Raptor RAID setup for PS - how to break the bank nicely...?

[shawngibson]

I've asked this on the Adobe forum, but you guys always leave me

more to think about...so...here we go:

 

I just went for an Opteron 270 x 2 and an S2895 Tyan motherboard for

a nice little quad:) Yes, it broke the bank for a couple of months,

even with a substantial loan...

 

Now, it's drives I'll need to add. I am very new to the idea of

RAID. My understanding is 2 74G Raptors in a RAID 0 would =

a 'striping' system - the equivalent of 20,000rpm and absolutely no

redundancy, and a total space available of 36G if I use 2 Raptor

74s.

 

Perfect.

 

But I'd like to do this 2x, or that is I suppose my question. For a

moment let me say how I'd like to do it, without the RAID, as a

reference:

 

1 HD for OS/Apps

1 HD for scratch

1 HD for files

...but is that correct for a fast PS setup?

 

How do I build the equivalent of a Raptor RAID setup for this? Do I

buy 6 Raptor 74s and use 3 RAID 0s in setting up?

 

I don't want to spend more than a very small fortune here, I'm

expecting like 6 drives and an archiving, external Firewire of .5 Tb

eventually. It seems it can get a LOT more expensive than that. I

just want the best fast way to run Photoshop with no bottlenecks.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Shawn

[chiswick_john]

Theoreticaly you get vastly more speed with RAID 0 - in practice it's nearly insignificant. What will be of most benefit will be to have the OS, page file and PS scratch on seperate physical drives (74g raptors are ideal). Spend the money you saved on more RAM (3g minimum and activate the 3 gig switch in XP pro) and buy some external drives to back up on. Make more than 1 backup copy and store in different locations.

[fk319]

What I did, was I used slower drives. 7.5k rpm, is not that much slower than 10k rpm. Also I partitioned my 2 disks at about 10%/90% each. The 10% held things like the os on one and my personal stuff on the other 10% disk. the 90%'s I stripped together and get my speed when I need it, and huge storage space.

 

You have lots of options, how important is redundancy? Reliability? on a stripped drive array, one drive down and you are, well you know. raid 5 is good, but slow on the write, probably not YOUR best solution. perhaps a raid 5 for your data, and a stripped array for your work space. (Take say 6 drives, partition it 20%/80%, strip the 20% together and raid 5 the 80%. the 80% storage space will survive a drive failure and the 20%, well it should be cleaned every night. 20% may be a bit much, maybe you only need 5%, but you get the idea.)

 

Am I confusing you any?

[shawngibson]

Redundancy requirement...zero (zip, nada...).

 

I will backup daily onto a .5-1Tb external drive. All I want is PS to run as quickly as possible with a maximum of 6 74Gb Raptors, is how I've been looking at it. Is it possible to do a dummies breakdown of what you just said, like "These 2 drives on this RAID Array for the OS-APPS...these 2 drives for the scratch on this array...etc".) It might make sense to me then.

 

I can't even figure out whether you can run more than 1 array, i.e., can I do the equivalent of a C:, D: and E: for the 3 requirements (OS-Apps/scratch/temporary data)?

[shawngibson]

I'll be starting with 4Gb of the best RAM I can find for less than $1500 Cdn...and more from there if I need it. Scalability is why I bought the system as such, otherwise I'd probably have gone for the X2 4800+ solution. I don't even want to put this thing together into the case until I have ALL the core components...

 

I have still no idea what a paging file/drive/whatsthat thing is...I see it all the time in my performance monitor, but I don't know yet what it is.

[chiswick_john]

Shawn - you don't need 6 raptors - 3 HD's is all you need at most.If you have money to burn and you want the best possible performance from your HD's invest in SCSI drives and a controller - these are way faster than SATA raptors. In the end though you may be barking up the wrong tree as HD performance is pretty low down the priority when it comes to PS speed. You only need HD perfromance when you run out of RAM and to do this with CS2 and the 3G switch requires some very large files indeed - are you planning to work on huge multilayered files or are you more interested in quickly processing lots of smaller files? - if it's the later better HD performance will be of mimimum benefit.

[shawngibson]

Hi Chris, thanks very much. My files are always approx. .6 to 1+Gb in size, i.e., many layers (usually 20 or more), complex masking, usually 16bit, files meant for a minimum of 17" printed output.

 

I'll start checking into the SCSI solution. I avoided it because it seemed I would dealing with at least 6 units, and controllers etc. but halving that number (and adding big, slow external archiving) changes the story.

