AuthorKimberly ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Should I partition my drive?SoftRAID Pro. Some use partitions as a strategy for organizing their media or to create an additional bootable backup of the operating system. Partitioning separates sections of the drive from each other so each has its own volume information and directory. It's possible to partition a drive so the computer sees it as two or more volumes. 2) RAID enclosures are more money and have a RAID chip, otherwise near identical.The most common volume structure for a single hard drive is a single partition, where the drive appears to the computer to be a single drive. I think only a couple relatively inexpensive two disk models may force you to use RAID.We generally recommend that there's little reason to partition a drive, except for certain backup tasks, and those who need to wring every possible performance advantage out of a drive (and who are willing to spend a lot of time to achieve this performance.)Some backup arrangements need to have an entire volume set aside. Data recovery RAID 1 is a simple process - you will know everything about RAID 1 failure recovery and RAID 1.While it used to be pretty common for advanced computer users to partition drives for performance reasons, that's less common now. Icons alerts, pop-up warnings, log files, SoftRAID is constantly watching your disks and volumes to make sure everything is working perfectly.How to recover RAID 1 Here you will find all information you need to recover RAID 1. Works with OWC and third-party storage solutions.An Intel Mac can read a drive formatted as Apple Partition Map, but can't boot from a drive with this format. MacintoshFor Intel Mac computers, drives should be formatted as GUID Partition Table in order to be bootable. This is a reasonably common arrangement for bootable backup software, and it's the most common reason to partition drives.Hard drives may be formatted in several ways, depending on the hardware and operating system. If you want to send Time Machine backups from multiple computers to a single drive, you'll first want to make a partition on the drive for each computer.Windows computers can also be made to read Macintosh-formatted drives (Apple Partition Map or GUID) by using the program MacDrive. For instance, FAT32 does not support files any larger than 4GB. You can use FAT32 for more compatibility, but keep in mind it's a very old file system. PPC Macs can also read FAT32 drives.Both Intel and PPC Macs can read from Windows NTFS-formatted drives, but can't write to these drives.Figure 1 How to format a hard drive for a Mac.PC drives should be formatted as NTFS, unless you know you need to share the drive with someone on a Mac. A PowerPC Mac with operating system later than 10.4 can read a GUID- formatted drive. The newer extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) format is also supported for both reading and writing under OS 10.6 or later.For Power PC Macs, (G5 and earlier), the drive must be partitioned as Apple Partition Map in order to boot from it.
![]() Making an informed choice on the best RAID implementation, on the other hand, is not something that should be done without a good understanding of the hardware and software under the hood. It’s simple to purchase and set up. JBOD is a good configuration for photographers to use as primary storage for a couple reasons.FIGURE 3 In a JBOD disk arrangement, each disk shows up as a single disk. It is the simplest arrangement for multi-disk storage, and the easiest to configure, upgrade, and repair. Each physical disk is a logical disk, as shown in Figure 3. Need Disk Utility To Create A Jbod Raid Mini Professional Who CanWith JBOD, you simply add another drive or replace one drive with another drive of larger capacity. This makes the upgrade process a difficult, time-consuming, and possibly dangerous process. A traditional RAID setup must be rebuilt completely (all data moved off, all new drives installed) to upgrade storage size. It’s generally much quicker and easier to upgrade capacity with JBOD. If you plan to use the drive for video editing, however, seek out the help of an informed professional who can ensure the drive meets the performance requirements for HD video workflows. The computer sees multiple drives as a single device, as shown in Figure 4.FIGURE 4 In a RAID setup, each physical drive also apears as a logical drive.This can be desirable for reasons of speed and/or redundancy. In a RAID setup, several drives are configured together to act as a single volume. The amounts of energy used and heat generated are reduced in a JBOD set-up, since only drives that are being accessed need to “spin up.” Drives housing older material can remain at rest when unneeded.RAID is an acronym that stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. Although RAID is theoretically safer, we find too many people who have lost their entire RAID systems for us to be convinced that it is practically safer, at least with consumer-level RAID. RAID for speedYou can also configure RAID to produce significant gains in speed of throughput by reading from or writing to multiple drives simultaneously. And this kind of RAID is essential in a corporate environment where 24/7 uptime is necessary. These mirrored or parity RAID setups can be a good choice to store Working files in a mission-critical situation, such as a studio with lots of deadline pressure. This means that if a drive fails, all the data can still exist on the device. RAID for redundancySome RAID systems write data to multiple drives for added safety. The controller for hardware RAID will either be built in to the drive enclosure, or it could be an add-on PCI card for a tower system. RAID 0 is also used to create a single large volume.RAID 0 is generally not particularly beneficial for most photography workflows. A failure of one drive destroys all the data. While it increases speed, it also increases risk. Basically, it breaks up a file into several parts and writes those parts to multiple drives simultaneously. RAID Level 0 (striped RAID)RAID 0 treats several drives as a single drive in order to speed up reading from and writing to the drive. This can also help a photographer who routinely works with very large image files.Let’s look at the various flavors of RAID and see what they do. Mac digital image for vmwareMirrored RAID is appropriate for operations that truly need 24/7 functionality, or for files that are works in progress and might represent a whole day’s work. RAID Level 1 (mirrored RAID)RAID 1 writes the same data to multiple drives to help ensure seamless operation in the event of drive mechanism failure. Just be certain that the data is backed up onto an additional drive due to the somewhat volatile nature of RAID 0. The parity file is a compressed copy of the data it can store the information in a small space, but requires computation to write and read. Level 5 is probably the most popular current RAID choice for large data storage. A Level 5 system should be able to survive the loss of any single drive since a parity file (a copy of the data) is written to each of the other drives. RAID Level 5RAID 5 provides a combination of striping and mirroring, resulting in a large single volume with redundant protection. It also provides no protection against human error, such as accidentally erasing or downsizing a file. ![]() In each case, a RAID controller is used to split, manage and reconstruct the data pieces back into files.The RAID system you implement should be one you can get some support for. You cannot take drives out of one RAID 5 and install the drives in an enclosure made by another manufacturer, and expect them to work. All hardware-based drive spanning is proprietaryWhile there are common terms for RAID levels, it’s important to understand that each RAID 1, 5, 6 or 10 system is a proprietary system. Know if you are shopping mainly for speed, size, redundancy or some combination. “It’s just easier to deal with” is probably not the right reason. Good reasons are that you need the speed, a single large volume, or that you need the 24/7 uptime. Before you buy the hardware, know who you will be calling for help if problems should arise.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |