[Richie Tovell] "I found that 8 or so relatively cheap 60 gig SSD's in a raid array configuration will provide a read write speed of over 2 gig per second, with a total storage of nearly 500 gig."
It sounds like you're suggesting RAID 0 for your setup, which offers no redundancy. If a single drive were to fail, you'd lose all your data.
Also, many of the low-cost, low-capacity SSD drives were based on a JMicron chipset which performs erratically and unreliably. The only SSD drive I use and trust at this point is the Intel X25 series, which are wonderful, but pricey.
Using an SSD as your main drive for your OS and apps will give you a big speed boost opening and running applications, but since your renders are running your processors at capacity, reading and writing footage faster won't help you render any faster.
If you're interested in a RAID, I'd suggest getting a RAID system with standard hard disks from an established vendor like CalDigit or Maxx Digital (or any of the folks who advertise here -- they are all good). You can get an uncompressed-HD-capable RAID 5 system which will offer you both speed and redundancy with great support from the vendor, and the price/performance still beats SSDs by a mile.
Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production
