Better performance if renders & media are on separate SSDs?

I have a large project (around 3TB of footage) that needs at least 500MB/s read/write speeds and I see two options for the storage (which must be external b/c my Macs don’t have much internal):

1- One large RAID 0 NVMe Thunderbolt 4 that runs around 2500MB/s read and write. This would hold everything, the media footage, renders, cache, project files, etc. OS is the only thing not on this drive.
2- A smaller RAID 0 NVMe Thunderbolt 3 holding the media footage (running around 1500-1800 MB/s) and another NVMe USBC or Thunderbolt 4 enclosure for the renders, cache, running around (1000MB/s read write in USBC and 1400 MB/s write, 1800MB/s read).

I’ve read that separating the media from the renders is considered preferable, but it’s only mentioned in passing and I haven’t been able to find anything mentioning stats or videos showing the same.

So, can anyone make a recommendation or set me straight on this debate? Of course, any links to video or articles on the subject are also appreciated.

I have a large project (around 3TB of footage) that needs at least 500MB/s read/write speeds and I see two options for the storage (which must be external b/c my Macs don’t have much internal):

1- One large RAID 0 NVMe Thunderbolt 4 that runs around 2500MB/s read and write. This would hold everything, the media footage, renders, cache, project files, etc. OS is the only thing not on this drive.
2- A smaller RAID 0 NVMe Thunderbolt 3 holding the media footage (running around 1500-1800 MB/s) and another NVMe USBC or Thunderbolt 4 enclosure for the renders, cache, running around (1000MB/s read write in USBC and 1400 MB/s write, 1800MB/s read).

I’ve read that separating the media from the renders is considered preferable, but it’s only mentioned in passing and I haven’t been able to find anything mentioning stats or videos showing the same.

So, can anyone make a recommendation or set me straight on this debate? Of course, any links to video or articles on the subject are also appreciated.

Depends on the write and read speed. With nvmes it shouldn't matter that much as long as you have total speed that exceeds that of your source and destination codecs / timeline (multicam).

Also RAID 0 is useless for nvme...I wouldn't use it.

That concept is a bit outdated, it was useful when we were still using spinners.
If there's anything to compute during render, I doubt that you'll see difference. Maybe if you have a format with very high data throughput, like ArriRAW, but not with typical codecs we are normally discussing here.
I'd keep caches on the fastest SSD, though.

Depends on the write and read speed. With nvmes it shouldn't matter that much as long as you have total speed that exceeds that of your source and destination codecs / timeline (multicam).

Also RAID 0 is useless for nvme...I wouldn't use it.

Thank you for that. The RAID 0 is mostly for creating a larger volume so that the entire project can exists on one drive. It's way easier for me to keep up w projects that way--especially when I back them up to a spinning drive. I do this w Card Copy Cloner so only the most recent files are copied over & thus it's a quick process.

The other reason for the RAID 0 is that some external drives run way slower than advertised, especially on M1 macs, and RAIDing them gets around a lot of that. But, if their speeds don't really matter much so long as they're over the required speed for the combined project.

That concept is a bit outdated, it was useful when we were still using spinners.
If there's anything to compute during render, I doubt that you'll see difference. Maybe if you have a format with very high data throughput, like ArriRAW, but not with typical codecs we are normally discussing here.
I'd keep caches on the fastest SSD, though.

Thank you very much for that. Sounds like I should be pretty good either way so long as I'm over the 500MB/s level that my project needs (combining all the sources on one timeline all at the same time). I'll just figure out which makes more sense as far as travel and convenience, and go from there. Thanks!!

Thank you for that. The RAID 0 is mostly for creating a larger volume so that the entire project can exists on one drive.

If you really need that, do JBOD (just a bunch of disks), not RAID 0.

Thank you for that. The RAID 0 is mostly for creating a larger volume so that the entire project can exists on one drive.

If you really need that, do JBOD (just a bunch of disks), not RAID 0.

There are 2 issues w that:
1- there are only so many ports on the MBP unless I want to carry around a hub when I travel. That's doable, but creates another thing to remember to grab when I leave and also it would need a power cord. That amps the chances I make a mistake and leave something behind that I need to work. I'm an idiot and tend to do things like that.
2- I regularly backup the entire project to two or three (spinning) drives. Using Carbon Copy Cloner, it's easy to backup one folder to the backup drives. But, if the project exists on multiple drives then I'd need to back up multiple folders to multiple other folders and the chances of making a mistake multiply.

Better performance if renders & media are on separate SSDs?

I think that's been the general rule for many years. You could make an argument that SSDs are so fast, it kind of doesn't matter if the "virtual heads" have to jump from here to there for a simul read/write. That was a big issue for spinning drives, which would struggle to keep up in that situation.

But if it were me, I'd always use a separate source drive and a separate destination drive, just because it feels like "the right thing to do." If there's a crash during the render, then I know the source drive won't get clobbered and possibly corrupted. There are little portable SSDs that work fine in these cases, even when you're on the road, and it could work efficiently for a portable setup.

If there's a crash during the render, then I know the source drive won't get clobbered and possibly corrupted. There are little portable SSDs that work fine in these cases, even when you're on the road, and it could work efficiently for a portable setup.

That is an excellent point!! I had not thought of that, so thank you!

If there's a crash during the render, then I know the source drive won't get clobbered and possibly corrupted. There are little portable SSDs that work fine in these cases, even when you're on the road, and it could work efficiently for a portable setup.

That is an excellent point!! I had not thought of that, so thank you!

If the drive (non mechanical) gets corrupted during a computer crash then it gets corrupted. I doubt it makes a difference if its source or destination. The chance of this happening with SSD/Nvme is slim (hardware failure) since there are no mechanical parts involved. But if it makes you feel safer, you can still use separate source and destination drives. Its not "wrong".

For example we use QLC drives to edit from. They are great read speed and size wise but have poor writing capabilities after the cache is filled. So when its time to render out, we render to a smaller high speed nvme.

Regarding my other post. JBOD is another option when creating RAID. The drives will be seen as one volume while data will be written across multiple disks in the same fashion as normal disks. Its a little bit better than RAID 0 (minus the extra speeed) since when one of the drives in the JBOD fails, the data on the remaining drives can still be accessed. You don't get that with RAID0, when one of the drives fails all the data is gone.

Thank you very much for that!! That's a very smart use of QLC drives. I had always read simply not to use them and didn't know that their read speeds were good and only their write speeds were slow.

I also didn't know that JBOD worked that way. Interesting. I may have to consider that.

Anyway, thank you again! Damn, you taught me some things today!!