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Originally
posted 10/04/02 by rob-ART
morgan, Three new
FireWire RAID storage products got my
attention: The Miglia MediaBank, Wiebetech RAID,
and Granite Digital FireVue Hot-Swap RAID system.
The idea is to put two drives in one box to create
a compact, all-in-one dual drive striped or
mirrored RAID. Being a speed guy, the striped RAID
0 results are posted herein. One key
distinction about the Wiebetech RAID is that it
is bundled with a fast FireWire PCI card. Why
do you need a FireWire card if you already have
built-in FireWire? Because to get the fastest
transfer rates with a FireWire RAID pair, you have
to have two channels. Not two ports. Two channels,
or controllers, if you will. Adding a FireWire PCI
card to built-in FireWire, in effect, creates a
second channel. You'll see in the charts below what
a difference that makes. (PowerBooks can do the
same thing by using a CardBus FireWire card in
addition to the built-in FireWire.) I understand that
Miglia will be offering a dual channel FireWire
PCI card in November as an option to buyers of
the MediaBank. Can't wait to test that one. Granite
Digital already offers a FireWire PCI card as an
option (haven't tried it, yet). For this round of
testing, I used Wiebetech's FireWire card to create
a second channel on all three test
units. All three systems
used IBM 120GXP drives. And just for "fun,"
I threw in the test results for a three drive RAID
using three FireWire channels. REAL WORLD
TESTS Duplicating the
457MB "pak0.pk3" file from Quake3 is my favorite
test since it forces the drive to read and write to
itself at the same time. By setting
Photoshop's memory size to 41MB and having it
rotate a 45MB document, I force it to write to the
scratch disk... which is defined as the RAID pair
being tested. I have a 5 second
uncompressed movie (177MB). In this test, I force
QuickTime Player to playback all frames. As you can
see, even the triple drive array can't play back in
true real time. BENCHMARKS -
INTECH's QUICKBENCH X PERFORMANCE
ANALYSIS Needless to say,
the 3 channel triple drive RAID was fastest but of
the 2 channel dual drive RAID's, the
WiebeTech
RAID
had the edge in all but one test. The speed
advantage would have been even greater than other
two RAID setups if they hadn't "borrowed" the
Wiebetech fast FireWire PCI card for their second
channel. The
Granite
Digital Hot-Swap
RAID came
in at a close second in speed. Actually, I didn't
test their 2 bay RAID system. I used two Hot-Swap
case kits to create a dual drive array. But results
are valid since the "guts" are the same as the
Granite's 2 bay FireWire Hot-Swap RAID
system. The
Miglia
MediaBank MT-R
came in a close third. As you can see from the
graphs, if you run it just like it comes from the
factory (with no FireWire PCI card creating dual
channels), the speed gain over a single drive is
negligible. (Watch for Miglia's optional dual
channel FireWire card in November.) Now for a little
perspective. Not only are FireWire drives slower
than the same drive on an Ultra ATA interface, but
FireWire RAIDs are slower than Ultra ATA RAIDs.
Yet if you want something external, portable, and
hot-pluggable, they are definitely the way to go
for auxillary storage. For Digital Video
jockies, you might consider a dual channel, dual
drive setup for capturing analog video and audio on
separate drives (or together on a RAID array),
thereby minimizing the loss of audio
sync. If you plan to
use a PCI FireWire card as a second FireWire
channel, be advised that not all FireWire PCI
host adapters are created equal. I tested 12
cards recently. Although the read speed with an IBM
120GXP was 33MB/sec, the write speed varied from
16MB/sec to 29MB/sec. None of them were as fast as
internal FireWire. The two fastest cards had a
Texas Intruments (Ti TSB43AB23) host controller
(and well-written firmware). COMMENTS ON
FEATURES AND CONSTRUCTION The
Miglia
MediaBank MT-R
is a FireWire RAID case kit built like a Brinks
truck. Being a guy who likes to diassemble and
reassemble, I'm very impressed with the contruction
materials and design. The stiff, rounded metal case
is held together with four machine screws. The dual
80 conduction ribbon cables are split
longitudinally so you can contort them to fit the
drive connector location. It sports dual FireWire
bridgeboards, one for each drive plus two FireWire
ports per card. (See photos
of the insides
on the MediaBank web page.) Installation of your
the drives is a breeze using thick brackets. It
includes a cooling fan even though the power supply
is external. It comes bundled with CharisMac's
RAID software for both OS 9 and OS X (plus
RaidToolBox for Windows). The
WiebeTech
RAID is a
smaller and lighter aluminum case I affectionately
call "The Blazing Brick." It could actually fit
inside the Miglia case. It sports dual bridgeboards
like the Miglia but adds separate power supplies
for each board. That provides added reliability in
a case where you are running a mirrored array 24/7.
One half can "die" and the other half keeps going.
Although it only has one FireWire port per
bridgeboard, the bundled FireWire card comes three
ports. The
Granite
Digital Hot-Swap
RAID is
made of heavy plastic with metal liner. It is
larger than the other two tested. I call this one
the "HumVee" of FireWire case kits. The drives sit
in removable trays. A neon light lets you know when
the tray is installed correctly. A tumbler lock and
key is included to secure the tray from
"unauthorized removal." It sports two fans: one to
cool the drives and one to cool the internal power
supply. You can "build" a
"do-it-yourself" FireWire RAID system
similar in speed to those I tested if have the
following: WHY IBM DRIVES
INSTEAD OF WESTERN DIGITAL? I tried the Western
Digital WD1200JB's with the 8MB buffer. Inside the
FireWire boxes, the sustained read speed was 19%
slower than the IBM 120GXP's. The WD pair was the
same speed or slower in every test except the
Photoshop Rotate in which they were 30% faster.
(Jumbo buffer?) WHERE TO
BUY The
WiebeTech
RAID can
be ordered directly from Weibetech in four
different drive configurations. Prices start at
$499. The Miglia
MediaBank
case kit is available from MacMall for $249 (BYOD -
bring your own drives). The
Granite
Digital Hot-Swap
RAID
systems are available with 2, 4 or 8 bays direct
from Granite. (Drive not included.) You might want
to take a look at Granite's
SMART RAID system.
It displays the drive status on an LCD panel and
tells you when a drive is about to fail. That's
invaluable when reliablity is as important as
speed. For good prices
on the IBM 120GXP and 180GXP drives, check with
GoogleGear. The fastest
FireWire PCI card is available direct from
FWDepot.com
(part# BTFWUSBPCI).
They have a new model (U2FW-PCI01) with the same
controller chip that includes USB 2.0 ports. The
second fastest card is available from
WiebeTech. My favorite
FireWire cables are the white flexible ones from
the Apple
Online Store.
(See cables section -- free ground shipping
currently) LINKS TO
RELATED ARTICLES FireWire
RAID vs ATA-133 HW RAID Which
drive works best in an ATA RAID: WD1200JB or IBM
120GXP? Listing
of archived storage tests from Bare
Feats TEST
NOTES The test "mule"
was my trusty Apple
G4/1000 MP "SDR" Power Mac with 1.5 1GB of PC133
CL2 SDRAM and 120GB IBM 120GXP boot drive running
OS X (10.2.1). Software used to
create the striped RAID 0 pairs was
Apple's
Disk Utility RAID function. (It also supports
mirrored RAID 1 pairs.) REAL WORLD TESTS
included... 2. Duplicating
a 457MB document on the test drive(s).
3. Playing
back every frame of a 5 second 177MB
uncompressed movie using Quicktime
Player BENCHMARKS |
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© 2002 Rob Art
Morgan "BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS" Email webmaster at rob-art@barefeats.com
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