Hard Drive and File Storage Best method

Hi all, I’ve asked a similar question before about how many hard drives are needed to be optional, and done some testing, and 2 + years of editing experience with resolve.

I’ve been running one 2TB NVMe M2 SSD in an OWC express 4M2 enclosure and getting write speeds of 700 and read speeds of about 800.

I’ve just purchased a second 2 TB NVMe SSD and have raided it to raid zero in the enclosure, and now am getting a read speed of 1050 and a write speed of about 1100. To get speeds in the 1500 range I will need to raid another SSD drive… which I don’t have.

I’m working with 12 camera feeds synced as a multicam to edit with 2 more camera feeds added, plus text and some simple fusion elements (circles and squares), plus some PiP additions.

I can run pretty smoothly using proxies at 1/4 resolution and even playback mostly smoothly without the proxies… though there is a lag of a few seconds when I do something as simple as adding a marker. Or a ripple delete.

I have my operating system on the iMac drive only (specs at end), and have been using the single ssd at the 700/800 speed for months with the original media and proxies on the one drive. I don’t use the render cache at all, since I find it’s annoying and takes time to delete the huge files…
I can’t run anything with my colour corrections on, but have no problems with exporting renders (just time).

Back to my point… the extra speed from setting up raid zero did not improve performance…

Should I:
- just run as 2 individual drives in the box and put raw media on one, and proxies on the other?
-I’m only doing one project at a time so the size for storage is not my driving factor as I use other drives to backup and store archives.
-I also have a 3rd SSD about 400 write speed, but only 500 Gig…

Can anyone suggest a better way to configure/use my drives more efficiently and for better performance?
Or am I doing the best with the system I have?

I’m running a full paid version of resolve 17 (scared to update to 18 as I know 17 welling I’m not interested in cloud features or collaboration) on a;
-iMac 27 inch late 2015
-4 GHz core i7
-32 GB DDR3 memory
-AMD Radeon 4gig graphics card
-2TB internal SSD memory

I’m running the raid box through a USB3 to thunderbolt2 adapter (which the 4M2 box will do by design)

This machine is for editing only and stays off line.

Thanks for your advice

Smooth handling of 12 multicam streams on an iMac from 2015 is, to say the least, 'optimistic'.
It's not your storage, but the whole machine, in particular the GPU, will not be up to it. If you want to stick to MacOS, it's time for a M2 Ultra.

With 12 streams I'd avoid stacking them all at once and go one or two at a time disabling timelines as necessary but that would defeat the purpose of multicam I guess...So, get a better GPU would be my guess (like a 6900XT for mac if your system supports it).

You can't change the GPU in an iMac and an eGPU won't help much either, since it has only TB2.

You can't change the GPU in an iMac and an eGPU won't help much either, since it has only TB2.

Names are confusing . iMac , Mac Desktop ...get a Desktop .

I am using a ‘desktop’ iMac… I believe

Technically speaking, my 12 streams are from 4 cameras and a screen record. Then I’ve;
-duplicated each camera 2 or 3 times and created different zooms and crops.
-I’ve found that making sure no clips are linked in the edit window makes a BIG difference in the way the computer handles playback…

I’m working with what I’m got, and my budget. I am aware I’m pushing the limits WAY beyond… but mostly doing okay with my workflow….

So to clarify a few points;
- running in raid 0 to get 1000/1100 read and write speeds is a waste of time due to no extra gain and,
-and I might be better off unbraiding them and just running as 2 seperate hard drives running at 700/800 speeds?
-would this give me better flexibility?
-should I out the databases on a seperate drive from the operating system and if so what gains/advantages will that provide?

Thank you for all your hints, guidance and advice

- Keep the database on the internal drive, anything else will cause trouble.
Is that a Fusion Drive, as Apple calls it? If you have the technical experience, you might want to exchange it for two SSD storages, one NVMe and one regular. That’s the biggest speed boost you can give to your Mac.

- Use your SSDs separately for the sources

- Use spinning drives only for backups, since the most important point is the access time of your clips.

Which kind of codec are your sources?

Camera codecs are;
- linear PCM, H.264 (4K) Sony A7 iii
- AAC, H.264 (4K) - GoPro x2
- Linear PVC, MPEG-2 .mov (1080) JVC Shoulder cam
- AAC H.264 (1080) - Screencapture


So sounds like the suggestion is:
-seperate the drives
-put raw media on one drive,
-proxies on the other
-database remains on system drive

When I export, should I render to the drive with proxies on?

Thanks