Suggestions for upgrades to speed up FCP Rendering? Or get Shake and use Qmaster?

[Walter Biscardi]

[David McClave] “Is an external enclosure that supports 4+ bays and uses the eSATA connection better, or a RAID card that connects with a multi-channel cable? “

eSATA is actually slow compared to SAS. It’s a much thicker pipe with faster speeds. Still SATA drives, but a much heavier duty cable and faster connection. I have never used a multi-channel cable so I have no idea on that one.

[David McClave] “I’ve built plenty of SCSI arrays, and even have a few laying around, (they’re all 10GB drives, though), so I’m familiar with the concept and THAT old technology… I’ve been reading up on SAS, and from what I read, the Mac Pro card is SAS AND SATA? True? “

Ok, I’m not even going to ask what year those 10GB drives are from, but I will say that in 1996 I had the largest Media 100 system in the world with a whopping 40GB of storage across three JEMS arrays. Had people calling me all the time at the office asking what I was going to do with all of that storage. 🙂

Again, no clue on the Apple card and what it can do, I’ve never used it. We run the ATTO R380 card here. There is an Areca card that is also very good (sorry, don’t know the model) and Dulce makes very very good cards and arrays as well. If you go external, I would highly recommend MaxxDigital, Sonnet or Dulce and all of those arrays will come pre-configured with the appropriate Mac Pro card to drive it. G-Tech also makes some really nice high speed arrays that Gary Adcock swears by.

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

Read my Blog!

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!

[David Mcclave]

Again, OUTSTANDING information. I’m going to read until my eyes melt, then decide. I’m going to check out prices on the ATTO first, and start collecting drives.

Funny about those 10GB SCSI drives… They’re from about ’98. But I remember when I got the first 1GB drive in SPOKANE, with my FrankenMac IIci… I thought “no one will ever catch up to me on this!” I spent about $6K on that 35MHz machine plus all its memory and storage! I was proud and showed it off to everyone. I was mastering CDs and doing 3D graphics with POV Ray in the studio, and my clients thought I had the state-of-the-art system… until my competitor bought the latest machine available… Always keeping up, aren’t we!

Thanks again for the VERY helpful info!

-Dave

Dave McClave – CASE42 Creative Media
https://www.case42.com
“Waaaayyy Outside The Box!”
Wait… there’s a box??!?

(1) 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon Mac Pro
with (NOW) 8GB RAM
Final Cut Studio PLUS all the extras…
After Effects CS3
(1) 2 GHz Dual-Processor Mac G5 (PCI-X)
Final Cut Pro 6
Adobe PS & AI CS3
Emagic Logic Platinum
JVC GY-HD110U, Sony A1U, Canon XL1

[Gary Adcock]

[David McClave] “I’ve built plenty of SCSI arrays, and even have a few laying around, (they’re all 10GB drives, though), so I’m familiar with the concept and THAT old technology… I’ve been reading up on SAS, and from what I read, the Mac Pro card is SAS AND SATA? True? “

OK forget about SCSI in this age, SAS and Sata drives blow them out of the water in terms of speed and reliability.

While your Mac can do SCSI don’t, and this is not a PC and forget about the Apple Raid card- it has it’s own set up issues ( like how can a 3drive array do Raid 5 efficiently). A simple array from Maxx or Dulce are affordable compared to buying the apple card and then good enough drives Seagate’s or Hitachi

Realtime on a Mac is all about the config. It is about the correct config (like the RAM issue) and it all relates to all of the hardware parameters, storage speed, RAM, CPU. Plus all of the non hardware issues about making sure the system is tuned for your specific kind of workflow.

Not to mention that all of the systems you list had dedicated video cards for output- many of them offering additional performance, but remember not to let you old ways get involved- macs are NOT Pc’s and some of the tricks you have learned on the other OS will work against you here.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

Inside look at the IoHD
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/adcock_gary/AJAIOHD.php

[Nick Lovell]

I agree, helpful info! Thanks for asking and keeping the thread alive, David!

[Nick Lovell]

Here’s the article you mention:

https://support.apple.com/kb/TS1957?viewlocale=en_US

Great info! Thanks, Wayne!!!

[Ricardo Reyes]

Walter,

That would be the Areca ARC-1221X you are referring to. Areca has a complete line of RAID controllers, there are many models available, but the ARC-1221X is the card mostly used for external storage in DV applications.

Ricardo

***** RAID, no matter how redundant, does not substitute proper and regular backups *****

[Steve King]

Walter,

I’ve appreciated your expertise in past reviews. Thanks. My question is do you use a hardware based esata raid or software. I am getting ready to build a raid system. Thanks

Steve King
AVS Media Group

[Nathan Morris]

meh. i remember editing on the ‘very 1st’ non-linear suite in the country….yeah times have changed – but final cut slow and rendering times seems shocking to me.