SATA SSD vs M.2 SSD for System drive

[jaymonkey]

I've just realised that I could also setup a RAID0 array with two SATA M.2 SSDs for speeds of around 1000mb/s which would probably do me just fine. And it would be cheaper so I could get the 4Tb total capacity that I would like to be at, ideally.

@interobang,

I think you made a type'o :-

two SATA M.2 SSDs

I assume you meant to write "two SATA SSDs".

Running two SATA SSD in a RAID-0 (stripe) configuration would be a good (and cheeper) option without the need to sacrifice your system drive M.2, you will probably get a throughput of around 850 MBs as there is some overhead.

MacOS has a very good built-in software raid which is reliable, stable and easy to use.

I would however recommend that you configure your editing software to use the Nvme as the scratch drive rather than putting it on the RAID'ed SSD's.

Cheers
Jay

 

[interobang]

With a single HP NVMe on 4 lanes (i.e., not SATA) I'm getting 2.8GB/s read, 2.6GB/s write using Blackmagic Disk Speed test. All checkboxes green.

My SATA performance is, about as expected, a bit less than 1/4 that.

If you have a 4-lane short PCIE slot you can get an M.2 PCIE adapter card for about $6.

That's a good point actually. I see that it would only cost me an extra $100 for a 2Tb NVMe card. And then I'm only using one slot.
I have no PVIe slots available for expansion.

 

[interobang]

I assume you meant to write "two SATA SSDs".

Nope, no typo there. It's about maximizing ports. I don't have any SATA ports to spare. So M.2 SATA was looking like more of an option. But now I'm thinking to simply get a single 2Tb NVMe and just cop the extra $100 cost. Then I'm taking up one less port. And it would be good to not have to mess around with RAID array if poss.

I would however recommend that you configure your editing software to use the Nvme as the scratch drive rather than putting it on the RAID'ed SSD's.

Why is that? Simply because of drive speed? I find that I fill up my scratch drive really quickly because I work on so many projects at a time. I'd rather have super fast project drives and my GPU and processor can handle the clips and their effects without the need to render in the timeline. And not have to use the scratch drive much.

I would like to know the answer to my first question though: Is it really worth having my system drive on an NVMe drive? Or will I really notice a slowdown when I put it onto a SATA SSD?

 

[interobang]

MacOS has a very good built-in software raid which is reliable, stable and easy to use.

Would you recommend using this on SATA attached HDDs? I am considering future upgrades, which includes potentially attaching a few 4TB Ironwolf drives in a RAID enclosure. But now that you've mentioned this, I am wondering if it would be a whole lot cheaper to do this with software RAID straight off my board.

 

[jaymonkey]

Why is that? Simply because of drive speed? I find that I fill up my scratch drive really quickly because I work on so many projects at a time. I'd rather have super fast project drives and my GPU and processor can handle the clips and their effects without the need to render in the timeline. And not have to use the scratch drive much.

@interrobang,

In my past experience using FCPX with SATA drives, having the scratch drive on a physically different drive to the project drive can speed things up significantly due to the many concurrent writes FCPX creates and the constrained bandwidth of the SATA interface. However as I said above it does depend a lot on the type of files you are working on and the complexity of the project you are working on ...

If you go for a fast NVMe Project drive then it will be able to handle all of the concurrent writes with no slow downs ... I myself switched to this a few years back and would never go back to SATA drives on my video editing system.

Cheers
Jay

 

[jaymonkey]

Would you recommend using this on SATA attached HDDs? I am considering future upgrades, which includes potentially attaching a few 4TB Ironwolf drives in a RAID enclosure. But now that you've mentioned this, I am wondering if it would be a whole lot cheaper to do this with software RAID straight off my board.

@interobang,

Absolutely ... I have a dedicated Media playback hackintosh in my studio (see MonkeyMedia Mac spec in my sig) that i use to archive all my final Video and Audio work to ... that system has two NAS spec 6TB HDD running in a RAID-1 (mirror) configuration and it's been super reliable and never let me down.

I also has a Synology NAS on my LAN which i use for system backups, general archiving ... etc.

Cheers
Jay

 

[interobang]

@interobang,

Absolutely ... I have a dedicated Media playback hackintosh in my studio (see MonkeyMedia Mac spec in my sig) that i use to archive all my final Video and Audio work to ... that system has two NAS spec 6TB HDD running in a RAID-1 (mirror) configuration and it's been super reliable and never let me down.

Very interesting. Thanks for that! I'll have a look into it. Do you know of any Hackintosh specific guides for setting us OSX software RAID?

 

[jaymonkey]

Very interesting. Thanks for that! I'll have a look into it. Do you know of any Hackintosh specific guides for setting us OSX software RAID?

@interobang,

Just make sure sure your SATA ports are configured as AHCI in the BIOS and that they are working in MacOS before creating the RAID member drives and Volume.

The process is exactly the same on a Hackintosh as it is for a genuine Mac, it's all done in the Disk Utility App.
You can use the guide on the Apple support site for reference :-

Create a disk set using Disk Utility on Mac

Use Disk Utility on your Mac to create a RAID set to optimise storage performance and protect your data.

support.apple.com

Cheers
Jay