Will mirroring an external SSD that's being edited off of to a non SSD external slow the editing process?

Report · Feb 08, 2017

I'm going to be editing projects off of a dock with two 1TB SSD's using thunderbolt 2. One SSD will be freelance projects, and the other SSD will be independent projects. I'm trying to think of the best way to back up these 2 different drives as I work on them, and it dawned on me to mirror one SSD to a 1TB LaCie w/thunderbolt and another SSD with another LaCie. I figure I can mirror the SSD's to the two different LaCie's, but will that slow down my editing process? If so, how much would it slow down my editing process?

I want a fast setup, but I also want reliability (duh). I know it's worth paying more $ for a setup that you won't lose everything dependent on one external drive. Thoughts?

ITEMS BEING USED:

- OWC Drive Dock - Dual Drive Bay Solution in stock at MacSales.com

- 1.0TB SSD: Mercury Electra 6G 2.5" 7mm SATA 6.0Gb/s Solid State Drive x2

- Amazon.com: LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 1 TB 9000488: Computers & Accessories x2

I'm also open to other suggestions, however, I still want to know about the mirroring of two drives changing speed of editing process.

Thanks!

Report · Feb 08, 2017

i would think the transfer speeds will try to max out the drives performance and you will likely notice it while trying to edit. if you are thinking of doing a raid 1 mirror, i would advise against it. raid-1 is for disk failures, not backups. you should look at folder/file sync software instead that can be configured to skip deleted files (so if something happens to the original file it won't delete it on the backup drive) and versioning (so it will keep multiple copies of files as they are overwritten instead of just overwrite). so then if you can find a file/folder sync software program that also has an option to control transfer speeds, you could limit its speeds till you are happy with the performance while editing. i don't use mac, but quickly looked and found a program called GoodSync that claims to have those functions, including file speed limit (not sure if it was for internet limit or also for local file speeds). you would have to check for which software is best or best for your needs...