Uncompres10bit HD w/ Sonnet Fusion D500P

anyone using 2 Fusion D500P enclosures raid together at raid0 to get 10bitHD capture & playback? I have 2 of those connect to sonnet 4ep sata card (**** caldigit ran out of their card so I have to use sonnet).
anyhow, raid 2 boxes together at raid0 doesn't work for me. I'm using the seagate enterprise 1TB drives (10 of them) but somehow during capture or Render long sequence the boxes just goes offline.
so, I raid only 1 box w/ 5drives & it can capture proRES(HQ) HD but sometimes the boxes goes offline too but better than 2 boxes together. I thought more is better but not. Called sonnet & they said it has to do w/the drives not the box so i'm thinking of swaping the new drives from owc.
any suggestion? can't afford their D800P box. trying to cut corner here.
J

Drives went offline would be caused by:
1. hard drive.
2. sonnet e4p driver.
3. your system or FCP.
4. Unreliable software RAID setting.
I am not sure if one fusion d500p with sonnet e4p can handle 10bit uncompress? it's slower than the requirement and not sustained.
Getting 2 fusion d500p and sonnet card and 10 drives and dealing with software stripe through disk utility is no fun at all, with the same price tag with no significant additional costs, you actually can buy just one single Caldigit HDOne or cheaper & smaller HDelement to do 10bitHD capture & playback, and they are all hardware RAID so more reliable than os stripe.

Similar Messages

2 Filled Sonnet Fusion 500P enclosures; RAID 0/1, or RAID 5?

I currently have a Sonnet Fusion 500P loaded with 5 WD 500GB RE2 drives; all running individually and not RAIDed; this box is connected to a Sonnet Tempo E2P in my MacPro.
I'm interested in getting a 2nd identical enclosure and drives, and creating a RAID system using 10 drives. I also plan on upgrading the E2P to the E4P, since it will provide increased RAID performance that the E2P does not.
I've been reading the various posts on RAID on these forums, and also have looked through the AMUG articles and reviews, and I have a couple of questions.
First, can I stripe the 5 drives in each enclosure, and then mirror the two enclosures? This RAID setup will be used for Final Cut Pro capture and editing, and also for DVD Studio Pro files. Basically, I would have 2.5TB of high speed storage, and a duplicate of that.
Second question-can I do this with Disk Utility, or would I need additional software/hardware to accomplish it?
And finally, I'm a little vague about RAID 5 setups, but would it be better to create a RAID 5 with one enclosure and 5 drives, using 4 for storage and one for parity information? From my limited knowledge of this, I think that if the RAID 5 failed, it could be rebuilt using the info on the 5th drive? Is this correct?
What would be the best way to go here, taking into account the hardware I already have? If I'm off base, I'm open to suggestions for a different setup that would have comparable storage space, speed, and backup.
Thanks for any advice anyone can give.

Dear Mike,
It sounds like you want more RAID capabilities than Disk Utility can easily provide. Since you are looking for a new host adapter card anyway, you might as well get one that can provide RAID 0, 1, 5 and 1/0. I would suggest the HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 if you want to stay with individual eSATA cables. The AMUG review can be found here:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2314/
If you would rather have a card with a single cable and do not mind purchasing an extra cable, I really like the HighPoint RocketRAID 2314MS which is the same card with a different cable system. Here is that AMUG review and a link to the cable you would need:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/highpoint/2314ms/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000JQ51CM/arizomacinusergr
The Sonnet E4P is a good card but it cannot support RAID 5, 10 or 50 and the HighPoint cards can.
The HighPoint cards also provide just as good or better performance with a 10 drive SATA PM configuration like the one you are considering.
It sounds like the main reason for the second SATA PM enclosure is mainly backup. Please understand that a RAID 5, 10 or 50 configuration adds redundancy to your hard disk array but it is not a guarantee that you will recover from directory corruption or user errors. If the directory is corrupted on a RAID 10 it can easily write the same corrupted data on the mirror copy of the drive.
If you truly want a backup, I would consider using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner at the end of each day to backup the work on the first SATA PM RAID to the RAID in the 2nd SATA PM enclosure. Having your backup off-line when not in use is the best way to be ensure the backup data will be intact when you need it.
Have fun!

