RAID Issues Galore

[Mark Maness]

Well…

What kind of HD are you trying to edit? Uncompressed?

If not, it should work just fine with just about anything. Can you hook it up fw800 and test the drive?

Also, you might want to consider setting the RAID to RAID 0, instead of RAID 0+1. It will be faster but you loose on protection. Use your internal drive to save the Project Backups and everything will be OK.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey

[David Roth weiss]

[Nicholas Rubin] “I initialized the array set as a RAID 0 + 1.”

First, Raid 0+1, a.k.a. “mirroring,” is like buying a Porsche and outfitting it with a lawnmower engine. Lose the Raid 0+1 immediately, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Reinitialize as Raid-0 and test again. You still may have issues, as LaCie is not known as first-class provider of eSATA solutions.

For the record, video editing is first and foremost about the editing. Safety and redundancy are cool, but unfortunately now that there are so many cool ways to achieve that safety and redundancy speed and throughput necessary to get the work accomplished are overlooked, and the coolness of redundancy, which is nothing more than sophisticated backup, has become the driving force behind far too many of the decisions that are made when purchasing and/or configuring raids used for editing.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Nicholas Rubin]

Okay, so I understand that speed is of the utmost. As far as what you say about Lacie not being a pro level provider I’m not suprised. I got the drive refurbished for like $500 so I feel like I got what I paid for. However, I don’t understand how RAID 0 + 1 could lose so much performance. That being said, is there a better method for maintaining redudancy without having to manually drag and drop everything you are working on everyday? What kind of workflow do you recommend.

[Walter Biscardi]

[David Roth Weiss] “You still may have issues, as LaCie is not known as first-class provider of eSATA solutions.”

Interesting. We’ve been running LaCie S2S eSATA units for two years now cutting HD Documentaries.

I even cut half a season of Good Eats in HD using a LaCie FW800 based 1TB unit when my CalDigit eSATA solutions up and died. Three of them in six months.

Didn’t know LaCie wasn’t first-class provider of eSATA solutions.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Walter Biscardi]

[Nicholas Rubin] “I got jealous and bought the budget equivalent, the Lacie Biggest Quadra 2 TB. I installed it with a Sonnet Tempo E4P eSata host adapter.”

Why didn’t you use the LaCie card for this? Most, if not all LaCie eSATA products ship with an eSATA card. We use the standard LaCie cards for our units.

[Nicholas Rubin] “I initialized the array set as a RAID 0 + 1.”

Mistake. Just go RAID 0, you’ll get more speed BUT be sure to back up this array often. If this unit has any issues, you lose all your data. All drives will fail eventually.

[Nicholas Rubin] “I’m totally lost, I spent the better part of the day trouble shooting, writing emails calling tech support etc. Please help!!”

What has tech support told you to do? Since this unit is brand new, you have every right to return it and ask for a replacement. LaCie has replaced units for us in the past no problems. Tech support has always been very helpful here for us. Sounds like you might have a bad unit.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Walter Biscardi]

[Nicholas Rubin] “I got the drive refurbished for like $500 so I feel like I got what I paid for. However, I don’t understand how RAID 0 + 1 could lose so much performance.”

Who did you purchase refurb from? Return it. This is one place I would never purchase refurb, storage. I do buy refurb Apple computers along with the three year AppleCare warranty, but never storage materials.

RAID 0+1 mirrors all your information so it slices your array in half. Half to work with, half to save. So you lose a ton of speed when you do this. It’s a very inefficient way to work.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[David Roth weiss]

[Nicholas Rubin] “is there a better method for maintaining redudancy without having to manually drag and drop everything you are working on everyday?”

First, there are relatively expensive Raid-5 solutions available now that offer both speed and safety. If you have the bucks there are excellent companies out there offering excellent Raid-5 solutions, and many are represented right on the Cow, just look at the banner ads. However, digital video editing is not new, and long before these new solutions became available editors were sucessfully cutting video and finishing shows with no media backup whatsoever. Amazing, right?

The good news is hard drives are now cheap, cheap, cheap. That wasn’t always the case, and in the old days (like three years ago) people did occasionally have recapture if a raid went down, because even simple backups weren’t economically feasible for many. Today that’s a different matter, backing up to simple firewire drives is cheap and fast, and makes perfect economic and logistical sense for many. While it doesn’t sound sexy, the only really good alternative costs thousands of dollars more. And besides, all that dragging and dropping every day that you refer to is really no big deal, If you’re organzied, and backup religiously right after you digitize, usually the day to day stuff is typically miniscule. If you sort your media by date created you can simply copy the latest entries.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[David Roth weiss]

[walter biscardi] “Interesting. We’ve been running LaCie S2S eSATA units for two years now cutting HD Documentaries.”

And there are people getting to work somewhere everyday driving thirty year old AMC Gremlins too, but that doesn’t qualify AMC as a first-class provider of automobiles or the AMC Gremlin as a first-class automobile. Does it?

The fact that you happen to like LaCie is well documented. We’ve all heard you repeat that here everytime someone criticizes LaCie products. I don’t think you’ve swayed anyone yet, but keep trying, you may yet succeed, because as you like to point out so very often, there are exceptions to everything.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Walter Biscardi]

[David Roth Weiss] “I don’t think you’ve swayed anyone yet, but keep trying, you may yet succeed, because as you like to point out so very often, there are exceptions to everything.”

Actually I’ve gotten quite a few emails over the years from folks who have purchased LaCie’s from my recommendations, and some thanks on these very forums. A freelancer we use all the time recently purchase the 2TB FW800 unit as it’s under $700 now and she loves it. Uses it for broadcast work everyday.

But there are enough choices for everyone out there. Shane Ross loves his CalDigits, but I won’t ever use them again after three complete failures. LaCie, Ciprico, Dulce, MaxxDigital, WeibeTech, Facilis, etc…. choices galore.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Roth Weiss] “Safety and redundancy are cool, but unfortunately now that there are so many cool ways to achieve that safety and redundancy speed and throughput necessary to get the work accomplished are overlooked, and the coolness of redundancy, which is nothing more than sophisticated backup, has become the driving force behind far too many of the decisions that are made when purchasing and/or configuring raids used for editing. “

Whoa whoa whoa. You have obviously never had a drive die with the client sitting there wondering what went wrong and if they have to pay for it.

You never now how much you need redundancy until you need it.

Jeremy