 

The most important thing for me is to try and understand this stuff, since I'm making such a committment. It took me months to settle on the processors and board, it might indeed take the same here. I just want to be informed.

 

Shawn

[shawngibson]

Sorry John, at work, I should have read more slowly, got your name inverted and wrong...

[EricM]

can i jump in here? Chiswick, where is this xp pro switch for more than 3 gig of ram?

 

i'm running one box with raid 0, 4 sata 7200 drives on the asus a8n-sli board with 64 bit windows and 4 gigs of ram, and the other box is 32bit raptor 10,000 drives. i wasn't aware of a "switch"....Thanks.

[nicolas_burtnyk]

Eric,<br>

<br>

To allow apps to use up to 3 GB RAM in 32 bit Windows XP, you need service pack 2 and the 3GB switch in boot.ini.

<br><br>

To enable the 3GB switch, just add "/3GB" (no quotes) to the end of the XP boot line in boot.ini in C:\. For example, my boot.ini file looks like:

<br><br>

[boot loader]<br>

timeout=30<br>

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS<br>

[operating systems]<br>

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB

<br><br>

 

--Nic

[chiswick_john]

Do a search on the net for 3gb boot.ini - it makes XP pro alocate a max of 3 rather than 2gb of RAM to an application - in the case of CS2 you get an extra 1gb of RAM to play with. Not worth it on CS or before as they are themselves limited to 2gb. BTW if you go to 64bit OS and CS2 you get a max of 3.75g of RAM going to PS and any more RAM you add gets used by the OS instead of page files on disk - soon it should be economical to run CS2 without ever having to access the performance killing HD except for saving and opening.

[shawngibson]

I'll be starting with 4Gb RAM. OK, I'm out of my league here, what do you suggest?

 

Shawn:)

[regis_helaine2]

for the system yes a raptor

for scratch 2x80Gb raid O will be faster than a raptor and less expensive.

having a raptor for files will show little if any improvement for 99% of your work (the 1% being big batch processing where it can have some impact)

[gluteal cleft]

If you put two 74g raptors in a RAID 0 array, you'll get 148 gigs of space.

 

While RAID 0 gives you amazing throughput, seek latency and other factors (even with raptors) can be the bottleneck. If your disk is trying to access the PS scratch file at the same time it's trying to access another file, then contention and latency will kill you.

 

As others have suggested, use one disk for PS' scratch file, another for your programs/OS installation, and a third for the page OS's file.

 

In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that you probably don't even need raptors, once you've split the three on to different disks (preferably, each on it's own channel), you're already doing pretty well.

 

If you really want to spend money on faster drives, go SCSI, a 10K RPM U320 SCSI drive is barely more than the raptor. Despite the eternal volumes of SCSI-VS-IDE/SATA debates, I have yet to see a person sit down at a workstation with SCSI drives, do any real work, and *not* be impressed. In RAID arrays, I have them from 4-10 drives in IDE, SCSI, and SATA, and I can tell you without question that under heavy I/O, the systems with SCSI arrays have far better responsiveness and performance.

 

Also, while I haven't used raptors, out of I-don't-know-how-many-dozens of SCSI drives, only a couple have gone bad on me over the last 7 years. IDE/SATA drives have given me far, far less reliability. Also note that a lot of IDE drives in the past couple of years are generally NOT rated for 24hr/day usage. When I've used them anyway in RAID arrays (which don't get powered down), the failure rate has been pretty significant.

 

As always, plan to spend more on your disks for backup than on your main disks.

 

steve

[wayne_haas]

"I have still no idea what a paging file/drive/whatsthat thing is ..."

 

Shawn,

 

Within the context of setting-up a high performance storage array, to make such a statement implies that you have far more money than sense (knowledge) relative to the objective in mind. Sort of like a newbie motorcyclist wanting to buy and immediately ride a new Harley ...

 

My intention isn't to be harsh, but do you realize how powerful a powersupply you would need to run six fast drives on top of a dual CPU system reliably? Further, the cooling system you would need to set up would result in a noise level that wouldn't be all that comfortable to work around for extended periods. Given what you are attempting to accomplish, six Raptors would be excessive and unnecessary overkill -- besides, to run this properly you would be advised to use a hard-ware based RAID card(s) which aren't cheap. Unless you are doing video or another type of real-time editing of extremely large source files, there is no justifiable benefit in using RAID 0.

 

The suggestion that you set-up a storage system that uses a dedicated drive each for the OS/APPS, PS scratch file, and source/archive files is fairly standard for a photo editing workstation. If you want to minimize bottlenecks and maximize read/write speed and reliability, you may want to consider 15K SCSI since these drives are designed for 24/7 enterprise servers. Although any drive can prematurely fail, there is less chance that one of three drives will fail when compared to one in six.

