blocks on the drive too.
Well, nope, not really. And here's why :
If data is never re-written, retention becomes a negative issue because wear-leveling often can NOT be carried out on static data, especially on cheap ssds. This may also lead to software reporting a false 100% healthy drive and after sometime the drive goes totally bad all of a sudden and users are left frustrated with no explanation of how this happened.
Only the ssds with high quality controllers (like a Samsung 970 Pro or an Intel Optane 905p) feature algorithms sophisticated enough, to wear-level static data on blocks that have more usage, thus prolonging the drive's lifetime.
So, if you plan to put those libs on them cheapo ssd drive(s), i suggest a periodical maintenance (every 2-3 months or so), that is erase and re-write the drive(s) from your backup in order to help wear-leveling your ssds. What's more, if your data is critical you should be only looking for SSDs incorporating top quality controllers.
Fan fact: I see most of my friends and pc clients get crazy about their m.2 ssds putting all sorts of heat spreaders,absorbers, coolers on them to prevent those really fast nvme drives from throttling due to overheating. While this may indeed be a case scenario, the fact is if your pc is well ventilated with enough airflow, there is no real need for these. NAND flash actually runs better when warm, electrons like their heat alright :D
Cheers

 

Last edited: Oct 28, 2019

Since i made this a double post by mistake, i will take the opportunity and try to clarify what is actually hard drive speed and how do we conceive it.
Too many times we see hdd metrics like 150mb/sec or in the case of an ssd like a Samsung 970 Pro, it's 3500mb/sec in sequential read. While this is true to actual numbers, we rarely conceive this, especially if the drive is used as a system drive, containing your os and softies. What we can easily comprehend though, is disk latency. That is why for instance, people who migrate from an hdd system drive to a good ssd for the first time, think their whole system is upgraded. Because even a cheap ssd has about 1/10 the latency of a typical hhd which makes computing feel much snappier.
In real world and the everyday computer life, there is only one important metric to check and this is NOT the top maximum sequential read/write speed of a drive (it is nevertheless important too but not crucial in most cases). The most crucial is what we call the "Random 4k read/write" task, where every drive, even the very best ones struggle to perform, and this simply is what most users do with their computers most of the time, which is plainly explained as issuing random requests. And disk latency plays its part in this, since you can feel it in every click you do, that is every command/task you issue your various software to perform. So, from a power user's perspective, values like a drive's average seek time, response from idle and all other relevant to latency ones are the most important when it comes to what we conceive as actual drive speed.
Thnx for listening,
If anyone is interested to know more about upcoming technologies in the ssd/hdd area let me know, i do have some exciting sht piled in my mind heheh.
Cheers

 

Last edited: Oct 28, 2019

yes yes , im using 2 seagate externals for my kontakt just like you brother @Charly R

the other 7 externals are for horror movies(from 60s to 2018 /TV series and some rare stuff /out of print films/
and they are almost full so i need more external to start from 2019 and up
(the thing is there will be no more room for outlets/usb slots so i need also usb hub )

 

If I had the cash I would get 5 Samsung 860 4tb SSDs & several Seagate Iron Wolf Pro HDDs as backups.

 

Nice offer, thanks.
I'd like to know something about an already existing tech. Is what he says at 18:50 still valid?

 

Ah, there was the wrong presumtion I made when thinking of a NAS with cheap SSD (and not that good controllers).