How to Use 32TB or 40TB of 8TB Hard Drives?
Related: hard drive, HGST, How-To, Other World Computing, RAID, RAID-4, RAID-5
Get HGST 8TB Ultrastar He8 Hard Drive or OWC Thunderbay 4 RAID-5 edition at OWC.
Update: OWC has a special price on the 8TB HGST Ultrastar He8 for MPG readers.
Performance is covered in the MPG in-depth review of the HGST 8TB Ultrastar He8 hard drive. But what are the best ways to utilize and backup such storage?
Photographers and videographers may have particular needs for high performance or for fault tolerance or both performance and fault tolerance at the same time (RAID-4 / RAID-5). Yet for many users there is ample capacity, so there are also simple ways to proceed and achieve a robust system for primary storage and nearline (always attached) backup.
Four different examples of how to put 4 or 5 high capacity drives to use, used in an OWC Thunderbay 4 with one Thunderbolt cable*:
- Using High Capacity Drives Singly (non-RAID)
- Using High Capacity Drives in a RAID-0 Stripe Volume
- Using High Capacity Drives as Single Large RAID-4 / RAID-5 Volume
- Using High Capacity Drives as RAID-4 / RAID-5, Multiple Volumes
* USB3 is a not a good choice except for very basic systems.
