Best Raid Block Size for video editing

I cannot seem to get my head round about which Raid Block Size I should set my Striped Raid 50 configuration to.
There seems to be very little info about this, but what info there is seems to imply that it could seriously affect the performace of the Raid.
I have initialized two Raid array's to Raid 5 and was about to stripe them together using Disk Utility, when I decided to click on options in the bottom left of the Disk Utility window. This is where you can set the Raid Block Size.
The default is 32K, but it states that there could be 'performance benefits' if this setting is changed to better match my configuration.
What exactly does this mean?
I want do read multiple dv streams from my Raid 50 - Any ideas which Block Size I should allocate??
Should I just leave it as the default 32K??
Any help will be appreciated
Cheers
Adam

My main concern is really to have as many editors as possible reading DV footage from the Raid simultaneously (up to 5 at once).
I understand that we may struggle at times, but Xsan isn't an option and I just need to get the best out of a limited budget!
Chers
Adam

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Best RAID block size for media drive?

What block size give you best performance when it comes to pushing data?
For a striped RAID setup.
32 is standard but since most of the media files are big and consistent would a higher value like 128 or even 256 KB be better?

"fools step in where angels fear to tred"
Well I'm not volunteering to be one of those.
Jerry, if your fiber channel raid is giving you the throughput that you need, don't be concerned.
(I had a quick look through your manual and I'm also confused. But I can't afford that kind of setup so...?)
I have a simple two 250GB LaCie d2 raid 0 set via SoftRaid and firewire 800 using the G5 port and a LaCie card firewire 800 for dual channel setup.
This houses my media for FCP.
My stripe size is set to 128K simply because that's what the SoftRaid manual recommended for video applications.
This two drive setup is fine for multiple SD streams of DV, but can only manage a single 8 bit uncompressed HD 1080i stream without dropped frames.

RAID Block size for video

Can anyone share their experience on what block size in a RAID tends to be better for video, or what size you are using? (i.e. 128K, 256K, 512K)

Thanks for the reply Harm. I later noticed that the Areca Controller grays out the block size if RAID 3 is selected.

RAID block size for final cut pro x

Just got one of the new late 2012 27" iMacs and a 6 TB LaCie Thunderbolt drive. Can finally edit the video I took last spring. I'll be using Final Cut Pro X, and doing a lot of multicam stuff with 4 or 5 views and a separate audio track. The LaCie came formatted as a mirrored RAID. I'm going to change that to 0 (Striped RAID set), but am wondering what block size to set. The default is 32k, but I have read that this ought to be increased to the max (256k) for video editing. I have also read it should NOT be increased. And the posts I have read have all been at least 3 years old. So let me ask you all--what block size would you recommend for my situation?
Thanks in advance!

Hi Eddie...
This depends on what kind of source footage you are editing....
For compressed Video, Audio and Uncompressed audio 128k
I have only had BAD results with 256k. 64 is also weird. Whereas 32 is fine.
All my RAIDs have 128k for audio/video editing
you can go further if you editing Image Sequences.. but according to my own findings and I have been dealing with raid since years.... 128k does the job the best.
Rule of thumb.... The smaller the file sizes you are putting the RAID the smaller the block size. And vice versa.
I.e. You would cripple the raid performance if storing a database on it, having a block size of 256. In case of servers and OS 32k would be a good choice, perhaps even 16k if supported.

Best RAID software (SATA) for DVCProHD editing

Hi, I am editing DVCProHD footage 1080/24pa and will be doing loads of Shake work with it and some compositing (all green screen stuff).
I have a G5 Dual Core with 4.5 gigs of RAM, Blackmagic Decklink Extreme HD card and I've just purchased two external SATA Seagate Drives (750 gigs each) and a Tempo SATA E4P Serial ATA Host Adapter card. I want to Stripe the drives for editing and I was wondering what was the best software to do that with?
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If it's Apple's Disk utility, then what are the exact specs to use for this kind of use? (Journaled? RAID block size? etc)

Journaled is really just to help with restoration of System Drives - so no.
Must be OS-Extended though.
Quote from Disk Utility Help:
A video processing application might require fast throughput of large amounts of data, so a larger block size might be best for the set.
Andy
Quad 8GB. 250+500 HDs. G-Raid 1TB. NORTON. FCP 5.1.1. Shake 4.1. Sony HVR Z1E Mac OS X (10.4.7)
"I've taught you all I know, and still you know nothing".
Message was edited by: andynick

What is the best External Hard Drive for video edition?

Hi guys, I'm looking for a good firewire external hard drive for video edition.
I have 2 HD already but the bigest is a Seagate and is a trouble cause this one have an auto sleep system that is impossible to put out and when I'm printing to tape this one fall to sleep and the video that I'm transfering get a delay horrible!!
I'm looking for a 1 tb or 2 tb external HD.
Can you recomend me something??
thanks a lot!

