RAID setup on high-end workstation

[Proshooter]

I am trying to design the ideal system prior to purchasing and assembling the components. I am a commercial photographer and have started editing video on my workstations. I have built several systems including a couple of dual processor boxes (a dual 300, then a dual 600/512.) I would like to build a dual 1.7 to be upgraded later to a dual 2.0+.

I'm looking at including a 0/1 RAID with 10,000rpm LVD drives to improve proformance and data intergrity. I am using several Seagate SCSI Cheetahs mixed with 7200 ATA drives in my current system. I do notice that while the 7200 drives are fast they still lag the 10,000rpm drives. I also looked at 15,000rpm drives, but they are still limited to 36Gb and cost sigificantly more than 10K drives.

My problem is that I do not fully understand RAID systems as they apply to my goals to design this out properly. As this will be a rather expensive system (for me)I would like to avoid problems by working all of this out in advance.

This is my plan thus far; Starting with a Supermicro p4dc6+ board, dual 1.7Xeon processors and 4 - 512Mb PC800 RIMMs of RDRAM. I would like to put 4 Cheetah drives into a Supermicro SCA hot swap bay. I will also add a ATI 8500DR video card, the Matrox RT2500 video capture/edit kit and a DVD-RW burner (either an internal or perhaps an external firewire). The OS is to be XPpro.

My questions are; A) is this the best solution for a stand alone work station for producing video to be burned to DVDs? B)Should I not also include IDE drive (7200RPM) to boot and run the OS from? Or will that slow down the entire system woking in combination (or competing)with the RAID. C) How does the RAID system actually interface with the motherboard? Am I using a separte RAID card or do I use one or both of the on board SCSI channels? In the past I've run a string of LW type LVD drives on a single LVD cable to a siingle channel, but I understand that that is limited to 160 rather than the full 320 potential. Any help or comments? Thanks.

 

[Jakespeare]

Sorry, I'm not fully qualified to answer your question, nor would I donate the time to answer such a long-involved question. Especially since all the information you need is readily avialable on the NET. It's there, all you have to do is look for it.
(Besides, *no matter what I said, the odds are 50 to 1, you would get other opinions and totally discard my advice)

So, the best thing that I can possibly do for you is point you in the direction of technical information (not based on memories, or opinions)

http://www.arstechnica.com

has a good RAID tech intro article.

http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/raid-1.html

*GOOGLE* is a FANTASTIC source for finding information (on everything), especially tech articles. You may have to try several times, changing your search words, but your absolutely bound to find what you need.
I have also found good tech articles at Seagate & IBM; I'm quite sure that there are other articles there that would give you *some* of the information you needed.


**** LAST NOTE *********

I build graphics workstations, on ocassion, and recently upgraded a customers..........

** we removed the ATI video, because ATI is INCAPABLE of EVER, AND I MEAN EVER getting their drivers right. DO NOT use an ATI video card if you want a system that works flawlessly.
I repeat what I just said....... do not use ATI. Period.
You will be sorry. You will have problems, and I will say (in 3 months when your back here complaining), "I told you so."

Go NVIDIA. STABILITY IS KEY. GeForce3 and NVIDIA XP (Microsoft Certified) drivers work perfect on the Windows XP PRO. Also -
* the GeForce3 is also a better video card than the ATI, drivers aside.
Go to

http://www.anandtech.com

for some good articles on video comparisoms.......

***** GO SCSI CD-RW ********* with an Adaptec 50-Pin adapter. Get a Yamaha SCSI with 8 MB cache, or contact your peers and see what they think is the best SCSI CD-RW's.
( I can run anything I want, and I run the Yamaha SCSI).