Ableton Forum

If i were to set up a RAID aray in a NAS box and use it to save all my Live work to, would i notice any drop in performance? I am guessing that Live works entirely in its temp directory until you save a file, so that should mean i won't notice anything right?

Just to be clear i understand that i could work normally and then manually copy over files to the backup box, but i am too lazy and forgetful to do that so i'd like to actually save directly to the drive but keep the temp directory on my wndows drive.

Probably a stupid question but i want to make sure before i go spending some money....

A lot of people use firewire attached drives.

You should have far superior performance using a NAS.

1. your network card is better performance than firewire connection.
2. raid will give better performance than a single drive.

Good stuff, thanks for the reply

Firewire has (AFAIK) speed up to 800 Mbit/s. Ethernet comes in (at least) three flavours: 10 Mbit/s, 100 Mbit/s or 1 Gbit/sec. Unless you have a gigabit ethernet, Firewire will be much faster.

Instead of having a NAS, an internal SATA RAID will give you much better performance.

RAID does not always equal better performance. The only RAID array that will increase your performance is also the type that offers zero redundancy, which is RAID0 (striping). RAID1 (mirroring) will decrease your performance over 1 drive. RAID5 (striping with redundancy) will be faster than RAID1, but still slower than 1 drive.

Also, as of now, firewire is always faster than ethernet over twisted pair copper (cat5e). 1Gbit eithernet over copper does not actually run at 1024 MBit, it's usually between 500 and 700 Mbit. Plus, firewire streams data better than ethernet.

I save all of my work to an internal SATA drive and then use Second Copy (http://www.centered.com) to backup to a NAS and do a weekly backup to a usb drive which I take off-site once a week.

OriginalSpaceMan wrote:RAID does not always equal better performance. The only RAID array that will increase your performance is also the type that offers zero redundancy, which is RAID0 (striping). RAID1 (mirroring) will decrease your performance over 1 drive. RAID5 (striping with redundancy) will be faster than RAID1, but still slower than 1 drive.

Also, as of now, firewire is always faster than ethernet over twisted pair copper (cat5e). 1Gbit eithernet over copper does not actually run at 1024 MBit, it's usually between 500 and 700 Mbit. Plus, firewire streams data better than ethernet.

I save all of my work to an internal SATA drive and then use Second Copy (http://www.centered.com) to backup to a NAS and do a weekly backup to a usb drive which I take off-site once a week.

Hmm....

Both RAID 1 and RAID 5 benefit from simultaneous multiple drive reads. Both are faster than single drives.

Writes are slightly slower on RAID 5, but reads will be much faster.

joesapo wrote:

OriginalSpaceMan wrote:RAID does not always equal better performance. The only RAID array that will increase your performance is also the type that offers zero redundancy, which is RAID0 (striping). RAID1 (mirroring) will decrease your performance over 1 drive. RAID5 (striping with redundancy) will be faster than RAID1, but still slower than 1 drive.

Also, as of now, firewire is always faster than ethernet over twisted pair copper (cat5e). 1Gbit eithernet over copper does not actually run at 1024 MBit, it's usually between 500 and 700 Mbit. Plus, firewire streams data better than ethernet.

I save all of my work to an internal SATA drive and then use Second Copy (http://www.centered.com) to backup to a NAS and do a weekly backup to a usb drive which I take off-site once a week.

Hmm....

Both RAID 1 and RAID 5 benefit from simultaneous multiple drive reads. Both are faster than single drives.

Writes are slightly slower on RAID 5, but reads will be much faster.

True, but I always assume that the writing will be the bottle neck. What's the point of a library if you're not going to write to it.

In audio applications, reading ought to be the bottleneck. Streaming audio tracks/samples etc from disc is what you typically do. Of course if you record like ten simultaneous mics, writing might be crucial too.

Don't forget the ethernet TCP IP network protocol overhead. You could get quite a performance from a NAS, but direct attached storage is alway's better.

Cheers

See also
Which one faster > Ext. drive via USB2 or Gigabit Ethernet?


- - - Fastest - - -

- Serial SCSI (direct attached)
- Serial ATA (direct attached)
- Parallel ATA (direct attached)
- Firewire 800 (Mbit)
- Firewire 400 (Mbit)
- USB 2 (is 480MBit in theory but fw 400Mbit is faster in practice)
- Ethernet 1000Mbit NAS (is slower because of network protocol overhead)
- Ethernet 100Mbit NAS
- USB 1.1

- - - Slowest - - -

joesapo wrote:

OriginalSpaceMan wrote:RAID does not always equal better performance. The only RAID array that will increase your performance is also the type that offers zero redundancy, which is RAID0 (striping). RAID1 (mirroring) will decrease your performance over 1 drive. RAID5 (striping with redundancy) will be faster than RAID1, but still slower than 1 drive.

Also, as of now, firewire is always faster than ethernet over twisted pair copper (cat5e). 1Gbit eithernet over copper does not actually run at 1024 MBit, it's usually between 500 and 700 Mbit. Plus, firewire streams data better than ethernet.

I save all of my work to an internal SATA drive and then use Second Copy (http://www.centered.com) to backup to a NAS and do a weekly backup to a usb drive which I take off-site once a week.

Hmm....

Both RAID 1 and RAID 5 benefit from simultaneous multiple drive reads. Both are faster than single drives.

Writes are slightly slower on RAID 5, but reads will be much faster.

RAID5 does support striped writes, actually.

sqook wrote:

joesapo wrote:

OriginalSpaceMan wrote:RAID does not always equal better performance. The only RAID array that will increase your performance is also the type that offers zero redundancy, which is RAID0 (striping). RAID1 (mirroring) will decrease your performance over 1 drive. RAID5 (striping with redundancy) will be faster than RAID1, but still slower than 1 drive.

Also, as of now, firewire is always faster than ethernet over twisted pair copper (cat5e). 1Gbit eithernet over copper does not actually run at 1024 MBit, it's usually between 500 and 700 Mbit. Plus, firewire streams data better than ethernet.

I save all of my work to an internal SATA drive and then use Second Copy (http://www.centered.com) to backup to a NAS and do a weekly backup to a usb drive which I take off-site once a week.

Hmm....

Both RAID 1 and RAID 5 benefit from simultaneous multiple drive reads. Both are faster than single drives.

Writes are slightly slower on RAID 5, but reads will be much faster.

RAID5 does support striped writes, actually.

Sure, but writing parity info cuts into that. IMO RAID 10 is the best. Striping and mirroring.

joesapo wrote:...
Sure, but writing parity info cuts into that. IMO RAID 10 is the best. Striping and mirroring.

The performance depends on the used RAID controler (chip). Using modern disks and controler will give a very good performance for direct attached drives.

NAS is going to suck big time (compared to FW800 or even FW400/USB2) unless you have a NAS that supports gigabit with jumbo frames, and an entire network setup that supports it too. This doesn't come cheap. Whoever said that NAS would be better then FW up the top should stop blowing smoke out of his ass.

The majority of cheap NAS devices on the market don't even have gigabit, let alone jumbo frames. The 1000Mbps bit rate gets bogged down with packet overhead without the jumbo frames.

Bottom line: unless you are buying some expensive gear, just go firewire (or USB2 if you are a PC using, mac hating mofo ).

Hello,

old thread but a relevant question for you who work towards a NAS.

What's the optimal settings for you in Ableton and in your NAS?

I looking forward to hear your thoughts.

Kind regards,
A.