Thunderbolt with Pegasus R4 heavily slows down boot performance of internal SSD

Mrvoeg,

Sweet. I did journalism in school but I went a different route after leaving high school. My Dad had a darkroom downstairs and that's how I got into Photography. I've always been on PC's from about 1985 till last year when I finally made the jump to Mac. lol

I never have tried AVID but I have tried Premiere and Final Cut Express which I didn't like. I preferred my Ulead Video Studio for the longest time. lol I'm so glad for FCPX as I no longer need my PC and rendering on the fly is just amazing.

I will let you know when I have a LaCie Drive as I will use it for a boot drive and on my iMac. It appears the 2TB is just a little bit faster than the 1TB per the reviews I'm reading...so for $100 more I will get that one. In December I will get my R4 into Raid 0 and report back with the speeds I'm getting as I will put Lion on it and use it for a boot drive as well. I only wonder if it would be better to partition a spot for the Lion or just leave it as 1 whole partition since my entire workload will be on the R4?

Mrveog,

Sweet. That makes sense. I doubt I will be moving the R4 around but if I do make a partition for Lion do you recommend installing Photoshop, Lightroom, FCPX, other programs on the Lion partition or the working partition where all my editing files will be at? I plan to use the internal HD for a scratch disk and have nothing on it.

I'm using almost 400GB of my 1TB HD. 142GB for itunes and another 165GB for some odd projects I'm working on. I will most probably do a partition for the LaCie drive(500GB) and have the other 1.5TB for my video projects. I've been moving the FCPX projects to my external Firewire HD since it's faster than when using the files over the network. I back up all the video stuff separately. I like the idea of backing up to HD's. I don't do DVD's anymore.

Hi,

I was considering starting a new topic but thought that I'd ask this thread first as it seems so relevant to my question:

Unlike you good folks, I'm very much a novice.

Brief History:
I've had a G5 Power Mac for 6 years. It's now died and I've given up hope of a new version of Mac Pro so am considering the alternatives.

What I Want:
On every computer that I've ever owned I've found myself running out of Hard drive space. So wanting a load of HD that expandable is important to me.

I also got bitten way back with losing data due to not backing up. Luckily a clever tech managed to salvage my data. Now I'm Mr paranoid with backing up. Backup and safety are a key consideration.

I do video editing on FCP.. so being able to store large video files and be able to access them and then have the CPU speed to render the files in a normal human lifespan is important.

What I'm considering?
I've considered using a Macbook Pro or an imac

I'm a bit put off by the imac due to it being extremely difficult to service and the CD slot and ports being inaccessible to me due to where it would be positioned (inside and enclosure)

The Macbook Pro seems like a good choice because although I lose some things, I do get the ability to use the laptop elsewhere

I would like to know everyone's feelings on expendability.

If I was to go Macbook Pro then I have some questions:

- Does a docking station exist that supports the Thunderbolt Port? I would really like to use a docking station

- As far as an external drive set is concerned... then I'm at a loss. I've looked at the Pagasus RAID setups. I'm totally ignorant when it comes to RAID. Let me tell you what I would do if I had a new Mac Pro and see if you clever folks can think of a solution for me?

If I was configuring a new Mac Pro then I would want two 2TB drives.. one as my main boot drive and a second as a mirrored backup. I would install a 3rd drive that I would use as a sandpit to play around and store video files that I wasn't worried if I lost them in a HD crash. I would then consider a 2TB time capsule as a backup/backup (told you I was paranoid on backups) 😀

Can anyone help in designing a system for me? I'd really appreciate any help!

Thanks,

Steve

Mrvoeg,

What Blu-ray burner do you use? I'm looking to get one but just haven't done it yet. I want to offer slideshows on Blu-ray rather than backup but I would consider Blu-ray for backup for sure.

Steve,

The Macbook Pro or Air with a Thunderbolt Display is becoming very Popular and there are advantages to that over the iMac being that you can take your Macbook Pro with you wherever you go.

I personally like the iMac. I do have a 2011 13" Macbook Pro but I don't do a whole lot of editing on it....it's mainly plugged into my 50" Plasma via HDMI and I use it to show clients images that are displayed on the 50" Plasma.

I believe the latest iMac is really fast compared to the Mac Pro so I would for get about the Mac Pro right now and either do a Macbook Pro, Display and R4 unit or a iMac and a R4 unit. I would then get a 4TB WD HD and Raid that 1 for a another 2 backups to the R4. This is basically what I am doing right now. I would bypass the Time Capsule...over priced and you can get cheaper backups by just using a 2TB HD. I don't have time now but I will post links to what I recommend later tonight or tomorrow. That way you have a total cost to compare as well.

Check out Mac Rumors forum for Macbook Pro and Thunderbolt Display pics. 🙂

Thanks for the advise.

I'd really appreciate those links that you may have!!

I was thinking about going cheap and getting a 'nice' display but not apple. Have you got any red flags on doing that?

Can you expand on what you said for a layman like myself "4TB WD HD and Raid that 1 for a another 2 backups to the R4" I'm a bit confused on that.

