COW Reviews: CalDigit: S2VR HD

[Kevin Wild]

Great review and some interesting stuff. Bob, are you saying we should always change the block size to 256? Why would they default it to 32 if it isn’t optimal?

Thanks. Good stuff…

Kevin

[Steve Covello]

Excellent review.

Thought it is worth mentioning that neither Sonnet nor CalDigit’s RAIDs are intended to have the RAID 5 capability that an XServe RAID has built-in as a hardware controller. [Technically, XServe RAID is RAID 50 — each of 7 drives in an array combined to RAID 5, then each array RAID’d together at RAID 0].

This means that a drive failure on either Sonnet or CalDigit’s boxes would be catastrophic, while the XSeerve RAID could continue to function. This doesn’t diminish the value of each product, expecially since Avid’s media drives have been essentially RAID 0 since day one anyway. It’s just that mentioning the cost comparison to an XServe RAID is somewhat incongruous when what you are paying for with XServe RAID is the continuation of service.

Although Apple definitely prices things on the high side, if you were to add up the hours of repair and recapture from having lost several TB of captured media versus the extra cost of XServe RAID, you could reach a comparable point of comparison between the two, without a compromise in performance.

Believe me, I’m a big fan of inexpensive alternatives, so don’t get me wrong here. I ‘discovered’ the CalDigit stuff a while ago and already presented it to my partner. I only think Bob’s review should have mentioned the XServe’ RAID’s technical advantage over software RAIDs.

If I am incorrect here, please help set the record straight.

Steve Covello
double wide post

[Jeremy Garchow]

[weevie833] “you could reach a comparable point of comparison between the two, without a compromise in performance.”

That’s exactly why these things scare me. If they don’t offer Raid 3 or 5, I’m out.

Nice article though.

Jeremy

[Walter Biscardi]

[JeremyG] “That’s exactly why these things scare me. If they don’t offer Raid 3 or 5, I’m out.”

They do offer some RAID protection, I can’t remember the exact level. We just run JBOD to get the full speed of the unit and have put a 2TB LaCie Bigger Disk FW800 unit as the backup device. Still ends up being much cheaper than the comparable RAID 3 or 5 Fibre Channel array for the same amount of storage.

We’re looking right now to transition our entire shop over to CalDigit by the end of 2007.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
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“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Walter Biscardi]

[weevie833] “If I am incorrect here, please help set the record straight.”

You are correct which is why it is up to the user to prepare a backup plan. As I noted in aother post, we have set up a 2TB LaCie Biggest Disk unit as our backup device for our CalDigit S2VR 3.7TB array. We run a daily backup and sometimes even backup at lunch time so we’re in good shape if something should happen to the CalDigit.

Even with this extra backup unit (about $900) we’re still saving a lot of money over comparable Fibre Storage. But yes, you’re right, you’re not getting the same Raid 3 or 5 protection that Apple and Ciprico offer with their units.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Jeremy Garchow]

I think it’s Raid1, which is parity, which means by the time you are done making pairs, you have halved your storage and have one drive left over for nothing. Raid 1 is not for editing.

There would be nothing that’ I’d like more than fast, cheap, affordable RAID 3, but it’s just not here.

Jeremy

[Walter Biscardi]

[JeremyG] “There would be nothing that’ I’d like more than fast, cheap, affordable RAID 3, but it’s just not here.”

I used to think I could only run RAID 3, but now I’m feeling just fine in JBOD with backup devices. Never thought I would switch, but here I am.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Jeremy Garchow]

…and Godspeed to you kind sir. How often do you back up? Daily/Nightly/Hourly?

[Walter Biscardi]

[JeremyG] ”
…and Godspeed to you kind sir. How often do you back up? Daily/Nightly/Hourly?”

Nightly, sometimes at lunch and nightly. After capturing all the footage, really the only thing that I would lose at that point are renders.

If I do an After Effects animation I back it up immediately.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob Zelin]

Well, well, well –
I have mentioned that SATA is EXTREMLY reliable. How reliable you ask? I have not seen ONE SATA drive die since April 2005 (I have seen chassis die). But this is not the point of my silly post here.

TWO DAYS AGO, my customer Disney Public Relations, had a wonderful StorCase DS-570 RAID 5 SCSI to ATA 8 drive array on their AVID system. It’s RAID 5, but THE RAID CONTROLLER DIED (and StorCase just went out of business). So you know what I did – I found another customer of mine with the same StorCase, I moved the drives into their box temporarily, and transfered ALL this client critical media to SATA. TODAY, I put in a second SATA array, as a backup (all RAID 0) in case the main one fails.

I have learned a big lesson about RAID 5 arrays – from StorCase, Dell, Apple, etc. If you don’t have TRUE REDUNDANCY – this means EVERYTHING – power supplies, RAID controllers, cases, etc. YOU WILL ONE DAY GET SCREWED. This is why “real” Apple XSan and AVID Unity systems are so expensive, and there is no such thing as a “bare bones” SAN shared storage system. If you dont’ have redundancy in your RAID 3 or RAID 5 system, IT MEANS NOTHING. A protected drive means nothing when your RAID controller card dies.

Both ATTO Technologies and Highpoint Technologies have new RAID 5 SAS (serial attached storage) to SATA II
host cards. They DO NOT support port multiplication (so no fancy Cal Digit or Sonnet drive chassis). The world is changing, and as we all know by now, 3 years from now, we will wonder how we were even working with these “primitive” SATA arrays that we use today.

Bob Zelin