Setting UP HDDs (Yeah, Again !! )

I've just got my new (Win 7 Professional SP1 x64 // i&-2600K // 16 Gb RAM ) computer commissioned (Thanks Mrs Santa ) with storage as this ............

c: (Boot drive) 120 Gb SSD
d: 2 * 2Tb HDD in RAID 0 = 4 Tb HDD
e: BluRay / DVD / CD Burner
f: 60 Gb SSD
g: 500 Gb HDD

I also have several external HDDs as well as a WD MyBookWorld NAS that contains two 1 Tb drives in a RAID 1 configuration.

I currently have my OS / Browsers / MS Office and a few other "always used" programs on the c: drive.

d: is my "general use" drive, my Windows "User files" (My Documents etc..) are there, as well as a folder d:\program files, I store non-critical programs there (media players / IZarc (awesome program) and the like.

f: Contains my Windows Page File and very little else

g: is basically empty

My basic thinking is.............

c: CS5 and LR Programs would go here
f: LR Cache

As this is a complete revamp that I hope will see me through for a while, what is the best way to utilise this hardware ?

I also need to store the photographs form each shoot (RAW + JPG), so I'm also looking for a recommended file-directory-folder-system configuration to store the shoots.

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Austen.

Quick question, why RAID, and then why RAID 0 for your two 2TB discs?

I agree with Moppie's Raid question - I have nothing against it's use, but just tend to collect "data" drives myself. I've got an external case just set as JBOD as well as a portable for additional backup setup.

Moppie wrote in post #13605938
Quick question, why RAID, and then why RAID 0 for your two 2TB discs?

Thanks Moppie,

A couple of reasons I had them configured as RAID 0..........

Firstly hoping that there would be some (theoretical, if not practical) performance gain over two individual drives ..............

sapearl wrote in post #13605951
......but just tend to collect "data" drives myself.....

Secondly, like sapearl (and I suspect most of us) collecting drive letters gets painful at times, so this way I figured I'd lose at least one drive letter but keep the capacity !!

I really need to sort out a good file-system too, hopefully the one large drive could help there too, but I am open to the idea of external drive(s) for "bulk storage".

Thanks guys,

Austen.

Raid 0 is a horrible idea. I really only think raid should be used for redundancy. You lose one hard drive all of the data is gone and you have to restore both drives. what do you need in the faster performance? Faster read/write seek etc???

gotaudi wrote in post #13606428
Raid 0 is a horrible idea. I really only think raid should be used for redundancy. You lose one hard drive all of the data is gone and you have to restore both drives. what do you need in the faster performance? Faster read/write seek etc???

Thanks gotaudi,

I did think about the "losing data" issues when I went for RAID 0, but decided that probably wasn't too much of a concern.

I figured with two single drives, if one of them died you'd lose 50% of your data (well, need to restore it from your backup), whereas with RAID 0 I'd simply need to restore 100% of my data in the event of a single disk failure.

As for performance, Mrs Santa brought me this new computer for Christmas as she was feeling sorry for me, she saw how I needed to grind up tiny pieces of coal to fire the boilers to raise a sufficient head of steam to get my previous computer to run and it was getting harder and harder to get the hamsters to run any faster, so I really wanted a "high performance" machine this time !

Cheers,

Austen.

charlieharper wrote in post #13604252
... as well as a folder d:\program files,...

Hope you don't mind a quick question - I'm sure there's a simple answer. I am using an SSD as my boot disk and have room on it for a few programs. But the rest of my programs are on the D: drive.

Everything's fine but occasionally I'll run into a program that won't allow a custom install to D:. In many of those cases I'll get an %appdata% not found error message (or something similar), probably because the installation is looking at the wrong drive. I have all the user files moved to D: but did I neglect a setting or did I miss a step in mapping something?

Afraid can't really help you there cacawcacaw......But all I can tell you is that at some time I might of told a program to install to D:\ (As opposed to D:\Programs) because I notice that I have a folder called D:\Program Files (x86).

I reasonably sure I didn't create this (x86) folder.

But those few that I have to this stage installed to D:\Programs seem to be working OK .......

Sorry I really can't be much help

Cheers,

Austen.

Actually Raid 0 is not a bad idea IF you are consistent with making backups to an external source. It would be a good place to put your working photos without having to put them on the SSD. You would get the benefits of increased speed with Raid 0, and still have redundancy with your backups elsewhere. But it would be important to copy your photos to both the Raid 0 (to be worked on) and an external drive(s) - ideally at the same time when you're copying them from your memory card.

Use that second SSD as the LR cache, pagefile and PhotoShop scratch location. Hopefully both SSD's are the newer Sata III.

My next setup will be the upcoming i7 3770K with dual SSDs like yours and HDDs for storage.

Thanks solara,

Do I want to use my D:\ drive (my 2 * 2 Tb RAID 0) drive as a "permanent" storage for "old" shoots, or would I be best storing the old shoots on external drives ?

Like I said, I haven't got around to un-shrink-wrapping my new LR3 and CS5 programs, but IIRC on my previous installation of LR3 there was the option to automatically copy the files to two different places (working HDD (D:\) and external drive) on import from the memory cards ??

Yes, Both of the SSD's are SATA III

What is a good file-structure to use as far as storing, cataloguing, indexing your photographs, given that I might want to find a photograph of "Susan" taken at "The beach" in "December" wearing a dress designed by "Marco"....When I can only remember one or two of these keywords ?

Thanks,

Austen.

I suppose you could use the RAID 0 for storage, but sooner or later, you'll run out of space, and the point of RAID 0 is for speed, not redundancy. Best to store old shoots on an external HDD and/or DVD/Blu-Ray.

I don't use LR so I'm not sure about the options to import.

As for file structure, sorry I can't help you there. But I'm sure someone who has a good system set up that would address your needs will chime in. I'm only a hobbyist, and I don't take many shots, so I just keep mine under folders for the months they were taken.

solara wrote in post #13609918
..... Best to store old shoots on an external HDD and/or DVD/Blu-Ray......

Thanks solara, I tend to think that this might not be an inappropiate strategy......Every three or four or whatever shoots, move them from the computers HDDs to something else, I haven't done the maths, but I suspect external HDDs (say 1 - 1.5 Tb) would actually be significantly cheaper then burning to BluRay disks, and at 4Gb / DVD disk, that would be just toooo painful, no matter how cheap it is !!

solara wrote in post #13609918
..... ......As for file structure, sorry I can't help you there. But I'm sure someone who has a good system set up that would address your needs will chime in. I'm only a hobbyist, and I don't take many shots, so I just keep mine under folders for the months they were taken.

Oh, please don't get me wrong, I'm a Mark-I amateur myself, but I'd still like to have a half-decent file structure to organise the shoots with !!

Cheers,

Austen.

I know Lightroom is a great cataloging program and allows you to add keywords to each photo. Then presumably you could search for certain keywords (don't use Lightroom myself). Keyword catagories like photographer, subject, season, etc. would be useful

That's probably your best bet since you plan to use Lightroom.

Googling Photo tagging shows this program: http://www.itagsoftwar​e.com/

I know the freeware FastStone (http://www.faststone.o​rg/FSViewerDetail.htm) has a tagging feature but I have not tried that feature yet. I actually use FastStone to browse my photos, and then can go directly to Photoshop by pressing 'E' within the program.