Avoiding dropped frames with Matrox and HD Video

Question

What is the best hard drive configuration to avoid dropped frames when using a Matrox MXo2 mini for HDMI outpjt to a high res monitor/tv? I am experiencing slow performance with the four drives in my Macpro 3,1  3Ghz 30GB Ram  Nividia Cuda card. I am after about 200-250 MBytes/sec transfer speeds. Can I do this with two identical disks in my Macpro and configuring them for Raid 0.  Or do I need to do it externally?  I have increased speed to about 120 MBytes/sec by using a Esata card and connecting into to a Lacie 2TB Big disk,configured for Raid 0 . I need to go a bit faster than this....especially if I want to use premier

Answer 1

Those are nice looking enclosures and in general I like OWC. I've been using their stuff since before the turn of the century.
But in this case, I don't think you'll get the speed you're looking for because they are using eSATA and muxing the data over a single cable. It's a flexible solution, but not a very fast one. To re-iterate, the two flaws I see are:
1. SATA II disk speed, and
2. a single eSATA cable
This could theoretically provide 300MB/sec, (they have a benchmark that is around 250) but don't look for it day-in, day-out. As the drives fill up and reality settle in I doubt you'll see the numbers you want. BUT...  maybe it'll provide enough. 
Instead, take a look here:
SATA Enclosures - PC PitStop
Not quite as sassy looking, but I've had the first enclosure shown running with four spindles and a SFF-8470 multilane cable since 2006. And it still benches over 250MB/sec mostly loaded on the original drives.
Any of the enclosures on that page will support SATA III drives and they offer a variety of controllers.This isn't a big shop but they know what's up. Call them.  I know I can build a RAID with their stuff that will cost about the same as the OWC box and be seriously faster.
Hope this helps