 

To be honest though, the only truly fast drive you may really need is the one used as the PS scratch drive, since the scratch file is used in lieu of RAM when the latter has been maxed out. The reason for using a fast drive is that hard-drives are far slower than RAM -- got to make that up somehow. Apart from that, you can easily get by with 7.2K drives for your OS/Apps and storage drives since access speed for these is far less an issue and would reduce unnecessary heat generation.

[EricM]

i'm out of my league here too Shawn :) i am at the mercy of hot rod builders, i just drive.

 

thanks Nicolas and Chiswick, I'll get right on it! I can't believe this thing can go even faster!

[nicolas_burtnyk]

Shawn,

 

I think you're going way overboard and definately overthinking this thing.

At this rate, by the time you get the whole box together you will have something that's no longer bleeding edge and you'll find yourself wondering why you didn't just get a pre-packaged machine like a Dell or a Boxx.

 

IMHO you're going to regret this in the long run....

 

Anyway, regarding these raptors and RAID etc...

If you set up 2x 74GB raptors in a RAID-0 array you end up with a single logical drive of 150GB not 36GB. There is no capacity penalty with RAID-0. The penalty is a drastic increase in the likelyhood of a failure. Also, to claim a 2x 10k rpm RAID-0 array "is like" a 20k rpm drive is bogus. The difference in practise will be only around 10%.

 

Not that I think you should go with RAID anyway but... regarding having multuiple RAID-0 arrays, your controller most likely supports that (but I'm not 100% sure). One thing to check if you want 3 RAID-0 arrays - does the mobo have 6 SATA connectors driven by the RAID controller?

 

If you want a 3 drive setup, OS+Apps/Scratch/Files with separate backup, I recommend going with 2 74GB raptors (OS+Apps, scratch) + 1 300GB 7200rpm drive (files). For better performance (that you'll barely notice in PS) go with SCSI drives and a good controller (it's going to cost you). Like John said above, PS doesn't really benefit from super fast drives. Save your money.

 

Another thing to note - in 32-bit windows world, you cannot address more than 4GB of RAM, so if you install 4GB of physical RAM, don't bother with a swap file (DO bother with a PS scratch drive though).

[shawngibson]

>>Within the context of setting-up a high performance storage array, to make such a statement implies that you have far more money than sense (knowledge) relative to the objective in mind. Sort of like a newbie motorcyclist wanting to buy and immediately ride a new Harley ...

 

I take absolutely no offense to this, because it is completely true. I am someone who wants to build the best computer I can, after finally settling on proc/board. I am certainly far from rich, it will take me months before I can even turn this on.

 

MY point of posting is that I AM as you say 'a newb' and I would like to become education.

 

I've read enough to know that RAID, Raptors and SCSI = performace drives, and in the context of what I want to build, a great computer that will last me at least several years before having to upgrade, I'd like to become educated and make the right choices on the drives. And the video card(s), and setting it all up, etc. (pagefiling, tweaking and general maintenance etc.)

 

This is a big project for me, and in that sense, as someone with a lot of previous experience in the motorcycle world (I used to paint race bikes and owned some pretty fun street bikes in my day) I understand and completely agree with your Harley statement, except that my point here is not to go spend wads of cash and hop on a Harley, it is to learn how to spend the money I am willing to save wisely, to give me a great Photoshop machine. I want to know the difference between flatslides and CVs, as it were, and what of those would be best for this 'bike'...

 

That said, I appreciate, and will study, your post.

 

Thanks kindly:)

[kaiyen]

<p><I>(Take say 6 drives, partition it 20%/80%, strip the 20% together and raid 5 the 80%. the 80% storage space will survive a drive failure and the 20%, well it should be cleaned every night. 20% may be a bit much, maybe you only need 5%, but you get the idea.)</i>

 

<p>Hm. First, I had no idea you could partition drives, then raid the _partitions_ on drives. That's actually fascinating.

 

<p>However, why do this? why not 1 drive for the OS, then, say, a RAID 5 of 3-4 physical drives?

 

<p>allan

[scott_eaton]

Shawn, you can get a 2.4ghz dual core X2 for a lot less money than those 270s, and given you'll find a hard enough time finding apps that support 2 cores let alone 4, the 2.4ghz X2 will be faster for Photoshop.

 

You also won't have to futz around with registered ram.

