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Hard Drive – Processors – Video Card Bottleneck?
We recently updated our hard drive system to include a DatOptic raid. Now we are running system tests and would like to see where are next weakest link is. At this time we tried using multiple streams of uncompressed 10 bit video to determine how many streams our system can run. We opend Activity monitor and checked disk activity and processor utilization. Our Disk throughput is comming in at about 480 MB/sec and our processors are hardly used. Is there a way to tell what the video card is doing? We can play 3 streams of video but on the 4th stream it plays for a few seconds and then chunks a few time then the canvas locks up. The strange thing is that our disk activity only takes a small dive when this happens, so I am suspecting the video card.
Is there a way to test this?
Any other suggestions on where the bottleneck is?Our system is
Mac Pro 3ghz dual quad
4 gig ram
ATI Radeon X1900XT
DatOptic 15Tb hardware RAID6Thank you for any help
Tim -
3 Replies
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[Tim Stachelski] “At this time we tried using multiple streams of uncompressed 10 bit video to determine how many streams our system can run.”
10-bit SD or 10-bit HD? There is a difference of course.
[Tim Stachelski] “Our Disk throughput is comming in at about 480 MB/sec”
That’s very good, and I can understand why you’re concerned about a bottleneck somewhere. How are you determining throughput? Do you have an I/O card such as a BM or Kona?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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We used compressor and selected the Quicktime uncompressed 10bit 4,2,2. The original file was from our EX1 1920 X 1080p 24 so it is HD
We are using Activity monitor to check our throughput. Because we use the EX1 and have a tapeless workflow we have not invested in a Kona card.
Thank you for the help
Tim -
[Tim Stachelski] “We are using Activity monitor to check our throughput. Because we use the EX1 and have a tapeless workflow we have not invested in a Kona card.”
The reason I asked is because the Activity monitor is not at all accurate in terms of measuring raid throughput. It gives a measure that can best be considered as “potential.” The Disk Speed Test in the AJA System Test gives a realistic measure of the raids true performance when under load reading and writing video files. Unfortunately, it only works when one of their cards is installed.
Were I you, I would the raid manufacturer and ask them how they properly measure throughput.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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