[Eric Hansen]

Thanks Alex. Macrumors quoted an article that briefly tested 2 of these enclosures in a RAID-0 and got 2GB/s Write and 2.4GB/s read. So yeah, that could work. Basically four PCIe SSDs spread over two TB2 connections.

Seems nuts to need that kind of speed, but I could see some of my 4k grading clients needing this. Since most 4k acquisition is raw and compressed (Redcode, F55), this wouldn’t be necessary for that footage. But for VFX shots in DPX, OpenEXR or TIFF, this could help. It could also help during export and DCP creation. It would also help if Resolve ever added the pre-cache feature that Baselight has (ie, if you have Redcode footage, it’s debayered and cached before you need it in grading, so the system can used the cached shot and doesn’t have to redebayer every time you manipulate a grade, so you don’t need a Red Rocket)

But then it makes me wonder what the latency of TB2 is compared to direct PCIe

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

Does this happen with all clients, or just one?

I believe it’s because the client sees 2 instances of the share, but the first instance is hidden, and the OS is adding a “-1” to the second share. I’ve had this on older installations of Xsan.

Have you tried powering everything down and turning it all back on? Sometimes this is enough. If that doesn’t work, you might need to reset the permissions and recreate the shared folder on the server. Then have all the clients reconnect.

You could also rename the share. Yes, you will have to reconnect everything in Premiere (and anything else you use), but then you won’t get a “-1”

Hope that helps.

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

Alex, you bring up an interesting point with 4k DPX. Since the new Mac Pros are geared toward 4k production, and could have awesome speed in Davinci, how would you propose building a DPX cache for the nMP? Perhaps putting SSD PCIe cards in multiple Thunderbolt enclosures and putting them in a Software RAID0? Im guessing that since each enclosure could saturate the 20Gb/s connection, and the Mac Pro has three TB2 controllers, would each SSD have to be placed on a different TB2 controller to achieve max speed?

Or would you recommend this particular Resolve user just jump to a Linux setup?

These are fun times!

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

Regarding a software RAID, i’d like to test the following setup:

taking 2 Guardian Maximus enclosures running RAID-1 internally, and putting them in a Software RAID0. This would theoretically get by the USB3 speed limit because each of the two USB3 connections would be running at a single drive RAID1 speed. It would then depend on the USB3 controller in the computer and the software for the RAID0.

I’d like to try this on my 2009 Mac Pro with the CalDigit USB3/eSATA card. This should work with the OP’s MacBook Pro, but it would be interesting to see if the USB3 controller in the MBP would be a limiting factor.

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

I would get a bunch of cheap bare hard drives and a toaster. then save your projects on those drives following the 3-2-1 Rule:

3 copies
2 different types of media
1 offsite

as Bob said, hard drives are junk and fail. You can only protect yourself by having multiple copies. I recommend LTO, but the cost of entry is high (but if you’re archiving more than 20TB a year, it’s the cheapest by far). also, don’t buy enterprise hard drives (like Ultrastars) for this use. waste of money IMHO for drives that will sit on a shelf.

Alex has some good suggestions, but the same rule applies – have multiple copies and keep at least one copy off-site. I don’t go the NAS (Drobo) route because I don’t need to keep completed projects at near line

i use NeoFinder to catalog and search my archive hard drives and LTO tapes.

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

I’ve never used XDCAM disks, but I’ve heard of people storing masters on them similar to HDCAM and Digibeta tapes.

But this is probably the most expensive form of storage you could choose. LTO5/6 will be much cheaper if you’re storing a lot of material. plus, LTO allows you to store any data, whereas I believe XDCAM disks can only store XDCAM video (but I could be wrong about that)

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

+1 to what Steve said. Apple updates the firmware.

I have purchased either refurbished Macs or older (but still new) Macs still in the sales channel for clients in the past for this reason.

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Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

Since miniDV uses the DV codec over firewire as its standard, i would save these tapes as DV files. That way you have a bit for bit copy of the original, with matching timecode. Anything else, including ProRes, will be a recompression.

If you’re going to use ProRes, i would go with ProRes 422 or ProRes HQ. Since they’re standard def, they will be way smaller than HD ProRes HQ anyway.

I would then save these DV files on LTO if possible.

It’s hard to say what the standard will be 10-20 years from now. There’s no guaranteed codec, especially when you start talking about licensing issues. But if you gave me a 15 year old DV file, I could still use that today. The other formats from 15 years ago would be harder to use or decode. For my extremely paranoid clients, we save masters as DPX or TIFF frames.

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

What if instead of “looping”, you use a server with two TB ports, like a Retina MacBook Pro or iMac? This way the storage is on one TB port and the client computer is on the other port. I know both ports use a single controller, but it’s worth a shot.

Just a thought. I’ve never tested this myself, but if it works it makes the new Mac Pro a bit more intriguing. I’ve read the Mac Pro uses three controllers for the six TB2 ports.

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv

[Eric Hansen]

When Apple releases a new version of anything, they treat the old versions as if they never existed. When Mountain Lion was released, they no longer sold Lion on the App Store. This is starting to change somewhat, but it’s extremely important that you save every app or OS you download or buy, because there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to redownload it later. I take this one step further and save every OS update (the self-contained Combo updates). I have a 1TB drive full of app installers spread over multiple versions so i’m covered. I’m paranoid, but that’s what my clients pay me for.

Mountain Lion 10.8.5 is definitely the most solid Mac OS for Resolve at this time.

e

Eric Hansen
Production Workflow Designer / Consultant / Colorist / DIT
https://www.erichansen.tv