Why not just go with MacGuru’s box and a Sonnet card for eSATA?

[Gary Adcock]

[high1memo] ” Basically i’m looking for a solution (as cheap as possible) that can easily support one 2K stream or multiple HD streams on a Mac pro – and with raid5.”

Cheap or reliable, you cannot have both, and since your 2K files are going to be file based, you are risking total failure.

Inexpensive, DIY storage is not a good idea with the kind of data you are talking about.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows

[Walter Biscardi]

[high1memo] “Basically i’m looking for a solution (as cheap as possible) that can easily support one 2K stream or multiple HD streams on a Mac pro – and with raid5.

the rocketraid cards (2322 for Multi-channel, or 2314 for port multiplied) seem the way to go, in addition with an enclosure (or more) like the Enhancebox E5, E8, E10, Sonnet Fusion 500P etc. You can get amazing performance and capacity for quite good prices.”

Cheap is definitely not the way to go when looking for reliable storage, especially at those data rates. we’re considering both Facilis and Ciprico for our new storage solution as we move to 2K work and bring our shop together under shared storage. You may not need shared storage, but definitely something very beefy and reliable would be what I would recommend, especially if you’re a working professional with client deadlines.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi