Alex Gerulaitis
Forum Replies Created
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[Chris Harlan] “If I remember correctly, it was my order that got you guys involved with Macs and FCP in the first place. And, here I am, these many years later contemplating my next workstation as a PC. Should I apologize?”
You remember right and no need to apologize. On the opposite: we met many interesting folks through that Apple business. Many of those, like you, are switching to alternatives.
[Chris Harlan] “Anyway, things are mostly well. Keeping busy, or when not, keeping busy trying to keep busy. My daughter, btw, has just turned 14, if you can believe it. Seems like not so long ago she was sitting there in her mom’s arms while we tried to figure out what was wrong with that Digisuite LE. Time, man; it just moves.”
That it does – glad to hear you and yours are well.
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[Perry Cheng] “…PATA 7200RPM V (250G free)… The only thing I did not try yet, is buy a SATA 6G/s 7200rpm drive for the preview video drive. But, would that make any difference?”
Did you benchmark your PATA drive? What kind of a data rate are you getting?
Here is one way to benchmark it without installing anything:
https://blog.dv411.com/2011/01/disk-test-quickie-windows.html
The other one is to install (or copy the executable of) a bench test from AJA or BMD or a third party.
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
[Neil Sadwelkar] “So, can I connect these to the Atto via miniSAS to eSATA?”
Yes. Other than cable length and transfer speed limitations due to additional circuits between the HBA and the drive, there is no difference for the SAS HBA between a SATA drive attached to a backplane, vs. that same drive attached via a SAS-to-eSATA cable.
Disclaimer: I haven’t tried exactly that scenario, only a similar internal setup: Multi-lane internal SAS (SFF-8087) to SATA fan cable.
[Neil Sadwelkar] “To push it further, how many drives can I connect simultaneously?”
As many as there are lanes. With ATTO H680 – eight.
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
Totally agree that individual drives (and even small redundant boxes) aren’t usually a good choice for long term storage yet tape drives have their own cans of worms. Besides cost of entry and limited fault tolerance, one of them is portability. You have to have the tape drive and install the software to read the data. Might cause issues for an IT-challenged facility.
With that in mind, G Speed Q (along with Drobos, CineRAIDs, etc.) might be that balanced choice for long term storage, for a small IT-challenged facility: fault tolerant to a degree, portable, immediately available. For long term storage viability, I’d add a couple of things along the lines of Vince’ advice to “spin ’em once in a while”:
– keep it online and connected to one of the systems for constant health monitoring;
– consider getting a spare drive module;
– see which one of all of these boxes offers the best diagnostics and reporting so that you absolutely and immediately are notified if there is anything wrong with the box or one of the drives;
– limit permissions so that the data can’t be easily wiped out or messed with accidentally.I’d venture Drobo has the best monitoring tools, but would need to do a little more research on it.
Frank: you can also offer a small service (which you can charge for): check on the health of the unit every month or three: check RAID and individual drive statuses, system logs for related error messages, integrity of the file system.
(What do you think about it Vince?)
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
Craig, let me know if you need a quote. (You got my message above with my direct email?)
Enhance (and CineRAID/ Areca) will also sell you (e.g. via DV411) just the enclosure, without drives, if you are looking for the best price.
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
[Craig Wolf] “I found if I got the VTrak EClass 4TB array and purchased 1TB drives from Promise it is cheaper than getting the VTrak EClass 8TB array. I believe price was around $7500.”
Aye, that’s usually the case – when drives are purchased separately, they don’t have to initialize / test the array, and the warranty is usually different: i.e. they usually don’t x-ship replacement drives for drives purchased individually.
[Craig Wolf] “The price on the UltraStor is fantastic.”
It is indeed although I just heard from Enhance: the RS series aren’t compatible with xServe for some reason – finding out why.
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
[Craig Wolf] “Second, and totally your perspective, but if you have to get a general IT DAS and used mini-SAS, what would you get? “
1. A good SAS RAID controller first: ATTO R680 or Areca ARC-1882x, about $1K. There are other options too.
2. An expander-type 6G SAS box with 8 or more bays. Choices: ProAvio / Enhance, Promise, HP, Areca, many more. Prices: $2500 for a 16-bay solution from ProAvio, $1.7K for CineRAID (division of Areca) CR-R08E, an 8-bay 6G SAS expander.
3. Enterprise class drives
Done. 🙂
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA -
UltraStor RS System: 2U RM 8 Bay 8TB (8x1TB SATA) 2-port 4G Fibre Channel 3YR w/ 1YR ARP [RS8FS-F8T] – $4,206 SRP.
One of the most cost effective 4Gb Fibre systems I’ve seen.
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There’s something wrong with that picture. 🙁 The drives shouldn’t be 0GB no matter what. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this…
You are saying, in IRST PROM (Ctrl-I on boot), the drives all show up healthy with capacities reported correctly?
Alex Gerulaitis
Systems Integrator
DV411 – Los Angeles, CA