Setting Up Dual Sonnet Fusion/WD RE2 RAID 0 Arrays in Disk Utility

I've just received my 2nd Sonnet Fusion 500P enclosure, 5 500GB WD RE2s, and the Sonnet Tempo E4P card. See this earlier thread for more info:
[http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6034612&#6034612]
I assembled everything with no trouble; drives into trays, trays into the enclosure, card into the Mac Pro, etc.; all went well.
Next, in Disk Utility I initialized the 5 drives, and set up a striped RAID O array. I used the largest RAID block size of 256K. And again, everything worked perfectly; I now have a 2.3 TB RAID setup mounted on my desktop.
Next, I created 2 folders on the RAID, one for all of my Final Cut Pro media files, and another for all my DVD Studio Pro media files. These files are currently stored on the individual (not RAIDed) drives in my first Sonnet Fusion enclosure. I'm now in the process of copying over all of the files to the new RAID.
When that's finished, my plan is this: I will shut down, and power down the original Sonnet enclosure. When I start up again, one by one, I will open up my FCP and DVDSP projects (the project files themselves are stored on my internal boot drive, and backed up to another internal drive) and when the media can't be found, I'll reconnect the project to the media on the RAID.
If this all goes well, I will then erase the individual drives in the first enclosure, and build a 2nd RAID 0; I'll copy/clone everything from the first RAID enclosure to the 2nd.
If you're still reading, does this sound like a safe way to do things? I want to reconnect everything while I still have 2 copies of all of the media files; once I have the 2nd RAID built, and everything is copied back to it, I'll have a backup of everything again. If there is a better, more secure way to do it, I'm open to suggestions.
And being somewhat new to RAID, one more question I have is, are drives in a RAID system more prone to failure than if they are running as stand-alone drives? I've used the WD RE2s a lot, and I like them; they seem very reliable. (I now have 14 of them, in total). But does the RAID system itself put the drives more at risk?
Thanks to those with the patience to read through this, and hopefully offer some advice.

Always have two backups or sets of data. If you are going to erase one set... then for a stretch of time you only have the one good copy I take it? I guess the originals would be one good set, so you are safe.
You realize you can unmount drives connected on Sonnet controllers, right? No need to shutdown your computer, just the enclosure(s). Couldn't tell if that is what you said anyway.
I don't use internal drives for backups, just external SATA and at least one on FireWire. One backup is always off line at any time. And enough juice on the UPS to carry me through what I am doing or can safely get past.
I just read one of AMUG/michael's post on a controller that supports hardware RAID and ability to map out bad sectors "on the fly" which is about the only time I worry about a failure. That, and UPS, and beware of OS patches and updates (one security update affected SeriTek on some G4/5s).
I'd say you've done a lot for being new to RAID - and using the same make/model/revision for all your drives helps a lot. Buying together, and having at least one 'spare' if one fails, is also good insurance.
Some poeple use 4 drives in a 5-drive enclosure. For heat and ventilation and because sometimes it might be ideal for performance. Never used or seen the 500P up close but I suspect it is well built.
You could build a 2nd 500P and either increase performance or capacity or use 2nd as backup. If you don't need to copy 1GB per minute, then a concatenated RAID fills drive A before putting data on B and is more secure than a stripped RAID but still shows up as one large volume.

