Thunderbolt –> eSata adapter ??

[Thomas Morter-laing]

Ah cool, I get it 😀

[Mick Kalber] ” Project is HDCAM 4:2:2 uncompressed (don’t ask y), which I think requires faster speeds than 80 Mb. Guess I could redigitize at pro res… that would require less speed, wouldn’t it? Maybe I should just go thunderbolt and redigitize material to those drives.

Its only 80MB WRITE mind you, read of almost 200 should totally handle HDCAM… so for scrubbing and reading whilst editing, Im not sure what problems you’d get. Isn’t it normally a good idea to transcode HDCAM stuff to prores anyway? Also (sorry HDCAM isn’t my usual format) but off the top of my head, aren’t there a bunch of ‘flavours’ to it, some of which are only about 600Mbits? (which is roughly 75Mbites anyway, so should be cool)…as I said, thats some VERY sketchy memory there though 🙂

ALSO as I suggested, Sonnet are trying to sort it- they’re fully aware of the slow write speed and what it should be, and Ive had numerous hints from a technician there about it, so hopefully something should give on one end soon and an update to allow faster write speeds should happen. Apparently in their original iterations of the device it wrote just as fast with a Tempo Sata Pro (i.e. 200MB/s) but Apple did something when they actually released thunderbolt public which changed the technology EVER so slightly, but enough to cause issues- so Im not sure. Its up to you, depending on how much money vs time etc is at stake 😀 I know I would personally be happy with buying the Sonnet adapters because it gives full express card capability and hope/wait for Sonnet to update something soon, but then as it stands my deadlines a ret super close and I don’t have money riding on any time like you may or may not be 🙂

Tom Morter-Laing
Twitter- @TomTheEditor
_________________________________________________
Editor, Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
——————————————-

Equipment (not for ‘bragging’, but in case it’s relevant to future posts :D): Canon 7D, with Rode NTG2.
iMac 27″ intel i7 3.4GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD 6970M [2GB GDDR5], 2x G-Tech G-RAID (0) 2TB over Thunderbolt via Sonnet Echo ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt adapter and Tempo™ SATA ExpressCard/34. Elgato Turbo H264HD.

[Mick Kalber]

Sorry… Wasn’t clear… I have a project whose media lives on my current raids to finish up, then I’d like to go thunderbolt, if it’s reliable. But I’m not sure the read/write speeds will be fast enough using the adapters. Project is HDCAM 4:2:2 uncompressed (don’t ask y), which I think requires faster speeds than 80 Mb. Guess I could redigitize at pro res… that would require less speed, wouldn’t it? Maybe I should just go thunderbolt and redigitize material to those drives. Thots? Mahalo.

Mick Kalber
Tropical Visions Video, Inc.
Hilo, Hawaii

[Mick Kalber]

Yes, I’ve been told to use prores, but have just never done it. Current project was done on FCP 6.0.1… system crashed… came back with 6.0 installed, and I have no upgrade capability. If I could get to 6.0.1 or higher, I could finish at project on my G5. But trying to find FCP 6.0.1 has been a nightmare. System is 6 1/2 yrs old, and it’s time to upgrade anyway. Have a HUGE project upcoming and would love to have iMac/thunderbolt system in place for that. I’m just trying to figure out the best solution. Current project needs to get done, but not yesterday… client is flexible. I live in the hinterlands… Big Island of Hawaii… and am largely out of touch with the industry except what I read on the cow, etc. Not easy living in a video wasteland. Open to any suggestions.

Mick Kalber
Tropical Visions Video, Inc.
Hilo, Hawaii

[Ron Priest]

“Fredy and Ron, i you have a chance could you use a utility to give me the read and write speeds of your drives when in use with the thunderbolt-express card adapter please?”

Hey Thomas, I haven’t purchased the Sonnet Echo Thunderbolt Adapter yet, had to work on purchasing the new iMac and FCPX first. Now that I have them both and am learning FCPX, I think I have about decided to order the Echo Adapter. B&H is selling it for $20 cheaper than everyone else, and it’s free shipping so I think I will order it come Saturday night after B&H opens back for ordering. If so, I should have it by Wednesday of next week. I really want to get the 8 TB Promise Pegasus RAID, but just don’t have the extra coin right now and am anxious to start editing in FCPX. I have an eSATA enclosure (not a raid) which holds two separate SATA 3.5 7200 rpm drives, so that’s what I’m hoping I can use in FCPX on my new 3.4 GHZ i7 iMac until I can save up for the Pegasus RAID. I plan on capturing and editing in ProRes 422 (I’m still capturing tape) I can capture in ProRes 422 in real time on my old 2006 MacPro via my eSATA JBOD setup using the Sonnet Tempo Pro PCI express card. I know the eSATA drives won’t be any faster on the new iMac via the Sonnet Echo Adapter, but if it is at least as fast as everything is on my old MacPro in FCP7 I would hope I can edit FCPX on the iMac.

What is the latest, have you heard any new news from Sonnet about the Echo Adapter? Did you order yours yet? I’ll do that speed test for you next week after I get the Adapter.

Fredy, how are you coming along with your adapter? Is is still getting hot? I’m wondering if it runs hotter for you running a RAID then it will for me running in standard JBOD mode?

Ron Priest
Videographer
Louisville, KY

[Ron Priest]

Hey guys. Okay, so I couldn’t stand it any longer, I just had to know if the Echo TB Adapter would work for me on the iMac using a simple 2 Drive eSATA enclosure configured as a JBOD with separate eSATA connectors for each drive. So far so good! I’m using the Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 with just a single eSATA drive connected via the Echo TB adapter.

