What do you guys like for storage…single Media Composer HD?

[Bob Zelin]

I only use SATA storage solutions for AVID Adrenaline systems. If you have an HP xw8000 or xw8200, you need a PCI-X card (like the Cal Digit Fasta 4X or the Sonnet X4P), and a 5 bay SATA chassis. The PCI-X SATA card goes into slot 4 or 5 of your HP computer. If you have a newer xw8400, you need the PCI-E card (Cal Digit Fasta 4e or Sonnet E4P) with a 5 bay SATA chassis. With this, you can do uncompressed SD, and AVID DNxHD220 all day long. You can buy all this stuff from Ron at Maxx Digital at (714) 374-4944, but there are plenty of other dealers out there that sell it too.

You do not need 440mb/sec performance for an AVID. You don’t need 440mb/sec for ANY SYSTEM that can even do uncompressed HD – 220mb/sec is all you need. For an Adrenaline, this is way overkill. Newer SAS SATA controllers will give you this type of performance, as well as RAID protection. If you want more details about RAID protected SATA, just ask !

Bob Zelin

[Dan Riley]

Thanks Bob.
Basically you answered my question which was, do people on the AVID
side of things use SATA storage like we do with FCP. The reason for the question is
the shop I work for is a mixed workstation situation, one AVID MC (meridian) and one FCP.
Both are SD today and will be HD within a few weeks with all new Mac Pros for both
systems and storage and monitoring. I’m helping decide what
storage to buy on the AVID side as well as for my FCP system. But right now
they are being advised to purchase a Facilis fiber system for the AVID and it’s very expensive, not only for the drive system but we’ll have to run fiber all over the place.
So I wanted to know if people using AVID HD (doing the DNX is fine)
can use maybe the Sonnet D800 8 bay (6 TB) or the CalDigit HD Pro 8 bay.
Sounds like you are saying sure thing, which is good news.

As far as protected RAID goes, the way I do it on FCP right now is RAID 0 and
back up all my projects individually to 800 firewire drives. This works well because
something I worked on a year ago I just hook up to the G5 and off I go.
If I need to work extensively with the project, I dump all the files back in the RAID
otherwise I get one stream of SD and multiple streams of DV from the backup drive.
So I’m thinking NOT to run RAID 5. Thoughts Bob?

Dan

[Bob Zelin]

the Facilis is an excellent shared storage system. We are discussing storage that is NOT shared, just local storage.

I have personally not tested either the Cal Digit HDPro, or the Sonnet, but without going into too much detail, the Sonnet RAID solution is not ready yet. I was discussing the CHEAP Sonnet port multipler stuff (the 500P). If you have an AVID Meridian system, you ain’t putting this hardware into a MAC Pro – and anyone that tells you that it will work is on drugs. I ASSUME that you are getting AVID Adreanline systems on Mac Pros. If RAID 0 is ok for you, the RAID 0 cal digit and sonnet are just fine. If you want RAID protection, I have tested the Dulce Systems, and its the best system out there – BUT I HAVE NOT SEEN THE HD PRO from Cal Digit, so I can’t make any comparisons between these 2 products.

Bob Zelin

[Dan Riley]

Sorry, I wasn’t very specific. My bad.
We are upgrading both the FCP system (currently G5) and the very old
AVID Meridian system (currently Windows 2000, not sure workstation).
Both are going to be Mac Pro 8 cores, one with FCP and one with AVID MC AD HD.
I was originally only thinking about local storage for both units.
This would have been maybe CalDigit or even MacGurus Burly box and 8 drives each
and a CalDigit or Sonnet card. I’ve got a Burly box unit on my FCP setup
that’s run 24/7 for three years and never had a hickup, and it’s cheap.

But now, after reading more about the Facilis system, I’m thinking
this might be a good posibility. You say you know of it?

Dan

[Bob Zelin]

Facilis is Jim McKenna and Francis Albert – ex AVID employees. They were instrumental in the AVID LanShare product, and this product is a teriffic solution as an alternative to AVID Unity solutions. But as you know, this solution will not be as cheap as stand alone SATA. Someone like Ron at Maxx Digital (714) 374 4944, can give you pricing on most of these solutions, but you should contact Facilis directly for pricing on Terrablocks SAN solutions. For MC HD Adrenaline, the Facilis is a good solution for you, if you want a SAN.

Bob Zelin