• AJA Video Systems

  Defrag Media Drives on MacPro? Frame Drops?

  Posted by Sam on December 6, 2006 at 3:43 pm

  Morning Guys

  Does anyone after working with large projects (media about 90% full and then delete finished projects) defrag their Media drives? If you don’t, has anyone seen any dropped frames during capture issues? Walter, I know that you have a similar setup, do you defrag or ‘reformat’ your Medea?

  I am having dropped frames during captures after deleting projects when the Medea FCR2X Fibre was about 90% full. It now has about 40% of free space and still drops frames. It worked flawlessly until now. Nothing else changed in the system. Just all of sudden and gathering advice from the searches and from FCP group, it points to the “defrag” factor.

  How do you defrag on Intel Mac Pros? Diskwarrior doesn’t exist for it yet! Is the only way to “reformat” the raid?
  Kona Speed Tests turn out ok – 260MB/s +

  Setup is MacPro 3.0Ghz, 4 GB RAM, Apple Fibre Card with Medea FCR2X, Kona3/AJA IO, ATI x1900

  Thanks
  Sammy

  Bob Zelin replied 19 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Bob Zelin

  December 7, 2006 at 12:18 am

  If you are getting 260mb/sec with AJA Kona system test, something else is going on, and it’s not defrag problems. I hate to ask this silly question, but are you sure that your System Settings is set to record media on the Medea, and not on the internal drive? What resolution are you working at (SD, HD, 8 bit, 10 bit, DVCProHD, etc.),

  Bob Zelin
• 

  Sam

  December 7, 2006 at 12:41 am

  Bob,

  Capture Scratch is on Medea. Trashed the Prefs and all the basics. Working with Kona 8bit to DV50 preset. All seemed well until now.
  Thanks
  Sam
• 

  Bob Zelin

  December 7, 2006 at 3:06 am

  Hi Sam –
  of course, anything is possible, but if you are getting dropped frames with standard def DV50, on a drive array that is doing 260mb/sec with AJA Kona system test, something is DEFINATELY wrong here.

  It is my strong suggestion that before you drive yourself completely crazy, you get another drive – I don’t care if it’s an internal SATA, and external Firewire 800, or SOMETHING, and try to digitize on that (with DV50 standard def), and see if you get dropped frames. It makes no sense that you are getting this, but becuase Medea and Ciprico (HUGE) are at the mercy of the firmware on their controller cards, anything is possible, but if you don’t try another drive to make sure that it’s not your system, you will never know, and can be “chasing your tail”.

  Bob Zelin

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