raid for SE

[rycar_m]

i am planning to buy an outboard raid for SE and want the consel of the good and knowlegeable talent within this forum.

i do mostly dv,hdv and mpeg and haaav a dual xeon ht emt64 dell precision 470 with 2gb ram and ati fire gl 3001

from experience i know that a good raid gives a lot of performance boost.

i am deciding between a call digit svr2 and a lacie raid both are pci -e based and cost about the same though the la cie claims 115 mbs and the call digit claims 140 mbs, the main difference is that the la cie also works via 1394 and usb thus making it portable where as th cal digit doesn't (don't realy trust la cie drives)

has anyone had experience with these raids or can recomend another raid. bare in mind that these two cost less then $600. for 500gb (2 250 sata 2 hd)and less than $1000 for a 4 disk terrabyte model.

youre consul will be greatly appreciated

cheers

ric

[John Perkins]

I can only suggest that you avoid 1394 drives.

If you intend to use the 1394 preview, capture or send to tape, you will be sharing a small 1394 connection with large amounts of data.

Most HDV cameras take over the 1394 bus and will stop or slow the flow of other traffic on the bus. If your clips are stored on a 1394 drive, this usually causes stuttering or failed captures.

Your mileage will vary by what hardware you use, but in general, save the 1394 for video.

[rycar_m]

John,

Thanks for your response but please excuse my dumminess, are you saying that a firewire raid 01 is better than a card raid? or are you saying no

cheers

ric

ps just heard that caldigit just presented a new firewire 400/600/usb raid drive

[radams]

Okay, here are some thoughts on Raiding....

Besides the fun of pillaging...(you being in the carribean and all )...hehehe

Why are you trying to setup an external Raid ?

You would be better off setting up a raid with a 4 to 6+ drive array internally with SATA....

Now there are external raids that will work with an External Sata port if you have one....but better than that would be using a fiber channel connection to an external raid...(which may use internally Sata)...

The devices you talked about I would not use for my main raid system...as backup maybe but not for online uses.

Are you using a laptop or desktop machine ?

Go internal if you can...or external with a Sata=external or fiber channel.

BTW Lacie stinks for Raids...most are spanned NOT stripped...and throughput stinks !
You will want to have drives that support NCQ...and have the highest throughput !


Cheers,

[cholo]

John:

How 'bout firewire 800? Is that shared with regular 1394 or is it a different datapath? (on intel macs)

[rycar_m]

[QUOTE=radams]Okay, here are some thoughts on Raiding....

Besides the fun of pillaging...(you being in the carribean and all )...hehehe

Actuallly my pillaging ancestors where from bern switizerland

cheers
ric marty

[bartalian]

Hi Guys,

I am using SE on a macbook pro running windows under bootcamp. I purchased a g-raid 5000gb external firwire 800 raid (it also has firwire 400 and usb2 connections). I have captured 2 hours from my dv camera onto the raid without any issues.

G-tech gaurantees 7 streams of DC25 from this raid, or 4 HDV (when connected to the firewire 800 port). I have only used 3 streams.

It is not the cheapest but the performance and quality of the case are worth it.

http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-RAID2.cfm

[edmellnik]

I recently put together 6 seagate 750gb Sata300 drives with a High Point controler card. The card i bought will take up to 8 drives and raid them.

They have smaller cards as well. The tech support is a joke but so far
the card and raid has worked great.

They were one of the few that had a reasonable 8 drive control card
that would work with my Mac quad G5.

I have captured and played back full uncompressed 10 bit HDCAM footage.

Just another option.

[rycar_m]

Well my box doesn't have space so an internal is out of the question.

the g raid looks ok bust so does the caldigit specialy the one that includes the controller card with 500 gb for about $500. Caldigit just presented a new raid that is fire wire 400/800 and usb.

i tend to think that a controller card raid is better just because the throughput will be constant but then again i work in dv/hdv and mpeg and while i can get away without a raid i want the extra power that a raid will give my system specaily for rendering. however i would like to be proven wrong.

btw would i be able to use fw800 with a pc throught its 64bit slot with a fw card?

i am somewhat forgoing on lacie and those g raids look interesting howw ever point by point i think caldigit offers more, but i'll see

ric marty

[Pete Draves]

The G-raid is a two rive raid, and very good.
Western digital has a 2 drive raidable box (loks like one of their books)
one tera in sixe for a cost of 500 (best buy off the shelf)
The wd box is also usb firewire 400 and 800.

I like the firewire 800 as they are able to be daisychained.

I have also used single drive usb2 drives but the multi stream throughput is not there. But they are cost effective and with fast rendering machines ok.
cheers to all
Pete