 

Also note there's no rule that says you need to restrict striping to two drives. The highest performance you'll get with an array of six drives with Photoshop, and also get some redundancy, would be to set up your OS on two drives with RAID 1, and stripe the remaining 4 drives as a home for your swap/scratch files. If you want something that will haul a$$, that will do it.

 

The problem with that many drives though is you need one helluva RAID card to handle them all, and that stock Tyan won't handle it with the integrated controllers. 6 Raptor drives are going to have to be coupled with a big 3Ware SATA RAID or similiar to get any benefit.

 

The S2895UA2NRF version of that board has both onboard SATA II and SCSI controllers. Might be a better option. I've mixed SATA/PATA and SCSI RAID all the time, and it works great.

[shawngibson]

>>the 2.4ghz X2 will be faster for Photoshop.

 

That scares me. I can still change my mind. I thought the whole point was that PSCS2 IS very multi-threading. And most importantly, my understanding is that CS2 'read's 64 bit things, but PS is not yet truly 64 bit. I want to build a system in anticipation of that.

 

I have seen many benchmarks (I hope I can find some to post) and a quad setup always seems to be faster than a 4800+ setup. And by far the fastest times for a couple of operational tests in a recent Adobe post were with 2x265 Opterons and S2885, faster than the X2 representatives.

 

I trust your advice, Scott, but could you give me a bit more to go on. I certainly don't want to buy something I will NEVER get to use with Photoshop.

 

My computer guy will hate me, but let me know and I will reconsider before tomorrow.

 

To be sure: with a a quad, the second processor will NEVER be used by Photoshop, not now, and not in the forseeable future of a few years?

 

Does it make a difference that 10-15% of the time where I am also rendering Plasma/Swift 3D files in the background? Still only one dual-core?

 

I am willing to take this whole loan and plunk it tomorrow on nothing more than processors and board. Let me know if it is 'the best' for CS2 and any hypothetical CS3 you can with assurance imagine.

 

Shawn

[nicolas_burtnyk]

"my understanding is that CS2 'read's 64 bit things, but PS is not yet truly 64 bit."

 

Again, it seems like you're in way over your head. Reading a 64 bit data and being a 64 bit app are not even remotely related. PS is not a 64 bit app yet but most likely will be soon enough. You have that end covered by getting the Opteron 270s or an X2. Note that you'd also need a 64 bit windows to run 64 PS.

 

Regarding 4 vs. 2 cores - if your typical usage scenario is to use PS only with nothing serious going on at the same time (3d rendering, compiling, etc...) then I would say get 2 faster cores rather than 4 slower ones. 4 cores would also make your machine usable for other things (surf web check mail etc..) while your computer is cranking away on your PS doc.

 

Unless you plan on this machine lasting 6 years +, why not just get a fast X2, with 4 GB ram, 3 decent drives (mix speed and capacity) and a sweet monitor. Throw it away in 3 years and do it all over again (at which point your same dollars will probably buy you 8 cores or more and software will actually use them). You can most likely do this for the price of this single exotic machine you are building that you won't even turn on before it's obsolete (ok I'm exaggerating a bit...)

[shawngibson]

How does a 'compromise solution' sound?

 

S2895

 

ONE Opteron 280 (@2.4Ghz).

 

That's a faster proc and still give me the option to throw another one in if it is NEEDED. It's also fairly cheaper and lets me het a Gb or 2 of RAM now. That's the point for me here, like I noted earlier, SCALABILITY. Otherwise an X2 is a no brainer, I'm not a complete idiot LOL. Well OK, maybe I am.

 

Does Tyan 2895 + single Opteron 280 (for now) seem to make more sense?

[chiswick_john]

Nicholas is right and even if you need to do multi tasking it's better to dedicate a seperate machine entierly to other tasks rather than to try and get 1 to do everything. I've been using 2 machines for ages - the fastest one just runs PS and a few other imaging apps and the slower and older one runs everything else - As I upgrade the big machine the old top dog carries on in it's secondary role ( I've not found a use for 3 PC's yet). If you work commercialy it's essential to have a 2nd machine for backup in case your primary goes down. I had that happen once and swore I would never let it happen again. I buy all my PC's ( Dell0 from compaines that specialise in refurbished, returned or overordered machines. I can pick up dual Xeon's for 1/3 the cost from Dell andI upgrade every couple of years. PC's are consumable items with short lifespans - don't sink loads of money into them if you can help it.

[shawngibson]

...unless of course someone can point me to a Socket 939 board that will let me add more than 4 RAM for when PS goes 64bit, i.e., and I would buy that board and an X2 4800+ in a heartbeat.