[John]

thanks for the tip, i went to their site and wow, it is awesome, but what is the price? i could not find that. can you tell me what the cost is? I do know that you can record to dvcpro HD tape with mild compresion, but that portable recorder is $20- $25k just for that, so a person might as well buy a panasonic AJ-HPZ 200 or 2000 for $35k with lens (very expensive lens) and have a nice 2/3 inch camera that records to P2. P2 is expensive, but P2 is the choice of broadcasters and it wil get cheaper, and they do work well, just that an 8 gig card holds 8 minutes of HD uncmpressed, so wow, what are the alternatives???

[John]

HOw true, how true. It is down right depressing at times. the throw away lens is pretty good for the money, but not very good all the way wide or zoomed all the way out. I have seen my frineds footage with the jvc 110u and tha throw away lens, and it is prety amazing for the money. He is doing a lot of valuable corporate work with it and that crapy lens looks pretty good if you dont push it too wide or too zoomed out. the lens i am looking at is $3500, which is aobut 2k more than the crap lens. apparantly, it is a lot better wide and zoomed out apparantly, but i have not used it. one thing that is amazing is Rendering an hdv program to a 1280 x 720 windows media file progressive. Burn as a data file with 1 mbps or 800k compression and then play it in a HD DVD player onto a HD monitor. It looks amazing, and you can of course duplicate that dvd. i am thinking that as time goes on, i can do this for people and it can play on a consumer HD DVD player when those start selling more widely. But i will be the first to admit that things are sketchy with the video world in such a state of chaos really. I am trying to put out something better than mini dv, and HDV seems to be a lot better but certainly far from perfect. DVCAM shot on like a sony 2/3″ camera seems to be the non-hd affordable pro format right now, but i feel like i dont want to invest a fortune into a 25 bit format, so what does a guy do, buy a panasonic varicam with lens for $50k ?? Or a 2/3″ panasonic AJ-HPX200 for $35k with lens (extremely expensive lens!!!!) what do you suggest? the jvc 250u with the HD-sdi port seems like maybe someone will invent a workable disc recording system ot P2 card system or something. I thought of recording that sdi signal (4-2-2 HD) onto a dvcpro HD recorder, but that is $20k jsut for that, so you might as well get the panasonic AJ-HPX200 for $35k which is also too frickin expensive, so i am back to jvc. Panasonic HD palmcorder with p2 cards seems like a good concept, but i hear its soft, you cant set up the camera like the jvc, so back to square one. again, what do you suggest to do to get beyond SD mini-dv? I am all ears. thanks, john

[John]

my system has 10- 320 gig es barracudas with two cases and one card. i paid $450 x2 for the cases on amazon, $270 for the sonet card on amazon- both free shipping, then i paid $89 per barracuda x 10 = $890 plus about $50 total for shiping for a grand total of $2110 for a 3.2 tb with no redundancy, which is better in my opinion- i just backup onto non raided sata 500 gig drives every hour, takes no time, drag and drop. the caldigit folks tried to bury me when i called them, i did not know about mac guru. I like the smart functionality with sonnet, caldigit does not have it and it is significant. The sonnet towers are quiet and cool, support is great, maybe not as great as caldigit. the caldigit 8x card can really kick with a ton of drives, it doesnt make a diff compared to sonnet with 10 or less drives. I am sorry they tried to bury me when i called them directly, that left a bad taste in my mouth, and i said to myself- there must be a cheaper and totally stable solution, adn i ran into michael bean at amug.org, who knows this subject better than anyone on the planet. he prefers the sonnet card due to the architecture and that smart funcionality. check out his exhaustive testing on amug.org and i am sure you will learn something, the guy is a genious, he is honest and not on any agendas in my opinion. i get 400+ mb/sec on my 3.2 tb with no redundancy, which i like very much and have no problems. if a drive fails, i lose no more than one hours worth of work, that is a great workflow, it is super quick to drag and drop to backup onto a non-raided sata.

[John]

my mistake- one sonnet card, 2 sonnet 500p enclosures, 10 drives for $1900 including shipping. You get 3.2 Tb with no redundency, or half trhat with. I prefer to back up every hour onto a non raided drive and dump when project is done. that way you get storage for all the drives instead of half. sonnet tech support is really great. check out amug.org and read michael beans tests, no one has tested as much as he has. sonnet tempo offers smart funcionality and that is significant, caldigit does not because they are on another platform, i am not an expert at that, something to do with silicon something, but i know the smart function is great, sonnet card is capable of 400 mb/sec with the above desc setup, enclosures run quiet and cool. No downside. michael bean is an absolute expert, no one could defeat him in a discussion on this subject, that is the truth, check it out at amug.org. I recommend joiining that gp, outstanding support on all things mac. worht the $39 a year. try pricing support with a qualified tech per hour, $39 is a bargain for sure. check it out yourself, i am very pleased.

