Dave Klee
Forum Replies Created
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We backup our raw tapeless media (P2 and SXS) onto a shared Fibre Channel RAID from Active Storage, then back that up to Drobos. Cache-A is a great way to go if you’re willing to spend the money, but a DroboPro with 16TB can be got for under $2,500. It’s hard to beat that with something that gives e-mail notifications and allows drive swapping with drive failure protection.
https://www.drobo.com/products/drobopro/index.php
Just don’t try to edit from the things — they’re slow. And, be aware that they’re “special,” meaning that if it blows up on you, the only place that can really help you recover the data is Drobo.
Good luck!
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I highly recommend ChronoSync if you’re Mac based and generally going disk-to-disk (and not involving LTO tapes).
https://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html
Been using it for years to backup parts of our Xsan, and it is fantastic for the price point. Very simple and flexible with a great feature set. Sounds like a good fit for what you’re looking to do.
Happy to answer any questions about it, and good luck with your setup.
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Hey Ed, I’d agree with Walter — we use the DroboPro for various backups. Not fast enough to edit from, but plenty fast to pull a few files and re-burn a DVD or re-render a master. You can get one loaded with 16TB of cheap drives for $2,000ish (B&H is running a special right now).
I think you’d be smart to build up “tiers” of storage, too. Have a nice RAID-5 drive for your fast editing, and a Drobo or something similar for slow (but safe) backups.
Good luck!
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If all you really want to do is “clone” Drive A to Drive B (make an exact copy), then you might consider the free Carbon Copy Cloner for Mac. https://www.bombich.com/ While I absolutely love ChronoSync, for simple jobs, you can’t beat CCC’s price (free) and it’s really reliable.
If you want to do more complicated things — like make versioned backup copies when files are deleted or overwritten, target specific folders on your drive with different backups compared to other folders, or make multiple copies of backups including some that go to a networked drive or server — I’d go with ChronoSync.
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Hey Michael, don’t sweat it — having the RAID-1 setup shouldn’t give you much trouble at all. I doubt the performance hit will be very noticeable, especially if you’re doing all your rendering to a separate drive. Plus, the real advantage of RAID-1 is that one of the drives could completely fail, and you could go right on working. That’s the reason it’s so popular in server environments where up-time is absolutely critical.
Take care and happy editing!
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Hey Michael, a RAID-1 boot set is pretty common in some server environments where performance isn’t an issue. It’s not overkill at all. However, I don’t like two things about it:
1. Things can go slower, especially writing to the RAID-1 set.
2. If you have some sort of a software problem (like you install an update that breaks your system), then the RAID-1 doesn’t protect you because both drives will end up with the same software problem.
I tend to use Carbon Copy Cloner (https://www.bombich.com/) to make a bootable copy of my system drive once I get it running the way I want. Then, before major upgrades or changes, I try to remember to clone my boot drive again to that second hard drive. If the update goes awry and breaks the computer, I can boot off my backup and wipe the other drive clean.
This method has some downsides, as well; if you have an unexpected problem with your primary drive and haven’t cloned your drive in a while, then you could be out of luck. Also, running the clone takes a while. One nice thing about CCC is that it allows you to schedule a clone to run automatically — I usually run it overnight every week just to keep the clone relatively up-to-date. And, it can do a backup that only updates changed files, meaning the clone runs a lot quicker after the first time.
Sounds like you’re being smart about keeping important stuff on a separate drive — nice work. Lots of people use a RAID-1 boot set, so I wouldn’t think any less of you if you went that route. Both methods should get you back up and running within a few minutes, and then you can replace a dead hard drive at your leisure. A pretty cheap insurance policy.
Take care!
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Hey Mike, while I haven’t used this specific model, I have used the OWC Mercury Rack Pro, which I’m pretty sure uses the same chipset.
I didn’t get the kind of Firewire write performance I expected to — only about 40MB/s. Read performance was about what they advertised at 80MB/s. eSATA performance was excellent and right at their benchmarks. It’s been reliable for the last couple years I’ve owned it, and I know a few people in town who have run Mercury Racks as backup storage for servers the last few years without incident. They’re at a great price point.
So, the simple answer is that this box can probably handle your workload fine if you’re maxing out with ProResHQ. And, since you’re limited to firewire, all you can really expect out of any RAID box is around 80MB/s.
However, there are some RAIDs out there that are more targeted at video editors with a good reputation for service and reliability. They typically use higher-quality disk drives. G-Technology comes to mind: https://g-technology.com/products/g-speed-q.cfm (If you click their banner ad on the COW, I believe you can get a discount.)
Can I really say that the price difference is worth it? Not sure. If you’re a pro and this RAID will be your livelihood, I’d say go with the more recognized and supported RAID with the better drives. If you’re looking for something a little less serious, I’d say the OWC is a decent option, and mine has been working fine (with the small stipulation on firewire write performance).
Long answer to a simple question, but good luck!
Dave
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Personally, I use MPEG Streamclip to convert VOB files to usable QuickTime movies, then pull those QuickTime movies into Final Cut Pro. It’s free and cross-platform, and will allow you to “Open DVD” and select each different video that you’d like to export from the disc:
I believe you’ll need the MPEG-2 QuickTime component installed on the computer with MPEG Streamclip for it to work properly with VOB files, but if this is the same computer that has Final Cut Pro installed, the MPEG-2 component should already be there.
There are a lot of options when exporting out of MPEG Streamclip, but if you’re already in a ProRes workflow, exporting a QuickTime ProRes file at full quality should be just fine.
Good luck!
Dave
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Just stumbled onto this and thought of your question. It isn’t free, but appears to do a nice job outputting logging information from Final Cut Pro:
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/finalprint
Never used it, but figured it was worth passing along. I’ve used other products from Digital Heaven before and have been happy with them.
Good luck!
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This doesn’t really have anything to do with anything for this OWC RAID, but I just wanted to make sure people know that it is somewhat possible to expand the capacity of a Drobo over time. Basically, you pick an arbitrary volume size out of the box when you initially format the Drobo (usually 16TB), regardless of how many drives are inside it. Over time, you can replace small drives with larger ones (without data loss or reformatting) as long as you do it one at a time and don’t exceed that initial formatted ceiling.
Still, a Drobo is not fast enough for editing, but it’s a nice toy. We also have an OWC RAID (Mercury Rack Pro) for some really low priority file sharing (not editing), and it’s great for what it is — cheap. Performance isn’t bad, either — 240 MB/s read through eSATA with a four-disk, hardware RAID5. Nothing wrong with buying cheap stuff so long as you’re honest with yourself about what it can do and how long it’ll last.
Scott, now that you’ve been drubbed by Bob, you can officially consider yourself a part of the Creative COW. Congratulations. It’s kinda like a fraternity hazing, but instead of bad beer and admission to parties you get free advice from top talent like Jordan and Bob. And you can keep all your clothes.
Take care!