Also do you know of a docking station with Thunderbolt so I can connect the RAID HD set to the Mac Pro via Thunderbolt?

My iphoto library is becoming enormous... I'd also be interested in how you would deal with that. BTW the iphoto library is one of the main reasons I'm paranoid about backup.. it has my last 12 years of life with the kids and everything on it!!... it's value can't be counted in $$$$

Video wise I burn everything to DVD and split my captured raw video into bite sized sections and store them on DVD's as files for backup. So for the videos I'm not so worried about backup because I only have my working projects on the mac at one time.

Thanks Again!

Steve

Steve,

No problem. I'm on my iPhone so I hope these links work ok for you. :)

First of all, I've been using PC's since 1985(went to Macs in 2010) and I can say without a doubt do not pass on the Thunderbolt Display if you go the route of the MacBook Pro....I know some love the Dell screens and some others here and there but the 27" thunderbolt display is well worth it's weight in gold. Do not short change yourself...you have come this far, might as well make that tiny extra step.

So Option 1 is simple...

MacBook Pro or Air. I'm not going to give you links for these, you need to look at your budget and get the best one possible.

Thunderbolt Display $999

Pegasus R4 unit 4TB($999) to 12TB($1999). I think you are good with a R4 4TB HD for $999

Now Raid...lots of different raid setups...I do Raid 10 which is safety driven but splits the available space so you have 2TB out of 4TB. This is a safe option. Some go with Raid 5 but it can be a pain to fix if a drive goes bad. I still think its ok but I prefer Raid 10

Now the extra Backup...I would go with a Western Digital 4TB Hard Drive. In Raid 1 it offers 2TB and a 2ND/3RD backup. Here is the link. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BH3ZCU?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1. Not I got it for $260 on sale but if you want that added backup this gives you 2ND/3RD back up.

Here is a link for Raid and it explains it well. You want either Raid 1(mirror, 2 drives only, 1/2 space of total) Raid 5(4 drives 3/4 space of total) and Raid 10(4 drives, 1/2 space of total) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Option 2

27" iMac. I recommend it... Look at this one and seriously consider it. www.amazon.com/Apple-MC814LL-27-Inch-Desktop-VERSION/dp/B004YLCE2S/ref=sr_1_1?s =electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1320196632&sr=1-1

Or the next model down. www.amazon.com/Apple-MC813LL-27-Inch-Desktop-VERSION/dp/B004YLCBRG/ref=sr_1_2?s =electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1320196632&sr=1-2

Now I like the first one because of the graphics card but I have both of these machines and in real world usage they are very very close. My other iMac is the i7 3.4ghz 2GB and I paid like $2470 from Apples website. Do I notice a difference from mine too these 2? Yes but the price is way more. Go with the 3.1Ghz and buy extra Ram from amazon. It's like $65 for 8GB and takes 1 minute to install.

More links

iMac memory. www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002YUF8ZG?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1

Pegasus R4 unit 4TB. store.apple.com/us/product/H5184VC/A/Thunderbolt?fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw

iMac 27" i7 3.4Ghz, 2GB video card, 1TB HDD. Run your Lion from the Thunderbolt drive and pass on the $500 SSD drive

WD 2TB HD. I back up all my final finals to 2 of these. One on location and the other off location. www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-External/dp/B002QEBMCI/ref=sr_1 _4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1320197534&sr=1-4. I have about 10 of these drives now. lol.

Do you understand the setup? Pegasus R4 is the working drive and in Raid 10 has a built in backup. You then have the WD 4TB HD plugged into a FireWire drive and is Time Machined to the R4 until and because the WD is in Raid 1 it contains a Mirror of the TM files providing a 3RD backup.

Steve,

I'm not sure about the docking station.

The R4 would handle the iPhoto collection just fine. Forget DVD's and one the HD come down in price switch to backing up those video files to the 2 TB WD HD I posted about. I normally get them for $79 each but the flooding in Thailand has the HD's way up in price.

Hope that helps. I do think your best bet is iMac 27"...$1999 + R4 $999 + WD 4TD $350 for a total of $3500 once you include extra memory and TB cable for $49. :). MacBook Pro...I'm guessing another $1000 on top of that.

This is great! Thank you SO much!

Let me digest what you've said and look at the links that you sent and if it's ok with you then ping you tomorrow or by the end of the week.

Can I ask just a couple more questions?

If I go the iMac route then I won't be able to access either the SuperDrive or the ports. (the thing is in a built in cabinet in the office)

So I would need some kind of hub for USB, FireWire and the Thunderbolt ports. Have you any ideas?

Also I can't aces the SuperDrive so would need a nice cd burner

Thanks again.. You are being really helpful!

Steve

If you did end up getting the iMac I would just pick up a USB external DVD burner or even a Blu-ray burner. The USB DVd burners are cheap. I also got the wired Keyboard because I wanted the keypad and that came with 2 extra USB ports. :). I cannot live without my Keypad. lol.

Fire away with more questions if you want and I'll do my best to offer some ideas. Don't forget to check out Mac

Rumors and "MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt display pics". Quite a few people have posted pics of their setups. Pretty cool although I still recommend the iMac. Lol