SoftRAID has many features that improve the RAID system. For example, you can optimize the system for general workstation, server, digital video, digital audio, or digital photography.

While you're gathering data, I found the discussion of RAID from OWC to be quite useful, especially the sections on Levels, Uses, and Options. For example, RAID 1-0 is about 30% slower on writes than RAID 4 or 5.
https://www.softraid.com/raid/

In looking at items in their news section, a couple of other things I didn't know:
-- When you get an OWC system with the drives, they do a full certification of the drives before shipping. That is, they run the full certify process for every drive, checking read/write for every sector, which takes 1 to 2 days. The SoftRAID app can do this also, which they recommend for new drives if you buy them separately.
-- SoftRAID can also certify SD and other cards, which helps alert you if a card is starting to fail. Good to know before a photo shoot.
-- SoftRAID is integrated tightly with the macOS kernel, making it very efficient for reads and writes.

SoftRAID shows data on the hours of use, I/O errors, and SMART status (general health), which can help indicate when a drive is nearing the end of its life before it crashes. A SoftRAID icon in the task bar turns from blue to yellow or red if there are any errors. Here is a screenshot showing some of the error checking in SoftRAID on my system.

Hi All!

Have been lurking for years but this is my first post so be gentle :-) (and thank you to everyone for the great information over the years!)

I have a new MacBook Pro (not M1). I had been storing all of my images onto an external 8T drive and backing up to a second 8T drive using Time Machine. I also change all drives every year and store the older ones off site. That worked fine but now that I am getting into video, I have added a second 8T drive for small projects and video. Of course 1 8T drive can't back up 2 8T drives and I haven't been able to figure out if Time Machine will backup to 2 separate drives.

I have seen in the past that people are recommending RAID arrays for both speed and redundancy. I searched on UHH and google but would like some experienced users to help to steer me.

I am looking for a reputable company to help me configure an array. I did a quick look on B&H but am thinking that I should maybe be looking at a computer company instead.

I would appreciate any help/advice.

Thanks!

Suzanne

Hi All!

Have been lurking for years but this is my first post so be gentle :-) (and thank you to everyone for the great information over the years!)

I have a new MacBook Pro (not M1). I had been storing all of my images onto an external 8T drive and backing up to a second 8T drive using Time Machine. I also change all drives every year and store the older ones off site. That worked fine but now that I am getting into video, I have added a second 8T drive for small projects and video. Of course 1 8T drive can't back up 2 8T drives and I haven't been able to figure out if Time Machine will backup to 2 separate drives.

I have seen in the past that people are recommending RAID arrays for both speed and redundancy. I searched on UHH and google but would like some experienced users to help to steer me.

I am looking for a reputable company to help me configure an array. I did a quick look on B&H but am thinking that I should maybe be looking at a computer company instead.

I would appreciate any help/advice.

Thanks!

Suzanne

Thanks to everyone who has responded! Thought I'd give y'all an update...

I contacted Apple and they can't do a backup to 2 drives unless I manually disconnect the drives and switch them out so I would have to connect and back up Drive 1 and then disconnect those 2 drives and connect and back up Drive B. So that's a no go BUT using Disk Utility, I can set up RAID 0, RAID 1 or JBOD. I thought that is pretty interesting.

Apple also did not have any information about the RAID systems they sell because they aren't made by Apple.

Tried New Egg - they don't have any techs and can't give advice

Tried MacSales/Other World Computing - closed

B&H - closed

Adorama - closed

Best Buy - after 5 phone calls and multiple disconnects and transfers, I finally reached someone at the Geek Squad who actually knew what RAID is! Spent quite a bit of time with me and this is what we came up with - WD My Cloud PR4100 with Seagate Ironwolf 12T (the 16T aren't available...) it is only a 4 bay case so I was looking for larger drives but it is hard to find things right now.

I haven't purchased anything yet. I still want to contact some other places but at least I have one possible solution!

I guess I should also be looking at something like BackBlaze. I have shied away from it since the last time I looked at cloud storage, it was cost prohibitive.

I really appreciate everyone's advice and information. I feel like I am starting to understand this...

SoftRAID has many features that improve the RAID system. For example, you can optimize the system for general workstation, server, digital video, digital audio, or digital photography.

While you're gathering data, I found the discussion of RAID from OWC to be quite useful, especially the sections on Levels, Uses, and Options. For example, RAID 1-0 is about 30% slower on writes than RAID 4 or 5.
https://www.softraid.com/raid/

In looking at items in their news section, a couple of other things I didn't know:
-- When you get an OWC system with the drives, they do a full certification of the drives before shipping. That is, they run the full certify process for every drive, checking read/write for every sector, which takes 1 to 2 days. The SoftRAID app can do this also, which they recommend for new drives if you buy them separately.
-- SoftRAID can also certify SD and other cards, which helps alert you if a card is starting to fail. Good to know before a photo shoot.
-- SoftRAID is integrated tightly with the macOS kernel, making it very efficient for reads and writes.

SoftRAID shows data on the hours of use, I/O errors, and SMART status (general health), which can help indicate when a drive is nearing the end of its life before it crashes. A SoftRAID icon in the task bar turns from blue to yellow or red if there are any errors. Here is a screenshot showing some of the error checking in SoftRAID on my system.

First, I absolutely recommend waiting until you speak with OWL. They were incredibly helpful on my older MAC when I needed a docking station and working through a thunderbolt rev level compatibility issue. They are legendary when it comes to non-dealer Apple hardware support

Please update us on your journey as it progresses. While not a professional, and therefore not needing massively redundant systems with 100% uptime, I do need to do a better job with onsite and offsite (cloud?) backup of critical files and my (amateur) photo file library. Just want not to lose the files to a catastrophic event or ransomware attack.

As it relates directly to the topic of better backup system, is it possible to hang a RAID type system off of a cable modem/wifi hub (one that supports several different wifi networks), have that be a central household backup server for the 6 computers (mix of apple and windows) for the family, and then have a piece of sofware that regularly backs that up to the cloud (or other offsite secure storage)? I would like to find a way to protect the whole household at once, but not be physically lugging hardware in/out of the house.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but I think this is close enough to the OP’s desire for better backup to be relevant