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Author Topic: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.  (Read 18222 times)

Raw shooter

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #20 on: February 28, 2012, 10:57:09 pm »

Good thread.  Interesting read.
Although hard drives have a guaranteed future as a failed device, I do appreciate how wonderful they have served us all.  I still have boxes of Kodachrome slides in what appears to be in total organization – only to discover chaos when searching for a keepsake.  We have all made the digital transformation and fully realize the technology comes with a new set of problems.
Back to Dan, the OP.  I too look forward to getting the Nikon D800E and the new problem of giant raw files.  Like so many in this thread, I have loved using RAID 5 SCSI drives through the years as my server.  And yes, they do fail – even the enterprise drives. Once again, with a RAID 5, just replace the failed drive and rebuild the volume.  Nothing lost but a little time and money.

But now I am hoping to find a less costly drive array for my new server. The WD RE4 drives do appear to be a good choice and perhaps with a LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i.  Not sure, but SATA drives over the SAS, for storage size and costs, seem to be the better direction these days for photography.
Like everyone else, would love to use SSDs.  The result would be awesome speed.  But in 2012, I wonder how long that would stay online.  The cost would be problematic but feasible with consumer grade drives.  The reliability of long term storage reduces this option as a solution currently.  SSDs are clearly the future for us all.
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Schewe

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #21 on: February 29, 2012, 12:47:30 am »

I suppose one should extrapolate from this "discussion" we should all buy a Hyundai, it has a longer warranty than any other vehicle sold in the USA, it must be somehow better?  You do realize warranties are a part of marketing and not necessarily indicative of how long an item will last?  Why replace a hard drive if the performance is still there and you have another back up?

Actually, if you understood the way drive makers test their components and lots, you would understand that some drives meet or exceed  (some times by a lot) the specs...those drives have a larger statistical likelihood to match up with the increased MTBF of enterprise drives which require better long term life and be less likely to fail.

The makers pull these high testing drives to the side and package them as being "better" than average and charge a premium for them. I'm willing to pay a higher price for higher speced, longer lived drives because statistically, they are less likely to fail. The old adage, you get what you pay for comes to mind.

HDs are a commodity based business with really, REALLY small margins. If the HD makers want to stay in the biz, they must make a profit. They know that users who are interested in better spec will pay while cheap-ass price conscience only buyers always buy the lowest price stuff, even if the stuff will fail very early in the life cycle...even if in the long run the cheap stuff costs more money and puts data at risk.

YMMV...
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Farmer

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #22 on: February 29, 2012, 01:49:54 am »

"Sorry, but when you make a point of appealing to your own authority (i.e. your level of education), typos such as that really epitomise irony :-)"

I have no typos in the quote and actually it isn't ironic, but again, I consider the source...  Or are you referring to your "typos"?

These puerile discussions are so ridiculous it just simply makes me laugh.

It doesn't matter how many threads you are participating in, if you are reading this then you should know who wrote what.  

Really?  No typos by you?  I even marked it in bold to help you.

Let's try again:

I learned to read well before I went to college and I do matriculate from a very fine university.

You used "learned".  This is an adjective and participle and in your usage as it applies to the verb "read", is past tense.  You then used "do matriculate".  Do is a verb in your usage and is present tense.  You have mixed tenses.  This is either a typo, or your grammatical construction is flawed.  I gave you the benefit of the doubt and presumed that you had made a typo.  If you wish to insist that you did not, and that what you typed is what you intended, then the error is more significant.  Either way, my original point stands that if you wish to appeal to your own authority it pays to avoid making mistakes whilst so doing.  Your mistake while attempting to assert your own erudition is ironic.  Indeed, since you attempted to highly quality your education by mentioning a "very fine university" it is very ironic.
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Phil Brown

Gemmtech

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #23 on: February 29, 2012, 07:35:47 am »

Farmer,

I'll reiterate, there aren't any typos, I made a minor grammatical error (I mean a very significant error LOL), I used the word do instead of did.  WOW, you are a genius for catching that.  I did catch it, but I wanted to see how smart you were and you obviously are brilliant.  LOL  As far as the rest of it, you missed it completely, but you stay on top of do & did... LOL  (hint: think forest and trees)

"Indeed, since you attempted to highly quality your education by mentioning a "very fine university" it is very ironic."  WTF LOL

Jeff,

I do have a firm grasp on how HDs are assembled and tested, I also have a firm grasp on why manufacturers and retailers use warranties as selling tools.  Most companies if not all wouldn't give a warranty if they weren't forced into it.  Apple's warranty is lousy (one year limited warranty), my hard drive went south at about 14 months, but if you buy one at the retail level it's 3-5 years.  Why doesn't Apple have a 2 year warranty?  Obviously they don't need to, they give the min warranty they have to.  One reason why I won't buy anymore Apple products.

