Instruction manual

Using Blackmagic MultiDock
9
Setting up a RAID for High Speed Performance and Data Security
Blackmagic MultiDock supports 2 levels of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks). RAID level
0 stripes your drives together so they are recognized by your computer as one single drive to increase
performance. RAID level 1 configures two drives so one is always mirrored by the other, which increases
data security.
Striping your drives as a RAID shares data over a set of drives which requires careful management. It’s
also worth noting that if you’re striping drives as a RAID, stripe only a set of SSDs or a set of HDDs, not a
combination of both.
RAID Level 0 for High Speed Performance
When using HDDs for uncompressed video capture and playback, it's beneficial to stripe 2 to 4 drives
together as a RAID. Sharing the data amongst a pair of drives doubles the total capacity, plus decreases
their workload, so you get faster performance. Similarly, configuring 3 or 4 drives as a RAID level 0 triples or
quadruples, their total drive capacity. For example, a computer will recognize 4 x 1 terabyte drives striped
using level 0 RAID as 1 single 4 terabyte drive.
When drives are striped together in a RAID set, be careful not to unplug any of the drives while your
computer is powered, otherwise you may lose all your data. When using RAID, shut down your computer
before removing or swapping drives.
SSDs can also be striped together as a level 0 RAID, however, performance increases are generally limited
to workflows using large sequential files, such as reading and writing Ultra HD, 4K, or uncompressed
video files. For general every day tasks, the performance increase is negligible so you should probably
use single SSDs.
When detecting drives, Blackmagic MultiDock looks for drive names, therefore a set of drives configured as
a RAID can be plugged into any of Blackmagic MultiDock’s 4 drive bays.
3 SSDs being striped as a level 0 RAID using Disk Utility on Mac
OS X.