[John]

Amen to that! I must say, scsi was not too bad for me, when a drive went wacky you sure knew it right away and it wasnt too hard to pinpoint- wont mount on desktop etc, but yes, sata is fast and cheap and reliable!

[John]

that is a good option at that price. when i called caldigit, they quoted me $6k for two 5 drive towers and one 8x card, not 2400. maybe the guy i spoke with gave me the wrong price? That 8x card is fast but you need a lot of drives to get the full potential out of it. If that is the price, 2400, that is a good option i guess, but i like the smart funtiionality of the sonnet, and i prefer to backup as i go, it actually works really well. if you did lose a drive, the most you would lose is maybe an hours worth of files, and drives dont go bad that often. you just drag and drop onto another non-raided drive. Did you read what michael bean said about all the functionality of the sonnet vs the caldigit, the smart capabilities of the sonnet?

on another subject- i am getting a jvc gyhd 250u camera. Is anyone working on a drive system to record from the hd-sdi port on the cam? it is uncompressed 4-2-2. I believe someone did it with a computer system but i was wondering if it is even possible to make a d/c portable drive that can record to disc that fast, that would be really awesome. right now, jvc has an 80 gig drive that runs on d/c and it records native HDV, which is a lot cleaner than the signal recorded to tape. I am thinking about getting that, but its $1800 and i hate to get it and spend that much cash and something comes out that can run circles around it, you know what i mean? Aloha, john rogers

[John]

Hi Ross,

one thing about this sonnet 500p system- it includes two enclosures that hold 5 drives each, and the sonnet tempo card and 10- 320 gb es barracuddas all comes to $1900 incl shipping for 3.2 Tb system setup as a SATA PM raid. with that you have no redundancy, but it is easy and safe and cost effective to backup onto 500gb unraided sata’s every so often and you have one ass-kicking system for the lowest cost. with this, you can achieve 400 mb/sec. With one unit from caldigit for $3k, you only get one tower that holds max 5 drives, and that system will never write or read at 400+ mb/sec, which is a significant issue if you are editing uncompresed hi-def 4-2-2 or 4-4-4. Also, caldigits pci card does not have SMART support and the sonnet does. this system absolutely rocks. Michael bean of AMUG did more actual testign with various products and configurations than anyone ever has. I just joined the amug. Its like $29 a year and anytime i need support for my G5 quad and raid etc, i get answers quickly from people that know their stuff like no one i have ever met. No need for expensive conslutations, these guys rock in my book. I could not recomment them more. Thanks, john rogers

[John]

While RAID 5 is nice for protection I prefer to stay with
SATA PM. You could simply backup your work each day to another
striped RAID set or to individual 750GB-1TB hard drives. Another
option would be to use four SATA PM enclosures with 16 drives
in a RAID 10 configuration. This would actually provide the
most redundancy. In this setup, each hard drive in the 8 drive
striped RAID set has a mirror of itself in the second group of 8
hard drives.

tech support at sonnet is very good, they know their stuff, and building your own raid is not as stressfull as you are making it sound. Go to amug.org and check out the exhaustive testing that michael bean has done with many configurations using Sonnet tempo sata e4p card for pci-e 4x slot and sonnet fusion 500p 5 drive enclosures with built in port multiplication, which he has proven beyond any doubt that this system is dependable, cost effective, and super easy to put together. Caldigit quoted me $2999. for one five drive enclosure and their 8x pci-e card, and to do uncompressed hi-def, they said i need 2 of those setups and one 8x card that they manufacter. Users might
think that an 8 lane card would be faster than a 4 lane card
but the reality is that you only tap the extra bandwidth
of 8 lanes when 4 SATA PM enclosures are connected. You
don’t realize this until you test the setups side by side.

When using 1-3 SATA PM enclosures with 5-15 hard drives the
Sonnet E4P provides faster performance than the 8x Silicon
Image SiI-3124 reference design. In addition, you lose SMART
support with the 8x card because the Silicon Image Mac drivers
have never been programmed to support it.

You can use either of these cards with a direct connect setup
too. In this configuration each port on the 4 port card is
attached to a single hard drive. If you utilize 4 Seagate 250GB
7200.10 model hard drives with direct connect you can get
300MB/sec and stay above 250MB/sec all the way until the striped
RAID set is 70% full. However, you have a lot more speed with
10 hard drives installed in two SATA PM enclosures using only
two ports on the E4P.

D0).