I don't always agree with "You get what you pay for".  I have an $80K SUV here that I'm not sure I got what I paid for, I have over $10K worth of Apple garbage next to me....though I have about a dozen Seagate Cheetah 15K SCSI drives next to me still working :-)   Now that I think about it, I still use my Epson 1280, that has to be 10+ years old :-)  That's old....

"HDs are a commodity based business with really, REALLY small margins."

Jeff, which manufacturing business (in the disposable USA) isn't a commodity business with tight margins?  Do we build anything to last a very long time?  Cars are built on tight margins, so are appliances, furniture and cabinetry, etc.  We can't manufacturer much in this country because of tight margins.. Most products seem to be a commodity in today's world.. Sometimes it really bites us in the ass, think CD-Rs
  
I do know what a commodity is.. :-)  And I'm not sure that all HDs fall into the category of "commodity".   I believe that most products manufactured for the mass market could be considered a commodity. 



« Last Edit: February 29, 2012, 09:39:09 am by Gemmtech »
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Farmer

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #24 on: February 29, 2012, 05:15:54 pm »

"qualify" - it was a typo.  See how easy it is to admit without spruiking some BS excuse?

Grow up, mate.  That's best advice I can give you.
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Phil Brown

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #25 on: February 29, 2012, 08:02:09 pm »

"See how easy it is to admit without spruiking some BS excuse?"

You originally stated I made a typo, I hadn't, you then correctly gave the option of either a typo and or a grammatical error, I'm always honest and I confessed and admitted to making a "very significant" grammatical error!   There were no long stories or excuses, I simply said I didn't make a typo, it was much worse than that. :-)

"Grow up, mate.  That's best advice I can give you."

I didn't start this discussion, I simply gave advice based upon my experience and knowledge regarding hard drives.  I never claimed SCSI hard drives don't fail, quite the contrary, I said all hard drives will fail, however the SCSI drives have a much better reliability record, which coincides with my own experience.  I never said SCSI drives were a "Magic Bullet", they aren't.  I'm simply amazed at how quickly people will jump all over a post / person on this forum.   And then you want to start a war over my inadvertent use of the word do instead of did and I should "grow up" isn't that the pot calling............?  LOL

If I feel I can help, I will write what my experience has been.

Garry

« Last Edit: February 29, 2012, 08:07:21 pm by Gemmtech »
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JayWPage

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #26 on: February 29, 2012, 09:01:50 pm »

Much of what I have read suggests that the Hitachi drives are very reliable, esp the 5400 rpm drives which generate less heat than the 7200 rpm drives. Hitachi drives are used in OWC and G-technology brand products from which I have had good service.

Any discussion of backup solutions needs to also include other hazards than simply hard drive failure, such as fire or theft. I think an external backup stored off the premises has to be part of your backup plan.
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Jay W Page

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #27 on: February 29, 2012, 09:23:34 pm »

"Any discussion of backup solutions needs to also include other hazards than simply hard drive failure, such as fire or theft. I think an external backup stored off the premises has to be part of your backup plan."

I can't argue with offsite backup, however I simply suggest on premise fireproof enclosure such as a safe.  It's not terribly difficult to make an enclosure in the house that can withstand a fire. 



« Last Edit: February 29, 2012, 09:26:45 pm by Gemmtech »
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John.Murray

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #28 on: February 29, 2012, 09:39:28 pm »

The only problem with commercial "fireproof" enclosures is that they are rated for paper (200C / ~400F).  The only documentation I could find for hard drives was from an older Hitachi Spec sheet for a Deskstar - (non operating 70C / ~160F).  Thats going to be one hell of a firesafe!!!! :)
« Last Edit: February 29, 2012, 09:41:07 pm by John.Murray »
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Gemmtech

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #29 on: March 01, 2012, 11:28:51 am »

I built my "bunker" in the basement out of reinforced concrete double door and then I'm thinking this should work.

https://iosafe.com/products-soloPRO-buy

Garry
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PierreVandevenne

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #30 on: March 01, 2012, 12:01:55 pm »

