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Sata 2 drives at HDcam 8bit speeds?
Is anyone using Sata 2 drives internal in their G5 to do HDcam 8bit speeds? I’m building a system and would like to put the money towards a player deck instead of an Xraid. An NT computer specialist suggested Sata 2 inside the G5 but hasn’t tested it on 1080i 8 bit.
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4 Replies
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I am unaware of any SATA 2 drives that are currently available. I install SATA systems now all the time, and the Sonnet Tempo eSATA 8 card is now doing SATA 2 speeds with the 1.2 firmware update, but there are no drives available to do these speeds.
I use 2 SATA drives (Hitachi or Seagate) to do 8 bit SDI, 10 bit SDI, and HD SDI with DVCProHD compression (via the Kona 2), but I have not had personal RELIABLE success using SATA and doing UNCOMPRESSED HD. There are wonderful companies like ProMax and The DR Group that are supplying the Sonnet Tempo eSATA 8 card with 8 SATA drives – when all 8 drives are stripped in a RAID 0 configuration (no RAID protection), you can get uncompressed HD, but I have not tried it in a while. For uncompressed HD systems, I still recommend the HUGE U320-RX SCSI array with the ATTO UL4D card. But if you’ve got the time to experiment, certainly try the SATA – and I bet that most of your projects won’t demand uncompressed HD anyway, so you will have a wonderful set of drives with tons of storage for anything else, anyway. In my market in Florida, most HD is DVCProHD with the Panasonic AJ-HD1200A VTR, so I am not the last word on uncompressed HD stuff.
I STILL cannot recommend the XServe RAID, even though some people love it.
Bob Zelin
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Thanks for the info. I forwarded your response to my friend who works with NT servers. If she knows something we don’t about sata 2 I’ll let you know.
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[Bob Zelin] “I am unaware of any SATA 2 drives that are currently available”
Shipping soon Bob.
I have a pre-release unit (3.6T) with a 3GB PCI-X card, Raid 0 and 5 capable, with Swappable Drive modules, While it is not out of my testing cycle, yet I have seen 160+mgs async with sustained 200+ meg reads only.
The best part of Sata2 is only one cable to the array gives me that speed.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation -
Hi Bob,
I think there are a few drives available that have SATA II interfaces including the Hitachi 7K500. I have seen a few reviews but from what I remember none of the reviewing drives were much faster than regular SATA drives. Of course the other advantages of SATA II might apply.
Hope that helps,
Gary Taylor
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