Need help moving from CDP to Mac Mini music server

Sfar, There is no requirement for drives configured in any type of RAID configuration to be housed in the same enclosure. There might be limitations based on what device is handling the RAID setup (i.e. the controller in the external storage).

Multiple enclosures, multiple paths to the data, etc. are all just additional layers of protection. In the end the goal is to eliminate as many single points of failure as possible/makes sense. Having two seperate disks or enclosures and synching them up manually via a copy or something similar may make sense for some, but setting up a simple RAID 1 or RAID 5 device isn't rocket science, it just takes a little research that anyone on this site can handle with a bit of investigation. Again the end goal is not to lose all of your hard work, whichever method one uses, that method should be good enough. Personally, I'll probably buy 2 internal drives and mirror them with the OS, that will be good enough for me. I'm confidant enough if one drive fails I can get at the data on the second easily enough.
Personally I think the biggest gain in audio quality in this entire setup is going to be the way the data gets from the source componant to the DAC. I don't think the traditional optical and digital coax type of connections will be the way to go once PC based audio really takes off in the high end. Where / how it's stored as well as how it gets there won't be as important as that "last leg" to the DAC. Just my opinion of course.

I forgot to add one thing. One benefit of manually copying the data as Sfar suggests over using an automatically mirrored pair of disks, is if you accidentally delete what is on the active disk, guess what, your mirror is going to remove it as well. That might be reason enough for some to stick with the old manual method.

Thanks snipes, Sfar, and Edesilva for all the HD advice. The only thing that confuses me about the Terastation RAID 5 solution is that if it only has 4 x 250GB drives, how can one of those drives store the data of the other three? I mean, logically it would seem like the most real storage you could have on the Terastation would be <500 GB, since you need to have that much space to mirror it, even if it's done in blocks, right? I understand that having more drives means that you're better covered in the event that one goes down. I think I'm going to go with one of the drives from Other World Computer or Newer Technology (same company: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/) such as the 1TB AL Pro 800 RAID STRIPE FireWire 800/400 for $760. It gets some good reviews in the mac mags and online community, and Allows me have total redundacy (and the housing is nicer than the Terastation). I know the terastation is cheaper and has more features, but it's overkill for me. I have a 1BR apartment, so don't need to feed an entire house. I expect Mac at some point to come out with a real home media computer, so I know all of this is a basic (and hence wasted) investment so I'm just looking to get off the ground.

Still looks like the Benchmark is the way to go, although I'm going to audition the Stello DA220 MK2 against it if the dealer will let me bring it home). So it looks like I'm just around 3 grand depending on the DAC.

Any Mac Mini specs (ram, etc) people recommend? I mean, I usually just load it up, but since this is only for music do I need the extra RAM and Faster core duo processor? Thoughts?

I'm also going to use the AE w/toslink to the DAC for the time being, unless I go with the stello. This way I can locate the computer and drives in a better location.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Keep 'em coming.

-matt

Matt, please post the exact link to the unit you are talking about, I couldn't find it on the site. The word STRIPE in your description has me worried. Striping offers no data protection, it's strictly for increased performance, which is not necessary for streaming audio. As for the confusion concerning the Terrastation R5, the confusion is coming from the two different protection mechanisms. RAID 5 gives you usable space on roughly all the disks minus 1 (parity disk). The implementation is rather confusing, see Edesilva's explanation above. Mirroring you get exactly 1/2 of the total amount of available space for use, one disk has an exact duplicate of the other. Both offer data protection against loss of a single disk, just through different implementations. The main difference to keep in mind is with R5 you need 3 or realistcally 4 disks minimum. R1 (mirroring) only requires two.

Again, please post the link to the exact device. My concern is if it's listed as 800/400. My guess is they are giving you two 400 gb disks and you can either mirror them via R1 and have 400 gb usable or stripe them via RAID 0 and have 800 GB usable. Striping you write across both disks, but different data. If you lose either disk you lose everything.

Matt, be careful, RAID striping gets you transfer speed, not redundancy. Let me try RAID 5 again. Say you want to store 3 numbers -- 012, 147, and 532. With the four disks, RAID 5 puts 012 on Disk A in Block/Sector X. In that same Block/Sector on Disk B, it puts 147. In that same Block/Sector on Disk C, it puts 532. In that same Block/Sector on Disk D, it puts 691, which is the sum of what is on A, B and C in that location. So...

If Disk A goes bad, it can recover the data for Block/Sector X on that disk by taking 691 and subtracting what is on that Block/Sector on Disks B and C: 691-(147+532)= 012.

If Disk B goes bad, it can recover the data for Block/Sector X on that disk by taking 691 and subtracting what is on that Block/Sector on Disks A and C: 691-(012+532)= 147.

If Disk C goes bad, it can recover the data for Block/Sector X on that disk by taking 691 and subtracting what is on that Block/Sector on Disks A and B: 691-(012+147)= 532.

Disk D, obviously, can be recreated from A, B and C. This is a simplistic version, but RAID 5 is higher efficiency than mirroring because the effective storage you get is (N-1)*S, where N=number of identical disks and S=size of disks. For mirroring, obviously, the efficiency is N*S/2.

Maybe the tera isn't pretty, but mine's in my closet, do I don't worry about it. ;)

Good luck--as far as Mac Mini specs go, I bought a 1.4GHz one with the bigger memory package and it was overkill for doing audio.