New, larger drives for Sonnet Fusion RAIDs

Hello-
I got some great advice here a couple of years ago in regards to building my two 5-drive RAID systems with Sonnet Fusion 500Ps and WD RE2 500GB enterprise drives. They have performed flawlessly, and I've never had a single glitch. (They are connected to my 2006 MacPro and are used almost exclusively for video capture).
Now, however, I'm in need of more storage; I want to either add a 3rd enclosure (I'm considering the FirmTek SeriTek 5-bay enclosure) or replace the 500GB drives I have with larger ones. Perhaps eventually I'll do both; I have a Sonnet E4P with two SATA ports still available.
Either way, I'm looking for larger drive recommendations for these boxes. I use a striped RAID 1 configuration for the 500Ps I have, and then backup/clone one box to the other.
I've been considering the WD 1.0TB Caviar Black Enterprise drives, but I might want to go with 1.5TB drives, such as the Seagate 7200.11. The price on these is right, but I've heard that early versions of this model had problems in RAID configurations; it's also not a 5 yr. warranty/enterprise class drive.
Any suggestions? I got valuable help last time from mbean and hatter; perhaps they will contribute again, but I'd appreciate any advice I can get before purchasing 10 new drives, or 5 additional drives and a new enclosure.

Thanks for the reply and the recommendation. The Samsung is pretty new; I wonder how reliable it is. MacSales (OWC) has a Samsung 1TB model HD103UJ (The U replaces the S) and it is more expensive.
Hi,
The Samsung F1 HD103UJ is the older model. AMUG has 18 of these that were used in RAID tests for the last year. They are a great HD - but for blazing speed the new Samsung F3 model HD103SJ is the next replacement and about 20% faster.
I have never found "Enterprise" hard disks worth the extra money. The reason is that most standard hard disks will reliably last 3 years and the enterprise versions are almost never faster than the standard version they were developed from. After 3 years all of my hard disks are ancient technology.
Three years ago the hot hard drive to own was a 300GB with 65MB/sec performance. We thought that was great. Now its in the junk heap or delegated to backup duty on a notebook
Hard disk technology is increasing much faster than most of us can keep up with and prices are very reasonable for new 1TB hard disks. Sure there will be a few buyers who think they need to pay the 2TB premium but most users will wait until these hard disks are under $130.
Buying hard disks at premium prices can be painful especially when you realize that a new set will probably be required every 3 years.
Have fun!

Port Multiplication: Sonnet Fusion 400 vs 500P

I spend a lot of time on the Bare Feats website. I really appreciate what Rob has done and the tests he performs. Sometimes I have a little trouble interpreting his results, but maybe that's just me. Anyhow he has done some tests of 500 GB drives and the new PCIe SATA controller from Sonnet. Can anyone give me a feel as to the performance differences in some real world setups. Assuming using the same drives (a 500 GB WD or Hitachi for instance)how will perfomance compare:
Internal controller SATA I vs Sonnet SATA II controller and a single drive in a Fusion 400 enclosure.
A single drive in a Fusion 400 vs a single drive in a 500P.
Raid 0 in a full Fusion 400 vs a full 500P.

Anyhow he has done some tests of 500 GB drives and
the new PCIe SATA controller from Sonnet. Can anyone
give me a feel as to the performance differences in
some real world setups. Assuming using the same
drives (a 500 GB WD or Hitachi for instance)how will
perfomance compare:
The WD 500 will perform faster than the Hitachi 500 in single drive uses whether it is installed in the PowerMac G5 dual-core internal bay or in a Fusion 500P port multiplier enclosure.
A 5 drive SATA PM enclosure will provide about 200MB/sec
performance using an E4P and a dual-core or Quad PowerMac G5. 10 drives will provide about 400MB/sec and so on. You can see very detailed performance charts and comparisons in the AMUG Sonnet E4P review found here:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/sonnet/e4p/
Internal controller SATA I vs Sonnet SATA II
controller and a single drive in a Fusion 400
enclosure.
No SATA I controllers exist for the Dual-core Qual except the internal PowerMac G5 interface. All PCIe SATA cards are SATA II. SATA II cards will perform a little faster but typically within 5% difference for an individual drive.
A single drive in a Fusion 400 vs a single drive in a
500P.
Raid 0 in a full Fusion 400 vs a full 500P.
A single drive in a Fusion 400 direct connect enclosure will perform at about the same speed as the same drive in a Fusion 500P.
The limitation of SATA PM is the sharing of a single cable for all data. Typically, writes are limited to 200MB/sec on a PCIe PowerMac and 227MB/sec on a PCI-X PowerMac.
A four drive Fusion 400 can do 270MB/sec using Maxtor SATA II hard drives. A 500P SATA PM solution will provide about 20-25% less speed when empty but will provide nice performance when full.
You might also want to see the AMUG Addonics 5X1 eSATA review as these PM enclosures perform about the same. Both of them use the Silicon Image 3726 PM chip.
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/addonics/5x1/
Between these two articles you will find plenty of details to answer your questions.
Hope this helps,
Michael

