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Hardware Suggestions: External RAID-5 for Final Cut Studio 5.1 with AJA Kona 3
I am looking for an external RAID-5 solution for use with a brand new MacPro.
Specs: Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 4GB RAM – 667 DDR2 FB DIMM ECC 4x1GB, ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB graphics card, internal system drive in bay 1 is a 250gb SATA at 3gb/s. I will be using this machine with an AJA Kona 3 card (SDI, HD-SDI, Dual Link HD-SDI 4:4:4, and 4:4:4:4, 2K) with plans for doing DVCPRO HD and uncompressed HD in the future. I’m not sure of the exact “flavors” of HD that I will be working with at the moment, but need to be able to support 1080p at 60fps and preferably maintain the ability to do 2k (probably 2048 x 1080p at 24fps) like the AJA Kona 3 supports.
I was looking at CalDigit’s products and they look amazing… however they do not seem to support RAID-5. The S2VR Duo supports RAID 0,1, & JBOD (but claims it will let me do DVCPRO HD, I’m just not sure if I trust this performance). The S2VR HD supports performance, protected, & JBOD, but I’m still not certain this actually will support RAID-5 in protected mode while still allowing for the demands of HD performance. The HD444 looks killer and supports RAID 0,1, 10 & JBOD.
I’ve used MicroNet Platinum Raids in the past for SD work and for archive purposes (https://www.micronet.com/General/prodList.asp?CatID=45&Cat=Product) and have never been disappointed by them. Very easy to repair when a drive fails, mainly since their systems use a built-in management “operating system” to control the RAID… so the drive just shows up as an external hard drive and can easily be transfered and mounted on many machines without the need to dedicate to one individual system. Is there anything like this out there that will work with a MacPro and meet the demands of HD?
MicroNet makes Platinum Raid Pro systems (https://www.micronet.com/General/prodList.asp?CatID=118&Cat=Product) that have SATA support as well, but I’m still not certain this will be the performance I need. Has anyone used this for HD?
What other products are out there that will work with a new MacPro, Final Cut Studio 5.1, and the AJA Kona 3?
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22 Replies
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[burkewood] “I was looking at CalDigit’s products and they look amazing… however they do not seem to support RAID-5. The S2VR Duo supports RAID 0,1, & JBOD (but claims it will let me do DVCPRO HD, I’m just not sure if I trust this performance).”
DVCPro HD? You can do that on FW800 drives, this system can easily handle that. I’m running the 3.7TB model here right now and I’ve now cut 10 HD broadcast episodes on the thing in both 720 and 1080i DVCPro HD.
Can’t recommend CalDigit enough, we’re going to slowly transition our shop completely over to their products hopefully by the end of 2007.
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
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[burkewood] “What other products are out there that will work with a new MacPro, Final Cut Studio 5.1, and the AJA Kona 3?”
I have used drives from a number of MFG’s and am currently using a G-Speed (4G fibre) for my projects and demo’s. AJA has been showing the G-Tech / G-Speed solutions in their booths for a while now.
You are correct in that most SATA solutions currently do not support hardware raid at 3 or 5 ( RAID 3 rebuilds faster IMHO). I have not worked with a micronet product since the Ampex days. SO I am not qualified to comment about anything current in their storage line.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows -
I am using the CalDigit S2VR Duo for DVCPRO HD and it is working fine. As backup, I have all my footage stored on another SATA Raid (a far cheaper one) so if I lost anything, all I do is copy it from the backups.
I edited DVCPRO HD on G-Raids (FW800) before I got this setup. That worked fine too.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
[walter biscardi] “DVCPro HD? You can do that on FW800 drives, this system can easily handle that. I’m running the 3.7TB model here right now and I’ve now cut 10 HD broadcast episodes on the thing in both 720 and 1080i DVCPro HD.
Can’t recommend CalDigit enough, we’re going to slowly transition our shop completely over to their products hopefully by the end of 2007.”
I know DVCPRO HD isn’t as demanding as uncompressed, but how many real-time playback layers can you really get good performance from using FW800? Some have said 2, some have said 3.
Ideally I’d like to be able to have an external solution that will let me do uncompressed with the ability to do 2k work as well.
Are you running the CalDigit S2VR Duo? Is yours RAIDed at all?
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How many real-time layers in DVCPRO HD do you get on your CalDigit S2VR Duo? Is it RAIDed in any form?
I really am looking for something that can give me RAID-5 and performance to use the AJA Kona 3 to it’s best ability, not just DVCPRO HD codecs.
Suggestions?
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[burkewood] “Ideally I’d like to be able to have an external solution that will let me do uncompressed with the ability to do 2k work as well.
Are you running the CalDigit S2VR Duo? Is yours RAIDed at all?”
I’m running S2VR HD in JBOD mode. You can do uncompressed HD with a single unit.
If you want to get into 2K, then look at the 4:4:4 HD model. That can handle 2K I believe with one unit or just stripe two units together. We will probably add one of these units after NAB.
As for realtime, I have no use for stream counts. All I care about are multiple graphics layers and multiple filters in realtime. I get plenty with the S2VR HD.
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
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With a G-Raid Firewire 800 you can get 3 streams of DVCPRO HD. That is because there are two drives hardware raided together in there. A single drive firewire 800 MIGHT get you two, but not sure.
The S2VR Duo will get you between 4 and 6, depending on how full it is. Two drives, but better Raid, and SATA is far faster than FW800.
But, if you want 2K uncompressed, then yeah, look at the S2VR 4:4:4 model.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net -
Thank you for your suggestions. I’ll take it all into consideration when deciding which route to move in.
Just for the record, for use with the Kona 3, AJA’s support recommends the G-Tech G-RAID for DVCPRO-HD and the Apple X-SERVE in RAID-5 for uncompressed.
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[burkewood] “Just for the record, for use with the Kona 3, AJA’s support recommends the G-Tech G-RAID for DVCPRO-HD and the Apple X-SERVE in RAID-5 for uncompressed.”
I used to recommend G-RAID’s until their newer models don’t work as well as the older models for me. We have two older model G-RAID units that still work fine along with a series of LaCie FW800 units and LaCie SATA units.
If you are also considering Fibre Channel, look at Ciprico, not the Apple X-Serve RAID.
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
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CalDigit is the wrong choice if you are looking for Raid 5. It doesn’t do it…as you noted.
And I stated…empty to about 30% full you get between 130MB/s and 148MB/s…garnering you about 5 streams of DVCPRO HD (which runs at 25MB/s). At 80% full my S2VR still gets me 110MB/s, allowing for 4 streams.
These are RAID 0 numbers. You cannot do RAID 5 with any of these units. You’ll need to look at other solutions for that option.
Shane
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net
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