-
External Storage
Hey,
I apologize if this has been asked somewhere else but I can’t find anything.
We are about to embark on a feature film down here in NZ. Its being shot a on RED at 4K and the director wants to be able to view rough cuts as we go. I’m setting up a mac pro with the adobe CS5 suite as that’s what I’m used to. I’d like to cut the raw R3D rather than converting but don’t mind if I have to go prores 444. I usually use the original R3Ds @ 4K in AE because the comping seems to sit better if I render it in 4K then convert to 2K or HD prores. I do it this way at the moment for ads and music videos but now I’m going to be dealing with a huge amount of footage I’ll need an external raid storage system that is fast enough to playback the files etc. I’ll also need what the best option for connecting this array (or these arrays) to the mac. Further down the track I’ll want to use this set up for the conforming and grading system as well.
We are running a mac pro 12 core, 12GB, 2 separate 2T internal drives, redrocket, the work horse will be CS5 for cutting/comping with da vinci resolve using the NVIDIA QUADRO 4000 for color. We have Final Cut as well but I prefer the Adobe Workflow (personal preference as I’ve come from an AE compositing background) but if the Final Cut route means it will work better then I don’t mind going that route.
At the moment I’m thinking about the Stardom SOHOTank 8-bay Tower 2 x Ext minSAS but not sure what the best way to set it up would be. I don’t even know what the best way to connect it to the mac would be. It seems to be cost effective and has decent reviews etc but I’m not sure if it would be good for our purposes.
Sorry this is my first long form project and really don’t want to muck something up at this early stage.
Thanks in advance.
Tim van Dammen
-
8 Replies
-
Your question confuses me. You hookup via SAS/SATA connection. You can’t use USB2, Firewire, or eSATA, it’s too slow for what you want to do. Exactly what is your question ? You use an ATTO SAS/SATA or Areca SAS/SATA host adaptor in your MAC to connect to your drive array.
Bob ZElin
-
Thanks Bob.
The fact that you don’t understand what I’m talking about shows how out of my depth I am with this stuff.
Are you saying that I can use an ATTO host in the mac – if so which would you recommend?
Can I use the stardom drive array that I’m talking about?
-
I guess my question is – what exactly do I need for external workspace/interface with the highest read/write rate that will enable me to run this big project and use the external as fast as possible.
I’m not sure how to word this – I just want to be able to cut/comp/grade 4K files that are on an external storage system as the internal has no hope.
-
who cuts in 4K ? You use RedCineX or Clipfinder or Foundry Storm to transcode to ProRes422, you do your edit, and then you CONFORM in 4K. No one edits in 4K native (or even 2K dpx).
Yes, you stick the ATTO R380 inside your MAC Pro, and you attach this to the Stardom chassis. But I think that Stardom now offers a 6 Gig chassis that may work with the newer R680 (even though you can’t get 6 gig sata drives yet). You know what you have to do – you have to make a LONG DISTANCE PHONE CALL (use Skype) and speak to Stardom, if you are interested in this chassis.
Bob Zelin
-
Thanks Bob, I appreciate the help. I’ll suss it out with them.
Best
Tim -
Tim,
Bob’s right, our ST8-U5 mini-SAS does have a 6Gb/s backplane, so you can use either the ATTO R380 card, 3Gb/s or the R680 6Gb/s card, although that card may not be available to you there yet. We’re getting fast speeds, enough to do what you need to accomplish with the R380 card, RAID 5 speeds of 7-800MB/s read-write. If you need anything else, ANY QUESTIONS on setup, etc you’re welcome to call & or email us.
Jon Schilling
jon@raidon-usa.com
RAIDON-USA Technology
STARDOM Storage by RAIDON
15356 East Valley Blvd., Suite B
City of Industry, CA 91746
Tel: 626-333-7888
https://www.stardom-usa.com -
Thanks Jon,
I’ve found retailers that stock both the ATTO card and the ST8 miniSAS locally – after confusing myself by over-thinking all this I ran a test last night running 4K R3D’s just off one of my FW800 externals using premier debaying to 1K. Then I threw the footage all around different drives both internal and external and I still had no problem playing back (and this on my old quad core 2.66 with 4GB RAM). I’m not going to work in full res 4K, as Bob suggested that would be idiotic. I just want to be able to do basic cutting with realtime playback and if I’m lucky get resolve to playback realtime too.
I’ll be making the ST8 and ATTO purchase very soon.
Thanks again to you and Bob for your help.
Best
Tim -
Tim,
Fair enough, happy to have helped.
Jon
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up