I'm very close to placing my order for a 9860 with 2 80 Gig SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration. To support my gaming fun, this notebook needs to double as a video editing workstation using AVID Xpress Pro software and Mojo, an external device that connects via the firewire port. Mojo allows for input/output of uncompressed video.
My problems:
Problem 1) I have been informed that setting up with a single RAID 0 array as my boot drive and video storage might give me poor performance for video editing. The consensus being that the constant reading and writing of small bits of data to the boot drive works against the need to read & write large continuous video files.
Could the improved bus speed and architecture of this notebook alleviate any bottlekneck concerns?
If I partition the RAID array into two and boot off of one partition and use the other for media, would this potential problem be solved?
Could I add an external firewire drive via a pc card to serve as a boot drive? (reason for not using internal firewire port- see problem 2).
Could the 9860 be retrofitted with an third internal drive like the 8890?
I'd hate to lose internal SATA RAID capabilities for uncompressed video (and soon HD) stream throughputs. I could sacrifice RAID for two non-striped drives- one boot and one media- but I would lose storage space and uncompressed video capabilities.
Problem 2) The Mojo device connected to the internal firewire interface doesn't like to share the PCI bus segment with any other devices, like RAID controllers. I've read that the PCI bus can become saturated - thus causing glitches with Mojo.
Does the 9860 have multiple PCI bus segments?
Does the internal firewire port share the PCI bus segment with any other devices? The firewire port of the Sager 8890 did share the same bus segment with its RAID controller.
If the PROMISE raid controller occupies the PCI bus segment, could I use the onboard Intel Raid controller (which has no conflicts with the PCI bus)?
I know it's alot of questions but any help would be appreciated.
My problems:
Problem 1) I have been informed that setting up with a single RAID 0 array as my boot drive and video storage might give me poor performance for video editing. The consensus being that the constant reading and writing of small bits of data to the boot drive works against the need to read & write large continuous video files.
Could the improved bus speed and architecture of this notebook alleviate any bottlekneck concerns?
If I partition the RAID array into two and boot off of one partition and use the other for media, would this potential problem be solved?
Could I add an external firewire drive via a pc card to serve as a boot drive? (reason for not using internal firewire port- see problem 2).
Could the 9860 be retrofitted with an third internal drive like the 8890?
I'd hate to lose internal SATA RAID capabilities for uncompressed video (and soon HD) stream throughputs. I could sacrifice RAID for two non-striped drives- one boot and one media- but I would lose storage space and uncompressed video capabilities.
Problem 2) The Mojo device connected to the internal firewire interface doesn't like to share the PCI bus segment with any other devices, like RAID controllers. I've read that the PCI bus can become saturated - thus causing glitches with Mojo.
Does the 9860 have multiple PCI bus segments?
Does the internal firewire port share the PCI bus segment with any other devices? The firewire port of the Sager 8890 did share the same bus segment with its RAID controller.
If the PROMISE raid controller occupies the PCI bus segment, could I use the onboard Intel Raid controller (which has no conflicts with the PCI bus)?
I know it's alot of questions but any help would be appreciated.
