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RAID HDD compared to USB-C HDD

I have an older HDD RAID set up with Thunderbolt 2. How does the speed of that compare to a new Lacie USB-C drive using HDD? Which is better for FCP video editing? My current iMac does not have Thunderbolt 3, but when I upgrade, will I even want to use the older RAID drive or the USB C drive?

Posted on Jan 13, 2021 12:38 PM

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Posted on Jan 13, 2021 3:50 PM

Raid 0 will be your faster option of the two.

The limiting factor is the spinning drive/s rather than the port.


Here are some of my real world speeds from my stuff.



Raid 0 configured drive with two 7200 rpm drives over Thunderbolt 2:


One Solid State Drive over Thunderbolt 2:


This highlights the fact that the ports are less involved in the read/write speed than the type of drives.

The type of drive will make a huge difference.


Raid 0 with 7200rpm drives will cover a lot of media.

Nowadays 4K vid and higher require more space and more speed AND more expense.


If your current drives do what you require then they are fast enough if not then SSD drives is your best bet to improve performance.


BTW: The older drives are still good for backups and storage space, so they are not redundant just older school tech.


Al

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 13, 2021 3:50 PM in response to Cartoonguy

Raid 0 will be your faster option of the two.

The limiting factor is the spinning drive/s rather than the port.


Here are some of my real world speeds from my stuff.



Raid 0 configured drive with two 7200 rpm drives over Thunderbolt 2:


One Solid State Drive over Thunderbolt 2:


This highlights the fact that the ports are less involved in the read/write speed than the type of drives.

The type of drive will make a huge difference.


Raid 0 with 7200rpm drives will cover a lot of media.

Nowadays 4K vid and higher require more space and more speed AND more expense.


If your current drives do what you require then they are fast enough if not then SSD drives is your best bet to improve performance.


BTW: The older drives are still good for backups and storage space, so they are not redundant just older school tech.


Al

Jan 13, 2021 4:11 PM in response to Alchroma

Thanks for going to the trouble of doing that comparison, but in my case, I am not comparing to SSD, which I know is much faster. It's clear that a RAID is not the way to go if you have a single SSD. I guess what you are saying is that even Thunderbolt 2 is faster than the drive, so it's not the port speed. That brings me back to the original question. You show just under 350 read and write speed for RAID on T2. The USB-C drive says it will do 240 on USB-C, so not as fast as an older RAID HDD on T2. That's what I wanted to know. Thanks so much for your help.

RAID HDD compared to USB-C HDD

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