saavy in the ways of SATA and SATA2

[David Roth weiss]

[Bob Flood] “1. CAn someone direct me to a reliable and informative site about SATA, SATA 2 and eSATA?”

Just let go of that part Bob, as it’s really transparent to the user. Okay? The original Serial ATA specification was 1.5Gbps, SATA 2 Serial ATA specification is 3.0Gbps. Now you know, but it’s not really important.

[Bob Flood] “it seems that with a SATA 2 drive and connection, your limiting factor in throughput becomes the drive, rather than the inter connect, such that you get all the performance of a 7500 rpm video drive that the manufacturer intended, so a single drive would have higher throughput via SATA then via FW800. is this correct?”

I think you meant 7200RPM. Right?

The bandwidth of Firewire 800 is 800Mbit/sec, while SATA is 1.5 or 3.0Gbps, which is two to four times faster. The same drives can be used by each technology, but they have very different controllers, with SATA providing a much larger data pipe.

What is your objective?

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.

[Bob Flood]

DRW

“just let go of that part Bob”

so should i let go and use the Weiss? uuh i mean force?

“What is your objective?”

is SATA or SATA2 on a single drive (yes i mean 7200 rpm, my duh) faster than fw800?

whats eSATA compared to SATA and SATA2?

can you chain SATA drives? or is it one port per drive?

looking into using SATA2 drives as “project” drives, being able to move a projects’ media from one system to another quickly, and hoping will get more dv50 or dv100 streams than with FW800.

(I think you once suggested or endorsed this approach, rather than trying to do SAN or NAS)

I have 2 g5 and 1 intel mac pros, so i need 2 PCI cards and a PCIe
card. I already have an 8 port SATA card on a raid, using 4 of the 8 ports, but i think if i want to go SATA2 i need a SATA2 card.

whats yer thoughts, ideas, suggestions?

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[David Roth weiss]

[Bob Flood] “is SATA or SATA2 on a single drive (yes i mean 7200 rpm, my duh) faster than fw800?”

2x as fast

[Bob Flood] “whats eSATA compared to SATA and SATA2?”

All the drives available now are 3.0Gbs, and they are backwards compatible and for the most part that aspect is transparent to the user. eSATA refers to external SATA, its not a speed thing.

[Bob Flood] “can you chain SATA drives? or is it one port per drive?”

There is no daisy chaining of SATA. “Port multiplier technology” (PM) is one way of carrying multiple signals from a suitably equipped controller to a suitably equipped enclosure, but it has issues with reliability. Mini SAS has one connector on the controller end for every four on the enclosure end.

The problem you’re going to have is finding a solution that’s compatible between your MAC requiring a PCIx card and those requiring a PCIe card. If I were you I would call Caldigit and discuss that aspect of things with them.

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.

[Bob Flood]

Thanx Dave

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.