You forgot the SAS drive  ;D
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dgberg

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #31 on: March 05, 2012, 06:28:34 am »

Quite alot of action since I was here last.
So glad to see no blood spattered on the screen. ;)

I should have mentioned the subject of speed in my first thread,but did not.
 System presently is Mac 10.5.8,Duo Core and 10 Gb Ram. The new os will be 64 bit and how much will that help?
Autopano Giga,Photoshop CS5,Epson 750 scanning with Silverfast and Lightroom 3.6 open slow and run slower yet.
The OS and all applications are presently on a 500 GB hard drive and take up 450GB of space. (Yes I know 90% is bad,thats why we are fixing things.)
Since were ripping and tearing things apart and there will be plenty of space with the new drives.(4 internal 1 tb drives and an external 3tb.)
With regards to all my photo software and OS what kind of placement would give me better operational speeds? 2 of the 1tb drives will be available.

Just to add our corporate IT guy is pretty sharp but is not into photography. Not sure if that matters or not.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2012, 05:19:05 am by Dan Berg »
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PierreVandevenne

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #32 on: March 05, 2012, 10:12:18 am »

I would definitely go SSD. I've now moved all my machines to a SSD  OS/application drive. It does require a bit of discipline and cleanup but was really worth the trouble. My 2010 Core I7 MacBook Pro had become intolerably slow after the Lion upgrade: now it's fast again. I did the backup/swap drive/restore backup procedure so the speed increase can't really be attributed to a fresh install. I went for the 256GB 830 serie samsung SSD (other machines use Intel ones) which arguably is overkill since the 2010 MacBook Pro only has a 3 GBps SATA controller but the cost differential with a 470 serie was small. There's a 512GB model if you can't get rid of enough stuff to make it fit in smaller sizes. Most of my data sits on a NAS that can reliably and consistently deliver 90 MB/sec. Not top of the line, but very accceptable even for video tinkering.
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Farmer

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #33 on: March 05, 2012, 04:15:04 pm »

64bit will help a lot, Dan, since you seem to process some large images - full access to all that RAM should help significantly.
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Phil Brown

John.Murray

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #34 on: March 05, 2012, 07:42:09 pm »

Quite abit of action since I was here last.
So glad to see no blood spattered on the screen. ;)


Have fun with it!

pc / mac == sharks / blood in the water == crowded movie theater / yelling "fire" ......
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kers

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #35 on: March 06, 2012, 11:39:35 am »

My choice for working fast with 36MP 16 bit PSD files would be:


buy a New Macpro ( if it comes) or PC with a fast processor + 16 or more GIG Ram
and apart from that:

Use a SSD for the system 100 GB is plenty in my case ( and i have one )
Use a Raid0 SSD ( 2x 240gig) setup for the work that you actually work on . so saving and opening is really fast (+ combined with the faster processor)
Use a 2 GB HD for your work to store when finished.
Use a 3GB HD for Backup ( Timemachine)  ( have two so you can dig back some months- store the other one outside your house)
Find a way to also save your backup outside your house( online backup)

and

save your PSD files without compression if you like to make opening and saving a lot faster (plugin)


( buy a good quality SSD!)



« Last Edit: March 06, 2012, 11:43:38 am by kers »
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dgberg

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #36 on: March 07, 2012, 05:27:06 am »

So what is the breakdown if you have 1 drive for your OS and another for your applications?
Or does your OS and most of your applications go on 1 drive and just PS5 and Lightroom 4 go on another?
Want to have this guy set this up right and not sure he knows either.
At least he made no mention of SSD drives.

Gemmtech

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #37 on: March 07, 2012, 07:31:03 am »

Dan,

1-  SSD for the OS, get it set up to perfection, all updates installed and then ghost it.
1 - SSD for the programs, download and install all updates that are known to work, then ghost it.

1-4 Hard drives either kept individually or put them into a RAID configuration (either RAID 0, 5 or 10)  Personally I prefer SCSI drives, my experience with them has shown them to be more reliable; however, I still have an external backup because as has been discussed ad nauseam, all hard drives will eventually fail.  :-) 

I think it's obvious, but install as much ram as your machine can handle and you can afford. 

Pardon the brevity, typos and any grammatical errors.
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dgberg

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #38 on: March 07, 2012, 08:22:27 am »

Perfect,thanks.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Questions on updating Mac Pro hard drives for those large D800 files.
« Reply #39 on: March 23, 2012, 10:40:15 pm »

 ;)
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