Tables showing the performance of all of these configurations is
provided in the AMUG E4P review found here:
https://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/mac-pro/

My point is i am not a computer engineer, far from it, but this system is cost effective, easy to put together, great suport, awesome performance. The facts speak for themselves. Things change quickly. again, dont believe me, check out michael beans exhaustive testing at amug.org and decide for yoiurself, then save money and get over 400 mb/sec for $2000 or build it with whatever drives you want and you still get a reliable, supported and totally cost effective system no matter what anyone says.

[John]

spoke with michael Bean at amug (arizona mac user group) He corrected me. Here is the system he advises. you can go to amug.org and check out his exhaustive testing on many different configurations. He recommends the sonnet tempo e4p card, two sonnet fusion 500 Mp encloures, 8 drives, and you will achieve insanely fast speed for uncomp hi-def for only $2000. compared wth $6k for ths same thing from caldigit, and it is super easy to put together and totally tested. he says you can get over 700 mb/sec with two sonnet cards and a particular arrangement of drives. he uses a raid called sata pm. pm stands for port multiplication. Here is what he emailed me:

If you need 300MB/sec over the entire RAID even when the drive is more
than 80% full you will need two 500P enclosures.

Using two SATA PM enclosures with four hard drives each (instead of five)
provides a little slower average speed but not by as much as you might
think. You can see the 8 drive performance chart here:
https://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/mac-pro/8dual.jpg

If you need RAID redundancy this takes you to a RAID 5 setup:
https://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2322/
Disk Utility does not support RAID 5 so I use the RR2322 when I need
RAID 5. The RR2322 does not support SATA PM. It will not work
with the Fusion 500P enclosures. It requires direct connect enclosures
instead.

While RAID 5 is nice for protection I prefer to stay with
SATA PM. You could simply backup your work each day to another
striped RAID set or to individual 750GB-1TB hard drives. Another
option would be to use four SATA PM enclosures with 16 drives
in a RAID 10 configuration. This would actually provide the
most redundancy. In this setup, each hard drive in the 8 drive
striped RAID set has a mirror of itself in the second group of 8
hard drives.

Michael

[John]

I have done exhaustive research on this topic. Caldigit will work great because it uses an 8x pci-e or x card depending on which pci system you have, but the cost is prohibitive. $3k x 2 if you want to edit uncompressed HD= $6k. Caldigit will not sell you a pci card alone, so i have been on a mission to find a compatible PCI-e 8x card, and the only hope is addonics is working on one. I spoke with Bill at addonics in sales, he knows this sata raid subject like no one i have ever spoken with bar none. His co already makes pci-x 8x cards but not for mac and not for pci-e, and they arleady make awesome and affordble towers with port multipliers that are praised with 5 stars at amug site where they put addonics boxes and etc with sonnet tempo 4x card and that system rocks, but it maxes out at 230-250 mb/sec, which is in itself incredible, but i need 260-280 for uncompresed hi-def so i have some head room, bill said the sonnet tempo will work but he said wait one month or two for addonics to test their 8x pci-e card for later model mac G5’s and macpros, whcih both have pci-e 8x slots. He said for a few hundred more dollars i can have an 8x card and conservatively 260-280 mb/sec for real, not in a fantasy, so although i cant wait, i will wait. The pkg will cost way less than caldigit and be rock solid so long as theri new card checks out, whcih it should. and their towers and port multipiers are as good as caldigits, that i have heard from 4 engineers who know their stuff. Ask for bill in sales at addonics and you will learn a lot of factual and conservative info. let him know i sent yoiu. you will not be let down, i was bouncing off of the ceiling when i spoke with him for at least 30 minutes. The drive to use is the seagate 7200 es barracuda, they are only $99 each at new egg. You can buy sets of drives and swap entire sets and have tons of affordable storage. the drives are 320 gigs each. you can go bigger but the cost per gig is super cheap and caldigit uses these exact drive, so there you go. check it out every which way. $6k or way less than half that amt for more storage adn total reliability. if you can live with 230-240 mb/sec, get the sonnet tempo 4x and go to addonics and new egg for the rest. I wish i could get a caldigit 8x card, but they want your money so they wont sell just the card. I dont work for anyone, no agenda, just done a hell of a lot of research and wanted to share it with you guys. i have a G5 quad, got on e of the last mac refurbs for only $2695, now they are out, they were returned unused and perfect from people wanting macpro cpu’s. I want the ibm chipset quad, so i am ecstatic. this system can edit 4-2-2 uncompressed hi-def if yoiur careful not to work with too many overlapping channels of hi-def video. check out this info and see,let me know if you learn of anything new or if yoiu can find a compatible 8x pci-e card, i will grab it immediatily if it chcecks out. john