As for SAS
SAS:
I read a review in the last Sound on Sound magazine, they do tests concerning sample streaming and audio track replay at rates such as 24 bit and 96 khz, loading Reverb Units and playing virtual instruments.
The conclusion was that SAS did not provide a considerable boost in performance concerning the required audio performance compared to non SAS mac's. The Tester concluded that the perfomance boost probably makes sense for people that use HD video streaming in programs such as Adobe Premiere or similiar, but questioned the capital expenditure for other applications.
As Jack said, the prices for the RAID controller and (here) 300 Gig SAS drives are extraordinary high, and you can not mix it with regular SATA 2in the Mac Pro.
My thoughts concerning such storage solutions are:
- Performance
Does it really give me an edge in terms of real world applications? Programs such as NUENDO seem not to benefit THAT much from it, and sample playback does not need it either, here RAM is rather important. Current SATA 2 drives already have a high performance for such applications.
- Reliability
That is a different cattle of fish. Raid 5 allows to have a fully mirrored OS and Dataprotection. But do I really need that? Back in 2001 I decided that I have more advantage from a striped Raid-0 with Raptor SATA 1 drives, but this was at a time where these babies outperformed literally everything else on the market in terms of datatransfer and speed. This has changed now, may be not with the new Velociraptors, and I will have a look into them as well, also because they are really enterprise class HD's.
- Cost/Benefit
What does it bring in terms of benefits? Photoshop and other stuff will hopefully feel comfortable with 16 Gigs, so a scratch disc as fast as possible is not really needed for me.
OK, I can see one more practical point, say I come home from a Trip with my MBP and transfer files on a DAS/NAS/SAN whatever, (at least for NAS) I do not even need to start the MCP to acess and transfer files. Then again, My maschines are on most of the time when I am in the office, I can't see that "bad" habitt changing. LOL
Then again, it is not likely that I will add another Mac any time soon, so I literally have 2 to deal with, apart from PC's, this might be different for you guys.
So, I think I can just run a Gigaswitch and connect MCP, MBP, Printer, DAW controller etc. and my MBP has access to all drives on the MCP, admittedly, the MCP has to be switched on including external drives.
An empty NAS controller box for example from linksys would cost me in the region of 600 euro.
Then again 600 euro would buy me 2x 2GB Lacie Ethernet Discs, or 2x WD 2GB NAS Discs.
....choices, choices, choices
Then again, it sure has the Uebergizmoeffect <grins>
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10458