Alex Gerulaitis
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks for the answers Rick.
[Rick Sebeck] “Reliability is key – which is why I’m looking for recommendations/real life stories of the difference between the OCW and the sonnet enclosures – since the price for each is so different.”
Haven’t worked with either and like neither because of cheap appearances and difficulties and compromises inherent in making a decent 4-bay RAID5 box on a budget.
The one box I do like (worked with the manufacturer for over 12 years) – does have good quality but I know little of its RAID functionality. It also needs a refresh to SATA/600 and USB 3.0.
(Do any 1-st tier vendors have 4-bay RAID5 eSATA boxes? NAS – yes, but how about eSATA/USB/FW?)
There is also an issue of connectivity: 4 drives can potentially have a combined throughput of close to 600MB/s, and using SATA/300, USB 2.0 or FW800 doesn’t do it justice. USB 3.0 and SATA/600 are more appropriate.
Then there is a question of what happens when the drive fails. How easy and reliable is the box’ volume rebuild procedure and how long does it take? This really is a key question – so I’d hold off buying one until you have a good answer to that.
Generally, it’s hard to trust a small and inexpensive RAID5 box for quality of construction and components inside, and thus, ultimately for data integrity. Even half-decent RAID5 controllers aren’t cheap – and you aren’t going to find one in an el-cheapo 4-bay RAID5 box.
See if you can find documentation on how to rebuild a RAID5 volume after a drive failure: if it’s well documented and clear – you may have a winner. If not, I’d look into using dual-drive RAID1 boxes.
HTH.
Alex (DV411)
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Specs-wise, GT 440 is a bit faster as long as it uses the faster GDDR5 memory. It’s fairly new – maybe this is why you don’t see it “hacked” for CS5 GPU support yet. I’d go for GT 440 with 1GB of GDDR5 RAM.
Alex (DV411)
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[Rick Sebeck] “We just need recommendations for decent direct attached RAID enclosures.”
Define “decent”. Capacity, performance, connectivity, reliability, support, warranty? Oh, and… budget? 🙂
Alex (DV411)
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[Thomas Morter-Laing] “Thats odd, Im fairly sure I didnt sorry! Perhaps try again?”
It’s info @ (the domain name in your sig block), right? Just sent it again.
Is there any way to send a private message via this forum? I’ve tried and couldn’t find a way.
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[Milton Hockman] “i read a post saying that the nvidia gt240 is a good upgrade card.
what do you think about that? i dont know about graphics cards…”
It’ll work on your system (only eats 69W peak) – and CS5 can be “hacked” into enabling GPU acceleration with it. It may not be reliable but it should help. Get the 1GB version.
Alex (DV411)
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[Milton Hockman] “I dont do alot of editing to justify a 1,000 computer upgrade. But can i intall better RAM and some other graphics card??”
Yes you can – upgrading to 8GB RAM will help (around $200-300), but not a whole lot: there isn’t much you can do to enable GPU acceleration on this system. I’d certainly add RAM to this system – even a couple of Gigs will help. The 780 can handle up to 16GB, it appears.
Another graphics card won’t help in CS5. It may make the system snappier – but won’t improve rendering or previewing in CS5.
Let me know if you need help figuring out what RAM to order and where, or if you have any other questions.
Alex (DV411)
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[Angelo Lorenzo] “Alex, what I mean by tenured is any workflow your client may use now and is tied to by force of habit. Basically, are they trying to find a media management solution to fit their current workflow or are they open to being more flexible and using a solution and tailoring their workflow to that?”
The latter. They open to any suggestions and recommendations. It’s a US Army PA center with three busy editors (and video shooters) – and I’ve been impressed with their technical knowledge as well – they want a centralized media repository and archive – and need a few preliminary quotes to submit to their superiors.
If I understand you correctly, there aren’t any 3rd party media management solutions for CS5 and they can do most of the legwork in Br and Pr – so the solution will focus on workflow documentation and training, and of course on the underlying hardware (LAN or SAN) that will be able to handle their needs.
Thanks Angelo!
Alex (DV411)
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[Milton Hockman] “so do you think i have a good system that only needs a few upgrades to really work well?”
Milton, you may be able to make the system feel much faster just by adding RAM. I assume you run a 64-bit edition of 7 or Vista if you run CS5. Can you tell us a bit more about your OptiPlex? (OS version and edition? CPU? GPU? RAM? When you say it’s slow, what are the symptoms?)
As far as GPU acceleration: none of the OptiPlex desktops have enough juice for a CS5-approved graphics card – so to get GPU acceleration in CS5, you’d need get a different system: Dell Studio XPS 9100 on the low end (525W PSU); Alienware desktop; Precision T3500 or better.
HTH.
Alex (DV411)
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Thomas, did you by any chance receive my direct email? I think I sent it on Monday.