Hi MK,
I find it sad that Apple does not step to the aid of its customers by telling them what is required to operate their pro apps like Aperture in a professional manner. I understand commercially they want to appear to be all things to all people, and easy to use in all circumstances, but that is not reality.
All computer software has an operational sweet spot where it will function at maximum speed that the hardware is capable of. Unfortunately software companies do not tell you that…instead they publish minimum specifications, showing the point at which the software just limps along, and having less than this is not supported. If the application is for professional use, that spec is of no value.
A pro needs the ultimate in speed, reliability and data safety, with backups handled without fail. I have spent a good deal of time finding the sweet spot for Aperture, plus the associated programs to do professional photography.
Storage systems are a mystery to most people because there are many types of systems, over a wide series of price points, and are not already thought out as to their intended use.
Originally RAID systems were typically to increase speed and reliability of the local disk subsystem, typically 24/7 use, servers and such, and VERY expensive. Systems like this are still out there, but their use should be limited to professional IT. They buy the pro photographer very little, and are noisy, power hogs that need maintenance pro to keep running correctly. They do little to nothing to address backup or archival needs and typically cost so much most folks can’t afford them anyway.
Then, comes the “quasi RAID” stuff…I call this the dangerous with little knowledge gear. First of all, we should define what the job required before specifying hardware. Not all of this is created equal by a long shot, and you can spend money towards what sounds like the right gear, and while it probably will not kill your stuff in the end, the wrong stuff is not a good value on the best “bang for the buck” meter.
OK, first the sweet spot for your gear. You have the latest MBP 17”, the lone model with the Expresscard slot.
1) RAM – first, we need to operate without pageouts, as that slowdown will hurt more that the worst storage rig. Aperture running by itself needs 6GB of RAM to avoid pageouts. In my tests, 4GB still generated pageouts in normal operation. In my case I flip through images full screen, and a pageout would manifest itself as the spinning cursor. You rig can take 8GB, I would do that before anything else.
2) VRAM & GPU – I am assuming you have 512MB, smaller is not gonna hurt as much as a lack of main RAM, but will be slower on large files.
3) Fast Internal drive – two suggestions here, either go with the Seagate Momentus 7200RPM 500GB drive ($129), and go no more than 50% full…OR go with the new Crucial 256GB SSD ($654 and dropping fast) drive. You may already have the first one, as Apple made that a CTO option. If you have the Seagate, it has the ability to do a darn good job of handling a big Photoshop scratch disk at R/W at 90Mb/sec. The SSD is not a weapon of choice for large writes (flash RAM has a design limitation on writes), but reads, especially small ones are 15 TIMES the speed of a hard drive. I am using the Seagate at present, but have the SSD in another machine in the office and will be upgrading when the price drops a bit more.
4) Use the right storage bus – eSATA is the choice here today, faster than FW or USB, almost as fast but a fraction of the cost of SCSI or Fibre Channel. Your MBP is limited to two eSata channels, a limitation you need to understand the tradeoffs.
a. Use the best eSATA host card – that distinction currently goes to the Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 by Sonnet (TSATAII-PRO-E34). Retailing at $199, it is the most expensive, but the best of the 5 I tried. It has port multiplication capability, and it the fastest unit available.
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposataproexpress34.html
b. PM or not? - A very popular solution today involves PM or port multiplier technology for eSATA. This involves allowing up to 5 SATA drives to operate through one PM eSATA port, meaning up to ten on the 2 channel card. An eSATA port is by default a single channel, it only switches to PM status when a PM device is connected. Sadly, but as is always true, there is a significant performance hit running PM vs Single Channel SATA. If you had a Mac Pro, I would ONLY recommend direct connect, and buy as many 4-channel eSATA cards as needed. Given the 2 channel limitation of the MBP, understand that you would have to run a 3 disk stripe under PM to beat the speed of a two disk stripe running into each channel separately. When I am traveling, I run a 2 disk stripe using both single channels, and backup to a FW800 at night. At the office, I run one PM channel into 3 disk stripe, and into the 2 mirrors. If I setup the same rig using 5 channels on a Mac Pro I would see 40% more speed…even higher with each disk I add to the stripe.
5) Use the right drivers – This is so key, and overlooked all the time. At this level of RAID storage requirement, software RAID is the clear choice. Far more flexible and reliable, in many cases twice as fast as preconfigured hardware systems like the G-Tech RAID you mentioned, and much cheaper. IMO, the only game in town in SoftRAID ($129), and the gold standard for reliability and performance. (www.softraid.com) Their manual is a free download, and highly recommended reading. SoftRAID will allow you to integrate all disk subsystems, SATA FW, etc. and makes it easy.
6) Use the right disk config – This is where solutions like the G-Tech and LaCie, WD My Book and others fall flat on their faces. Reading and writing photo files efficiently requires a storage config of 128K sized blocks, general use dictates 64K. Speed is adversely effected if you get this wrong…but guess what the unchangeable hardware based RAID systems are set at…64K, assuming most customers want max performance out of general use storage. SoftRAID asks you to select as you create volumes, maxing the performance built into the hardware.
7) Partition the outside half for stripes– A hard disk is written to from the outside toward the center. The disk is spinning at a constant speed, so it is obvious more recording area passes under the heads per revolution on the outside of the disk than on the area approaching the center. This has become less important as disk circumferences have been made drastically smaller over the years, but still make a difference in a 3.5” drive (much less so in 2.5”). When you are doing a stripe, make that partition on the beginning of each member drive, no more than half the drive. SoftRAID is required to do this trick too. On a 3 disk stripe, you will see 20-30% overall improvement.
8) Use half the drive – Programs and the system read and write fastest to physically contiguous storage. Limiting your use of a drive to about half its capacity insures the system is not at a loss for contiguous space, and does not fragment itself. About once a month, I do a full backup and restore of the library on the stripe, giving me a brute force compression of the file to the outside of the disks.
9) External Storage – OK, this requires definition of task for professional photography use. This requirement is met by three interlinked subsystems, all required for the serious professional. I am defining pro as someone who needs to go home after 8 hours to a real life, and cannot spend all their time obsessing about their systems. The systems must perform the tasks required in the time given or I submit they are not fit for professional use. For example, if a full system backup takes more time than a single overnight, you need a setup that can do that task and leave the gear free to operate when you arrive the next morning.
a. Storage subsystem #1 – Operational Performance – Simply put, as fast as your gear can go without hitting diminishing returns. For your current setup, that is a dual channel eSATA stripe. You will see a good 150Mb/sec all day long from this.
b. Storage subsystem #2 – Operational Protection – For me this involves a dual drive mirror system, with a third spare for offsite. The two mirrors, one primary, one secondary are mirroring the operational stripe. Once a day I swap one of these with the spare and the system will automatically sync the new drive to match the live mirror. I bring this drive offsite with me. Once a week I do an extra sync, and that drive goes to a safety deposit at my bank. If my stripe dies, I can still operate from a mirror at 90Mb/sec until a can rebuild the stripe. I can rebuild the 1.5TB stripe holding my 800GB library in about 6 hours.
c. Storage subsystem #3 – Archival Maintenance – Data storage methods all degrade over time. Only active maintenance will provide 100% health for your data. This requires a system that maintains multiple copies of the data, and verifies the drive mechanism health on an ongoing basis. It does not require performance, as it will not be used as primary operational storage, so FW800 is ok. I have used a DROBO for this without incident. It has alerted me to add a mechanism when growth is needed, and it will survive a drive failure. The FW800 DROBO runs at about 30MB/sec, so you do not want to use this for anything like primary storage. Also, don’t run more than 2 STORAGE devices on a FW800 bus, and don’t use any other type of devices (readers, cameras, etc.) on that bus if you are using it for storage. Trust me…or just play with Activity Monitor and see performance drop if you don’t.
10) I use 2 single eSata enclosures for my traveling 2.5” stripe. I also have a Infosafe Esata/usb Enclosure, about $90 from Amazon. This holds the 2 drives when I need an extra eSata port. Just make sure to leave the config at JBOD, letting SoftRAID do its thing. If you are so inclined, you could let the enclosure do a hardware stripe, and you will see the loss in performance I spoke about. Case is nice for travel, comes with power, and a carrying bag.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GKH2RM/ref=oxya_ohproduct
That is basically it….of course I always encourage experimentation and testing using Activity Monitor, and other commercially available Mac benchmarks like DiskTester, or the free AJA systems test.
All the companies like GTech, Wiebe, CalDigit, LaCie, etc. are really overpriced if you know what you are buying. These companies exist and do well, because most folks don’t know any better. They do not make drives, or do much of the tech work…that usually comes from rebranding components from the far east. I use enclosures made by RAIDon or Stardom, and drives from WD and Seagate. My main enclosure at the office for the MPB is the ST6600-5S-S2 5-Bay Hot-Swap eSATA Port Multiplier Hard Drive Enclosure by RAIDON, $279 from OWC. Extra trays are $30. I use three 1TB drives (about $90 each) for the 1.5TB stripe volume, and two 2TB drives (about $200) for the dual mirror, with two additional 2TB in trays and carrying cases for my offsite swap backups. This 5 disk rig is about $1000 complete…less than half what you would pay from the companies above. Since the drives are already SATA, there is very little circuitry, unlike FW or USB…so it is basically sheet metal, a power supply and a backplane with connectors.
Finally, the best customer service comes from buying the $99 yearly support at SoftRAID…they will give you better advice than any manufacturer by far.
Hope this clarifies rather than confuses…enjoy!