Gufa wrote:
Thanks Jouu, great prices but I need to know if those discs doesnt have the autosleep function!
Thanks
That was why I mentioned the 24/7 live Chat support, they (should) know the products they sell.
8^)
Joe

Need help choosing the best laptop or desktop for video editing.

Hi guys. I'm a videographer and am in need of upgrading my current Dell Dimension 8300 desktop to either another desktop or a laptop. My current Dell is just too slow. It takes forever to render a video.
Anyhow, what do you guys recommend for video editing? I'd like something with plenty of hard drive space, plenty of memory, and a powerful video card. There are just too many to choose from and was hoping to get some feedback.
Thank you,
Brian

You can find a fairly cheap quad core desktop with a nice video card. So if you need something that will last a while and not cost too much I would go this route.
If you want a laptop, put yourself in one of these categories: someone who needs high mobility/battery life (14 in screen or smaller), someone who needs high mobility with a big screen (15.4in), or someone who needs a powerful computer with a big screen (17-18.4 in).
Don't worry too much about laptop brands, only a handful of them actually make their own laptops, most of the big brands use the same two or three laptop manufacturers.
Get the most powerful intel processor you can afford, and put either a 9 series nvidia, or an ati radeon 4800 series in, four gb of ram, and a 7200 rpm hard disk.
After that it really comes down to price and personal style, I would stay away from the hp laptops, the brand that they use doesn't do so well making the internal components.
Here are some good picks.
1) ASUS G Series G50VT-X3 (15.4in)
2) Sager 5793 (17in)
3)ASUS N80 Series N80Vn-X5 (14.1in)
Asus actually manufactures their own laptops, and my experience with them has been spectacular. The Sager is a rebranded Clevo, which is one of the brands alienware, falcon northwest, and other high end companies use.

What is the best allocation block size for HDDs in Hyper-v?

Hello experts,
A server will be running Hyper-V soon. All virtual machines and their virtual HDDs will be stored on D driver of the physical machine.
What is the best allocation unit size for formatting the physical D drive? Shall it be the biggest available option (64k) for getting better performance?

Hi,
You can check the following post.
Recommendations for base disk cluster size for hosting Hyper-V Virtual Machines?
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverhyperv/thread/45919c42-bc39-47f4-9214-3f1cf00f2ea9
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Hi,
I'm hoping to get opinions and recommendations from the community concerning the best Raid 5 expandable external harddrives for HD video editing and storage. Initially, I'd like to start with an 8tb and have it expandable to 16tb, that will work with both Mac and PC. There seem to be a number of options, but it's difficult to find reviews from video editors. It would be nice to stay under $ 2,000.00.
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If the brief includes "fast enough for video editing", you are looking for an editing solution.
If you want it to be fast enough to edit video and be shared by two computers, you are looking at a server type system connected through a very fast network interface (fibre, dual channel iSCSI)
If this is the case, $2k is not going to do it.
What it comes down to is this - Basic backup can be had relatively inexpensively as can direct connect RAID systems. The complexity and cost comes from the shared network storage with enough bandwidth to support multiple systems.
What do you want for your $2000?
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x

Choosing block size for RAID 0 & Final Cut

Hi.
I now have 3 500GB internal Seagate drives in bays 2/3/4 and want to make a striped 1.5TB RAID to use with Final Cut Studio 2. The help page talks about choosing a "large" data block size for use with video, but makes no specific size suggestion. What value would you recommend that I select for the block size? I haven't been in there yet so I don't know what the choices are.
Any other settings I should be aware of that will optimize the RAID performance for video capture and editing? Thanks!
Fred
Message was edited by: FredGarvin
Message was edited by: FredGarvin

If you're using Disc Utility to set up your RAID, when you go to the RAID tab, you'll see an options button near the bottom of the window... clicking this will open a small menu where you can set the data block size... the largest is 256K, which is what you'd want to use.
As for you're other question... have a look at this website: http://bytepile.com/raid_class.php
note that disc utility can only set up RAID 0 & RAID 1 (if i remember rightly).

Best Monitors for video editing??? NEC LCD2690WUXi² Vs 24"Apple GLOSSY LED

I am so stuck finding the right monitor for video editing in my price range i just cant afford the 30" apple cinema display, what is next best solution out there...?
Is Anyone using the NEC LCD2690WUXi² Monitors? from what i can tell they are better than the 24" apple LED displays for video editing as...
a) anti glare screen & can be properly colour calibrated
b) 26" screen Vs 24" screen size
c) got DVI-I & DVI-D Connectors so compatible with NVIDIA GT 120 outputs (1 Mini DisplayPort and 1 dual-link DVI-D)
i would love the 30" apple but the NEC comes in at 1/2 the price so i can eventually buy two & i would have definitely taken the 24" but its just not suitable for professional video editing from everything I've read - mainly due to glossy screen, colours & calibration
pls can anyone help with any display solutions/setups
warmest regards
graeme
Oh PS do the NEC LCD2690WUXi² work flawlessly with the latest "Nehalem" Mac Pros?

