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Brand new Mac Pro & Hard Drive/ Dropped Frames
Hi there,
Just bought a new Mac Pro, (4 Core, 3.2 Ghz Processor, 8GB Ram, ATI radeon 5870, 1TB Systerm Drive, Blackmagic Intensity Pro).
I’m running FCS3. FCP v7.03
I then added the following 2TB Seagate drive and formatted it as Mac OS extended (non-journaled, with 1x Partition GUID table).
My current project is Apple Pro Res 1080p25 media which came from a Canon 550d/T2i, converted in MPEG Streamclip.
My issue is that I’m getting dropped frames due to a slow disk.
I don’t understand this as I never had this issue running ProResHQ media off a Lacie Rugged connected via FW400 on my 2Ghz White Macbook.
Is it something I have done or installed incorrectly. Or do I need to buy another hard drive and stripe the two as RAID-0, (even though 4tb seems overkill for the projects I work on which usually have no more than 500gb of media)?
Thanks,
Phil
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7 Replies
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One internal S-ATA drive should be way faster compared to your firewire disk.
Connect your LaCie to you MacPro and see if it works.
Or Try your Macintosh HD.
This way you can check out for sure if it’s a system or harddisk issue.You could also try a AJA or Decklink speedtest to make sure the drive is getting enough speed.
You should be able to do at least one stream HQ on a internal S-ATA drive.Does a lighter codec work without problems? Just for testing purposes.
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Thanks for your response.
FW800 running a ProResHQ 10min short with instances of 3 clips on top of one another plays back through my blackmagic fine.
Copied a ProRes sequence that was on the 2TB hard drive in question onto the Macintosh HD and it played back fine. I scrolled through lots to try to make it drop frames but it didn’t.
Then went back to the project on the hard drive that had had issues and it was suddenly playing fine.
Ran Blackmagic Speed tests and got these results.
Mac HD (No dropped frames so far) – Read 124.2 MB/s Write – 120.9 MB/s
2TB Seagate (occasional drop frames on ProRes) – Read – 127.7MB/s Write – 118.4 MB/sMaybe I’m being a bit panicky because I just spent so much on a new machine and I expected flawless playback of ProRes and ProRes HQ.
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I think this is normal behaviour with 3 streams ProRes on 1 drive.
It’s not the machine. Don’t worry about that.
When working with i-frame codecs your storage speeds determine your playback in FCP.
If you want guaranteed 4 streams playback. Create a RAID0 of 2 drives ( NOT SAFE)
Or get a G-speed Q or ES for example. S-ATA/RAID5 box. -
Thanks again
When you say RAID 0 is not safe is it just because if you lose one drive you lose everything, or is there an additional likelihood of failure other and beyond the usual risk of suffering drive failure.
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[Phil Bowman] “When you say RAID 0 is not safe is it just because if you lose one drive you lose everything, or is there an additional likelihood of failure other and beyond the usual risk of suffering drive failure.”
Nothing beyond the usual risk of losing a drive.
I use RAID 0. For me is the best solution. I previously back-up my stuff in other HD for archiving.
rafael -
Ok, great. I think I’m going to grab another 2TB hard drive and make a RAID-0 for now. Do you think I’ll notice an instant increase in performance?
Also I can save for a RAID-5 unit and I will have these two drives already when I get it.
Thanks for your help.
P
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[Phil Bowman] “Ok, great. I think I’m going to grab another 2TB hard drive and make a RAID-0 for now. Do you think I’ll notice an instant increase in performance?”
Over a single HD?
Sure.
Is like having double number of hands to make a job.
rafael
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