Multibridge Extreme and CalDigit S2VR Pro

[Bob Zelin]

This is my stupid opinion. I have (foolishly) declined for the moment to try the CalDigit S2VR, because it is a few pennies more than the other SATA solutions on the market currently (so my statements here might be stupid ) – but the RAID 0 Sonnet Fusion 500P – which uses the same damn 5 Hitachi or Seagate SATA II drives, can only do write speeds of 170mb/sec, which is NOT FAST ENOUGH for 10 bit uncompressed HD-SDI. You really need 220mb/sec at least (and faster) – so more than 5 drives (like 8-10 drives) will do this – but 5 drives won’t do it. (You do get read speeds of 220 mb/sec – but you DO have to record this stuff, somehow !!!!!!).

If CalDigit (with their RAID 1+0) can do these speeds, then I have no idea of how they are doing it – but I don’t see how they can get 220mb/sec with only 5 drives. For reference to check my stupidity, look at http://www.barefeats.com and http://www.amug.org for studies in SATA drive speeds. My comments are solely based on my own personal experiences, and do not reflect what the CalDigit can or cannot do.

Please remember – there is a big difference between being able to do it – and do it reliably, so you can actually get thru a job.

bob Zelin

[Margus Voll]

Hi.

My problem is that i can build my self even 16 drives unit
with 3ware.
It has web based UI wich also sends messages with email and so on.
So lets say 8 drives in mirror with 8 drives raid 0.
It should give pretty decent speed as claimed.
Optional is to use 750 GB seagate drives. In theory 6 TB mirrored.

Maybe guys in BM have tested 3ware PCIe new controllers.

Margus.

[Miles Blow]

Hi Bob…. have you tried adding an additional fusion box?…It word be great to hear(real world performaces)of how much faster it would run overall with two boxes running with 5 drives in each.(a seller here in Oz said it would double perforamace….Can you see that happenning?…If so thats what we are getting!!

thanks
Miles

[Bob Zelin]

yes – two boxes with 10 drives – all stripped together – will give you fast enough performance for uncompressed HD. Please remember that this means that you cannot have 2 seperate volumes of 5 drives each. You must use Apple Disk Utility (or Microsoft Disk Manager – someone caught me last time, when I forgot this !) to stripe ALL THE DRIVES RAID 0.

I have never tried the 3Ware. The popular SATA controllers in the US now are the Sonnet and the Firmtek (and the firmtek currently does not support Port Multiplication).

Bob Zelin

[Margus Voll]

I try to talk to local 3ware importer.
Some friends of mine use 3ware on large web servers
with big load.

What does BM guys think of 3ware on PCIe?

Margus.

[Margus Voll]

Hi.

Now I have to appologise my stupidity.
I visited BM website and saw 3ware controller as supported.

So I have my question cleared now. 🙂

Margus.

[Margus Voll]

So we could assume that when two 10 disk units are “combined” as one acting as 10+10 mirror it should be kind of killer with its 5 TB and also mirrored at the same time?

Margus.