lacie fw800 raid

[Bob Zelin]

It REALLY does 8 bit (not 10 bit) SDI uncompressed, and so will any other FW800 drive. But don’t worry, with the heat problems, it will be dead in 8-12 months.

bob Zelin

[Paul Lee]

really?

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bob Zelin] “But don’t worry, with the heat problems, it will be dead in 8-12 months. “

I have a set of BDE’s (two 500GB units) that work perfectly fine going on 14 months now. In fact I’ve recommended the BDE’s to quite a few folks and they all seem to love them. No heat issues, no issues whatsoever and that’s running both 8bit and 10bit SD. In fact I’ve recommended them to quite a few of my colleagues and they love them too.

Paul, there’s a lot of folks who like to throw out blanket statements like Bob’s which might apply to some units but not all. LaCie seems to take the brunt of most folks because they actually have more units out there than just about anyone else. LaCie has great tech support and I have not had any projects miss a deadline due to a drive failure. We’re running the drives with our Aurora PipePro system right now and they run like a champ.

I’ll be testing their new SATA array very shortly for a review.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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

[Bob Zelin]

just for the record, almost 100% of my FCP HD clients are using Lacie FW800
drives – even with the issues.

Bob Zelin

[Mike Mihalik]

Bob,

I think Paul may have been asking about our new F800 system. It is FW800, 4 removable drives, hardware controller, and configurable as RAID-0, 1, 0+1, or 5.

So user has a choice as to how much speed or redundancy is wanted.

And to meet the people who feel LaCie drives run rather warm, there is a temperature controlled fan.

Bob, are you the same Bob from DiNo from years back? I am the Mike from way back in Joel’s and LaCie’s early days.

Mike

[Walter Biscardi]

[Mike] “I think Paul may have been asking about our new F800 system. It is FW800, 4 removable drives, hardware controller, and configurable as RAID-0, 1, 0+1, or 5. “

Very cool for sure and a nice evolution from the BDE’s. The temperature controlled fan is a nice touch too, though as I noted in an earlier post, my BDE’s haven’t had any temperature issues at all.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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

[Mike Mihalik]

Walter,

Just a few comments on customer reports of heat:
– we perform extensive tests on the various d2 configurations. One aspect of the tests have to do with internal and external heat; and what is acceptable. touching a drive with one’s hand is NOT a good indicator or “too hot” or “cool”.

When we perform our tests, case temperature is but one aspect of the heat produced by a drive. We also place sensors on critical internal components to determine temperature variations during operation. We also perform tests at elevated temperatures.

The case of the d2 family of drives has been designed to be an active heat sink. Over time of extended use, the entire case will get warm. This is because the internally produced heat is extracted from the drive, and the entire case is then used for releasing heat to the ambient surroundings. We recommend keeping the area surrounding the drive clear of any obstructions.

There are some designs out there that use other passive and active techniques for cooling:
– one particular design uses a heat sink with radiator-like fins to dissipate the internal heat. Unfortunately, this design has the heat sink on the bottom of the drive. During normal operation, for convection to occur heat naturally rises. By having the heat sink on the bottom of the drive, there is no natural convetion, so there is less cooling capability. It would be more efficient to have heat dissipation fins on top or sides of the drive to be more effective
– other designs that use fans have to wrestle with the tradeoff of fan noise, fan lifetime, and fan efficiency. If design is solely dependent on fan for cooling, there needs to be provisions for sensing fan failure, as the drive will surely cook if fan fails. Fans typically have less lifetime than the drive mechanism. So fan noise is psotive feedback to user that it is running. If fan is implemented at slower speeds, then a failure may not be noticed until it is too late to do something about it. Some designs do have provisions for alerts when fan fails.

As we all push the edge in the quest for speed, performance, and capacity, we are also faced with some aspects of product limitations. We all need to better understand that these capabilities come at some cost.

We strive to produce the most cost effectgive and reliable solutions, given the available technology.

Finally, let me close with some thoughts on failures. They can happen. When you least can afford it to happen. We seldom hear from all the happy users. The nature of forums such as this, is to report problems and to learn of hints on preventing them. The large majority of happy users do NOT frequent forums.

What can one do to minimize problems?
– redundancy; make backups; have spare drives
– always unmount/eject volumes beforew disconnecting drives
– always wait for drive to spin down completely before moving a drive to another computer
– keep backups disconnected from computers; especially during updates
– never update a system in the middle of a project
– keep area around drives clear of clutter to help drive cooling; if mounting drives in a confined space, be sure to provide auxiliary cooling; the internal fans or passive cooling will NOT help if drive is in a confined space

Mike

[Gary Adcock]

[Mike] “What can one do to minimize problems?
– redundancy; make backups; have spare drives
– always unmount/eject volumes beforew disconnecting drives
– always wait for drive to spin down completely before moving a drive to another computer
– keep backups disconnected from computers; especially during updates
– never update a system in the middle of a project
– keep area around drives clear of clutter to help drive cooling; if mounting drives in a confined space, be sure to provide auxiliary cooling; the internal fans or passive cooling will NOT help if drive is in a confined space “

good pooints Mike!

Remember that drives by default come formatted for both platforms, if you are going to be using your FW drive for video on your mac, you really really need to reformat the drive {using apple’s disk utiltiy} from FAT 32 as it is shipped so that the directory structure can be recovered by the common disk utilities availabe for a mac.

gary adcock

Studio37
HD and Film Consultation

[Mike Mihalik]

Absolutely.

Let me expand on that, especially for the video people here.

Even IF the drive is preformatted from the factory for the Mac, or for the PC, it is in YOUR best interests to reformat on the computer you will be using the drive.

This means that for the Mac, you format as Mac OS Extended, no journaling, using the Disk Utility that came with the OS X you are using. If you have the time, select the option to zero out the drive as well. This will force the formatting utility to touch each sector of the drive, and make sure there are no surprises across the disk.

Same goes for Windows XP – use Disk Manager to perform a full format, not a quick format.

Relying on a the quick format done at the factory could lead to issues on your Mac. Chances are the factory is NOT using the same computer you are; heck, I can guarantee it!

Mike

[Walter Biscardi]

Words of wisdom to be sure. I never use a drive on any of my machines fresh out of the box without first formatting it. It’s quick and painless and saves the potential for a lot of pain later.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

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