I have a wedding project that I am working on in FCP7 which I had captured to this eSATA drive on my Mac Pro and transcoded it to ProRes 422 on the fly. So I simply connected it to the iMac and started importing the original captured files to a new event as reference files (not re-copying the original files).

I’ve elected to analyze the video on import for color, shake and people, etc, so that’s taking a while, but I can simply start editing and am having no problems whatsoever (knock on wood).

I’m not really sure how to measure disk write and read speeds, and I know I’m not getting as high as I could if I was using a RAID versus JBOD, but honestly, the readings I am getting using Blackmagic Design’s Disk Speed Test application Version 2.1 downloaded from the Mac App Store is indicting almost the same speeds as I am getting on the Mac Pro with an external eSATA multiplex Enclosure configured as a JBOD. On the Mac Pro, it measures 81.3 MB/s Write and 83.9 MB/s Read. It’s about in the same ballpark on the iMac with the Echo TB adapter as far as the read speed, but the write speed is a little slower. I think that’s a know issue that Sonnet is about to have a fix for, I’ve heard they are working on it with Apple anyway So hopefully that issue will be resolved soon.

The bottom line is, I can skim, playback and everything else so far, just as smooth as ice without seeing any spinning beach balls so that’s a big plus! If I can continue working like this until I can afford to purchase the Promise Pegasus TB enclosure, I will be a happy camper.

Ron Priest
Videographer
Louisville, KY

[Evan Crush]

Hey check this out:
https://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10574

2seSATA to THB with daisy chain and what seems to be nice perfomances even in writes.

We’d need to test it but looks promising.

[Ron Priest]

Yes, I got wind of that yesterday. If I hadn’t already purchased the Sonnet Echo Thunderbolt Adapter, I would probably purchase it, but I’m doing okay with the Echo now that I’ve got a stable driver to work that doesn’t cause Kernal Panic Attacks on my MacPro and MBP.

I was looking on LaCie’s site trying to determine if their new Thunderbolt Adapter was port multiplier-aware, and works with enclosures with hardware RAID controllers using the port multiplier? So far, I’ve found no indication that it is, unless I’ve overlooked it on their site.

I would sure like to know the speed test results from using the Black Magic Disk Test Utility and anyone gets their hands on one. If I got true 3GB speeds, then I would go with it versus the Promise Pegasus RAID, but I’ve about resolved to thinking that’s the only route that’s going to give me worry free speed for editing multiple streams of ProRes in FCPX.

Ron Priest
Videographer
Louisville, KY

[Thomas Morter-laing]

Sonnet really needs to step up their game here- the write speed issues it faces across the board needs to be addressed, it’s been like this for too long now and in terms of write speed, there’s no point in having one- FireWire 800 is actually often better at the moment. I don’t know if it’s a driver update or something they need to get Apple to do, but I’m thinking I return it saying it doesn’t do what it says on the tin and get a LaCie…. they pretty much have until that LaCie adapter starts selling in the Uk before I kick off.

Tom Morter-Laing
Twitter- @TomTheEditor
_________________________________________________
Editor, Certified Apple Product Proffessional, 2010
——————————————-

Equipment (not for ‘bragging’, but in case it’s relevant to future posts :D): Canon 7D, with Rode NTG2.
iMac 27″ intel i7 3.4GHz, 12GB RAM, ATI HD 6970M [2GB GDDR5], 2x G-Tech G-RAID (0) 2TB over Thunderbolt via Sonnet Echo ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt adapter and Tempo™ SATA ExpressCard/34. Elgato Turbo H264HD.

[Evan Crush]

@Thomas: it ships in the UK from their website £169 but from no where else from what I’ve seen.

@Ron: about your port multiplier support, it took me a while to figure it out but from the list of product they recommend it with it should support product with Hardware RAID controller because the 2big and 4big they list do have hardware RAID controllers (I have a 4big 4TB). BUT the 4big that I have doesn’t support JBOD or multi LUNs so this doesn’t mean it supports port multiplier. In deed the RAID controller “masks” the drives behind it and therefore “shows” just one drive whih is in fact a collection of 4 drives in RAID 0 or 5…

Last if it did spport it I’d bet they would have pushed it… but the good news is that as long as you have an eSATA multi drive solution that has a RAID chip inside it should do good.

Any way I’ll get back to you in 2 days… As I ordered it and they said it would ship today… 🙂

So i’ll make a test and post an BM benchmark. They say it’s “optimized” for my 4big we’ll see what it means!!

[Ron Priest]

[Evan Crush] “Any way I’ll get back to you in 2 days… As I ordered it and they said it would ship today… 🙂

So i’ll make a test and post an BM benchmark. They say it’s “optimized” for my 4big we’ll see what it means!!”

Great, I’ll be looking forward to your report. What I really need to know though, is the read and write speeds of a single eSATA drive connected as a JBOD.

Right now, Im using the Sonnet echo TB adapter and connected to it I have an external eSATA enclosure that holds 2 SATA drives both with their own eSATA connection. I use it as 2 single drives (JBOD). Right now, I’m not getting much faster write/read then I do with a SATA drive connected via firewire 800. Getting about 70 MBs write, and 90-100 MBs read.

I wonder how long I have before I could send the Sonnet TB adapter back? I purchased it from B&H, I would probably have to get a return authorization directly from Sonnet.

Ron Priest
Videographer
Louisville, KY