SSD RAID 0 - Splitting program load on different drives?

Started by Kharak, January 26, 2015, 11:52:47 PM

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Kharak

So I ordered a new LAPTOP! yes, a laptop for RAW video editing.

32 gb ram
i7
Nvidia 980m 4gb
2x SSD 1 TB RAID 0

Been doing a lot of reading regarding RAID 0 on SSD's and its benefits. Mostly found forums surrounding Benchmarks and overclocking. Mostly all I find is kids raging about single drives and "real world usage" and vice versa.. A lot of bad reading.

But got the information that RAID 0 is not quite as good at random reads (normal computer usage) but greatly increases performances on large files (MLV), what I need.

But then I read a post here and there about placing softwares that work together on different drives and thereby splitting the load and increasing performance. I didn't wanna register and ask in 1-2 year old threads on OC forums, most of them 10-20 pages long, So didn't get a clear answer on how exactly this would work best and which programs they meant.

Does anyone here have experience with RAID 0, preferrably on SSDs. I am thinking if I install Premiere Pro on one of the drives and put AE and Speedgrade on the other, would it increase performance?

I have had RAID 0 on normal HDDs in the past, experienced a lot of problems with drive failures back then, but as I know SSDs are incredibly reliable today, I feel safe about it and I am hungry for more power ;)

Any input regarding RAID 0 and personal experiences is more than welcome.

once you go raw you never go back

chmee

two actual ssd in raid0 will cover somewhere ~1gb/sec read/write and 100.000 IOPS (less important on a single-user computer). i dont think, there will be a bottleneck, if you install all on that raid and work on it. BUT i didnt have made tests with ssd's, my experiences are old, hdd-times, ~8 years ago.
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Kharak

The 1GB/s read/write is the reason I want RAID 0. Should give a massive performance boost when working with CinemaDNG's.

All my colour grading goes via AE which is heavy handed, so I am really hoping this will improve the performance substantially compared to HDD's.

Would be nice with some comments from users who have tried or currently are using RAID 0 SSDs, thinking about what their experience is.

I am not expecting realtime playback in AE, I have worked with some MK III DNG's with AE on a Workstation at a friends company 64 gb ram, dual processors and what not. AE was still struggling, but I do believe they were using RAID 10 on HDD's though and only running OS on SSD, not sure if that was Single or RAID 0.

What I have come to understand with DNG's is that its important they are on the fastest possible drive to get the best performance when working with them.

once you go raw you never go back

dmilligan

Quote from: Kharak on January 27, 2015, 01:08:44 AM
All my colour grading goes via AE which is heavy handed, so I am really hoping this will improve the performance substantially compared to HDD's.
I kind of doubt it will help. The bottleneck is ACR and the fact that it is so slow and uses the CPU. The data rate you need to playback a DNG sequence in realtime is going to be the same as the one needed to record it (~84 MB/s for 1080p). Even my little external USB HDD is capable of that and I do get realtime playback of MLV files with MLRawViewer and in Premiere via MLVFS off of that drive. 1GB/s is way overkill (unless you're trying to play 10 different streams at once or something). Just monitor the disk usage while using AE to see what's really going on.

If you really want to improve the performance of your workflow, you need to drop ACR. I know you are one of the ACR die-hards, so I doubt there's much I can say to convince you.

Kharak

aah yes, ACR is CPU based.. Damn I actually knew that, just forgotten.

hehe and yes I am die hard ACR.. I love the colours, same reason why I keep coming back to AE from Resolve.

And reason why I am not jumping over to MLVFS is because I am on Windows and the windows version seems to have some complications.

Thanks for the input!
once you go raw you never go back

ansius

I have been using RAID 0 on regular HDD for quite a while and have have tested SSDs in RAID 0 configuration as well. I still use it as a larger temp render drive, but not where i can't afford to loose the data.

first - much depends on the raid controller, if that is not a purpose built device and you just use a mainbord's one or even worse - os one - you are going to have severe performance drop, depending on system but up to point where it is pointless. Especially with cheaper sata port add-on cards or extrenal drives that are not purpose built high performance devices. The 2 drive WD studio is not high performance yet Drobo 5D is. Without a dedicated controller for RAID the job falls on CPU and there you loose performance.

second - redundancy, RAID 0 is half redundant as a single drive, and keeping in mind that SSD's also have shorter life than regular drive - this is rather risky, there for not recommended unless a backup solution is in play.

third - a good regular raid array is enough for the raw workflow, there are many other places where there are bottlenecks, like debrayering and so on.

if you want a high performance system with reasonable redundancy - RAID 5 or better with a server mainboard or a serious raid controller card on a fast slot (regular PCI is not good enough anymore). But you have to balance the system, it has to have enough RAM, fast enough buss speeds, decent graphics cards and so on. Good system for video is more of a balancing act than just a high performance machine.

so laptop - there is no real point making ssd raid in a laptop, no real world benefit as the rest of the system will not be up to the task anyway. you would gain more if you would leave the disks separated and keep footage in one and render output and case in other.
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Kharak

Thank you ansius.

But as much as I wanted the RAID 0 SSD, I got a call from the computer shop today, they are building the laptop now, they said that they couldn't deliver it with RAID 0, because they hadn't managed to get it stable.. maybe it was a OS raid controller.. Had to go with only one SSD.

But atleast I'll have 550 MB/s write/read.
once you go raw you never go back