Not sure if that model number is here or not, but these are supposed to be very good for color work, though I do know that my old shops are still using their CRT's.
http://www.necdisplay.com/Products/Series/?series=171d9fbb-281e-44d8-be67-14d146 e8ada0
Third party monitors are having some trouble with the new Macs. Mostly because of the mini-display ports on the newest Apple supplied cards, but there seem to be other issues as well. You can definitely expect to use the DVI port and leave the mini display for whatever Apple will force on us next.
Apples 24"? Well, it works fine for most but in Apples own description of the display it was made to connect laptops to.
Edit: I'm sorry, for video work? Most anything in the upper end is fine.
Message was edited by: Samsara

What is the best Apple notebook for video editing and pro music creation?

What is the best Apple notebook for video editing and pro music creation?
I know I could opt for the most expensive and probably get what I want that way, but I´m not made of money, so what are your suggestions for minimum criteria and which would you recommend?

MacBooks Pro are great Macs with a good hardware, so all of them will work for the use you want, but I think that you want the biggest display possible because of your uses. In this case, it has to be a 15-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro, with the settings you want. Note that, after buying the Mac, you can upgrade the HDD and memory without voiding the warranty, so you are free to install as much memory and the HDD size you want after buying it. It's my opinion, but you are free to do whatever you think it's better

Optimal Block Size for Xserve's RAID hosting Final Cut Server

What would be the optimal block size for the software RAID on the machine that will be hosting Final Cut Server? The default is 36K. Since FCS is essentially a database, would be the optimal settings? Any glimpse what data size chunks FCS write to the disk?

Actually I meant the block size for the internal startup volume where FCS is installed, not Xsan volumes. As to optimal settings for Xsan volumes it really depends on the type of the data you store on Xsan, and if it is primarily video, what format: SD, HD.

Which do you think; Windows 7: 32-bit / 64-bit, (plus unused RAM issues) is best for video editing?

Hi there!
Just received delivery of a Lenovo G550 with the following spec:
2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo,
4GB (DDR3 - 1066Hz) RAM,
500GB HDD
NVIDIA GeForce G210M (512MB)
Windows 7
The entire purpose for buying this laptop, was for video editing and it is the best spec I could find for my needs and budget.
So what's the problem?
1) Windows 7 is installed as 32-bit, not 64 bit. Why is this? I was given no choice in this decision.
2) Only 2.96GB of that juicey RAM is being used by Windows 7. I need as much RAM as possible for video editing.
3) Lenovo sent NO install disc. - When I eventually get a virus or my HDD fails, I have NO WAY to clean install the very product I have just purchased! (A laptop with Windows 7 OS).
Considerations:
As I understand it (please comment if there are alternative views on this); The 64-bit architecture is only useful for compatible software which has been designed to run 64-bit.
The video editing software I use is "Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 9.0"
The suggested problems with Windows 7 run as 64-bit include:
* Possible lack of driver compatibility support.
* Possibility of 32-bit programs running SLOWER in 64-bit environment, than their native 32-bit environment.
* Higher running temperatures & processor cooling issues.
* No performance gains for all other programs running as 32-bit (email, internet browser, etc).
The suggested advantages with Windows 7 run as 64-bit could be:
* Full utilisation of the 4GB RAM. (Presently limited to 2.96GB)
* Faster rendering and video editing tasks in 64-bit environment.
Questions:
4) How can I get an install disc for Windows 7? Shouldn't this come with the computer?
5) Do you think the potential hassle and architecture conflicts are worth suffering, to get the reported performance gains of 64-bit architecture and the remaining unused RAM?
Thank you for any help and advice!

contact lenovo support line for windows 7 dvds, but make sure if they send recovery dvds instead of windows 7 dvd.
most of people are having trouble with installing windows and drivers, so companies has found as this as solution to send recovery dvd -if asked- or using hidden partition to recovery system - like one key recover - instead of.
but if you ask me, they need to send dvds.
i'll contact the mods and admins about this issue, please stay connected to this post.
anyp wrote:
the member should contact lenovo, as of recently users are entitled to request media for 32 / 64 bit if they purchased one and want the other.

What format is best for an external hard drive for video editing on a mac?

What's the best format for an external hard drive for video editing to be use with a mac only? I need to format my new hard drive and want to be sure I choose the right format.

I concur with Kappy. His suggestion is correct.
Allan

Best Raid Block Size for video editing

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