[Neil Sadwelkar]

Thanks, Bob.

Of course, lots of those who read the piece are going home thinking, “Hey this is easy, just connect any 10G switch to 4-6 machines, each with a 10G Sonnet, and have one ‘server’ and you’ve got a shared storage”.

But this Twin 10G opens up possibilities for DITs on set where, increasingly, MacBook Pros are being used and often one needs to deploy two or more and share storage for multi cam feature shoots.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

If you have to work over Firewire800, then the max data rate you’ll get is about 100 MB/sec. Practically, you’ll see between 60-80 MB/sec. There are many FW 800 RAIDs, but over Firewire, they are overkill. A RAID5 of 4 drives can deliver between 200-240 MB/sec, but over Firewire it will still be restricted to 60-80 MB/sec.

So if Firewire800 is what you’ll go with, then a single drive GTech G-Drive will also deliver the full bandwidth of Firewire.

Red playback needs drive throughput and CPU/GPU. At the max 5k HD 3:1 full res debayer, you need 139 MB/sec from the drive. Which even a single drive can deliver.
1/2, 1/4, 1/8 debayer may need slightly less. And if the R3Ds were shot 5:1 or 8:1 then the disk needs to deliver just 50-80 MB/sec which is within the range of Firewire.

You’re better off, getting a USB3+eSATA PCIe card for your MacPro so you get USB3 and eSATA ports which can give you better speeds with drives. If you have no PCIe slots vacant, you could just add one or two drives inside the MacPro. A 2-3 drive RAID0 inside the MacPro can deliver up to 300 MB/sec depending on the drives.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Panasonic has a page on this…
https://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/varicam/35/workflow.html

Not clear if the Raw (V-Raw) Codex recordings are on the same XR data pack that goes into the Alexa XT. That would be real convenient for those with existing Thunderbolt/USB3 codex docks and Codex Vaults.

There’s a viewer application (Win and Mac) for AVC-Intra offload…
https://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/sales_o/p2/p2viewerplus/index.html

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

You can use BRU with LTO-6 drives from a variety of manufacturers.

An LTO-6 drive connected over mini-SAS to a SAS card sitting inside a Sonnet or OWC Thunderbolt-PCIe box, which is connected over Thunderbolt to a new MacPro, iMac, MacBook Pro, or even MacBook Air all work fine, and I’ve used all of these.

During a LTO-6 (or even LTO-5) tape backup with the above setup (using BRU-PE), the Mac isn’t overly loaded so you can freely use it for any small task like browsing the web, checking your mail, doing your taxes. Just avoid doing something heavy like large Photoshop files, After Effects etc.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Oh all right. CinemaDNG files, that explains the data rate.

However, I still feel that even if Premiere Pro CC supports native files, its ‘healthier’ for the system if you work on down-converted files like ProRes LT or even ProRes Proxy. Everything will move more fluidly in the timeline with this workflow.

About space taken by converted files, that shouldn’t be much. Let’s say you have 20 hrs of CinemaDNG at the stated 4 MB/frame. It will take up 6.91 TB. When converted to ProResLT the same 20 hrs will occupy just 687 GB. And it will play and render very fluidly.

Since you’re on Windows you may have trouble converting to ProRes. You can select another codec, like DNxHD or any compressed codec delivering about 100 Mbps data rate and get very good looking pictures and saving space.

If you happen to be in India (totally guessing from your name), let me know, I’m in Mumbai and can help you with this workflow.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Where did you come across a data rate of 150 Mbps for Magic Lantern Raw? I checked and it appears to be in the 60-80 Mbps range. Mind that this is megabits/sec.
So, even 150 Mbps is just under 19 Megabytes/sec MB/sec while 60-90 Mbps is 7.5-11.25 MB/sec.
None of these need RAID0 with two SATA drives. Even a single drive with a mirror for safety will do just fine.

Ideally you should put one drive inside your machine and use a good drive like a GTech as the mirror and keep it outside the PC connected by USB3. And use a cloning software to keep them in sync. This way you have a redundant drive and an offsite backup too.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

In the field, lugging RAIDs can get clunky and having them sent as checked in baggage is risky too. RAIDs are used when speed of writing is essential and redundancy against drive failure.

Today’s USB3 drives are fast enough and give sustained 130-180 MB/sec speeds. To make them redundant, you can have multiple drives in the same weight/size factor as a 4-bay RAID.

For long term backup, nothing comes close to LTO is cost vs safety. So my solution of choice is one backup on a Enterprise drive, one on a standard drive, and one on LTO tape.

G-Tech G Drive USB is a small fast USB3 drive, while the G Drive Pro uses enterprise drives so is safe. Or you could choose a good USB3+eSATA case with an enterprise drive from OWC. I have a few that have lasted 6 years.

For the large RAID in your home base, consider a G-Tech Studio 8-bay going up to 64 TB (unformatted).

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

I agree with Bob. $500 for a software for doing safe, secure, and peace-of-mind backups is a no-brainer.

I own BRU-PE and Preroll Post. But I tend to use BRU more often. My experience with PreRoll Post has been posted here a couple of times. It seems to have issues with large file sequence archives – like ArriRaw, OpenEXR, DPX – so if you’re data is much of that, then you may see problems that I saw. But Imagine are working on that aggressively and hopefully it will be a thing of the past.

On the Mac, for newbies, a simple to use, and fully secure software that makes backup effortless… there is nothing like BRU-PE. With a huge plus being that the software to restore your data is free of charge, and you’re welcome to distribute it along with your backups. Meaning a client can be assured that he can restore his data without coming back to you.

PreRoll Post is an interesting development, but its still work-in-progress.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

OWC has great tech support as well as videos for the installation of most of their products.
Like this one for the Thunderbay
https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/enc_owc_thunderbay4_hdd_m/

And they also have live chat support.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

Also, to add to what Bob posted, my experience with ‘general IT guys’, meaning honest hard-working gals/guys who manage big iron servers and switches that keep servers, and other such stuff running, don’t necessarily ‘get’ the needs of video/audio file requirements.

Nearly anyone can make a GigE shared storage system with 600 MB/sec throughput capability, with a ‘on paper’ bandwidth of 80 MB/sec per client.
But making FCP or Avid run without dropping frames or losing sync is often a challenge. Video needs 24 (or 25 or 29.97) complete frames per sec and every second. No more and no less. A short burst of 20 GB followed by ‘silence’ breaks the video stream.

Sound has even lower requirements, but each frame of picture needs accompanying sound at exactly that time and consistently.

Also, when the editor hits ‘Play’ both picture and sound have to instantly start playing. Even a short 300 msec delay can be irritating. So also when the editor hits ‘pause’.

All this appears simple and straightforward, but I’ve seen many such (‘IT-assembled’) shared storage systems some even costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, with specs of 1000 MB/sec and over, completely break down into a stutter and stammer when three editors hit play even on a DNxHD36 timeline.

Just a general observation.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India