PCIe eSATA Sonnet + Fusion 500p

I am planning on getting the Sonnet e4P SATA card and the Fusion 500p expansion enclosure. I like the features of the enclosure and quietness. However i am aware that going direct connect is typically faster than using Port Multiplication when the drives are <80% full. Is anyone using this rig and is anyone getting it to run direct connected in any way ?

Hate to bump this, i will let it wither if no responses.

Full 64-bit Aperture 3 Performance Maxed

All Macs running Snow Leopard that are Core2Duo or better are capable of full 64-bit, but from reading the threads I would say almost nobody is doing this.
Currently, of all Macs on the market now, only the X-Serve boots into full 64 bit mode by default.
I guess that this is because Apple assumes a server is typically professionally managed, meaning the operator would have the technical savvy to verify that all required software is 64 bit clean....ALSO servers do not tend to have any excess software on them that is not needed for them to function.
Stark contrast to the overstuffed user machines cluttered with useless old files PLUS there is still lot of current valid user software not 64-bit capable yet, like PS CS4. Knowing this, Apple does not want a lot of complaints from average, non IT professional users for current non-64 bit incompatibilities, and that is understandable. This makes Apple's default boot mode for Snow Leopard on user machines 32 bit mode. Currently Apple makes users DELIBERATELY select full 64 bit mode at boot...and in so assuming that these hopefully savvy users know the possible consequences.
Now when running in the default 32 bit mode, 64 bit apps will operate in either 64 bit, or if so selected in their Info box, 32 bit to maximize compatibility. While running a 64 bit app increases its performance, it is only a portion of the performance running a full 64-bit machine will do.
If your system has a lot of extensions or old drivers or other associated crapola <(technical term) left over from years of upgrades, you might just want to pass on this suggestion right now...HOWEVER if your system is decently clean, a fresh install of the OS and Aperture 3, you will most likely be fine.
Aperture 3 running on a full 64-bit machine is a delightful improvement, and in my limited experience to date SMOKIN' fast.
Now if you are on still on Leopard, congrats, you kept better performance than the early SL adopter folks on Aperture 2...BUT Aperture 3 NEEDS SL to make it sing, so if you are going to move to Aperture 3, UPGRADE to SL 10.6.2 NOW.
Assuming we are all on SL 10.6.2 now let's talk full 64 bit, and getting all the performance your hardware can deliver.
OK then...On this clean system, restart and hold both the 6 and 4 keys down during boot. You can then verify the full 64 bit mode by looking in the System Profiler. Select About this Mac... More Info... then click on the Software title header in the left column and in the second to last line you should see:
" 64-bit Kernel and Extensions: Yes"
WELCOME to your full 64 bit machine.
After checking you are in full 64 bit, launch Aperture 3, and Activity Monitor...to monitor performance.
If all goes well, Aperture should now be SMOKIN fast. I can hold the arrow key down in full screen and D3X .NEFs render almost immediately, smaller files a blink. 6GB on my MBP shows no pageouts running just Aperture 3. An 8 core Mac Pro with lots of RAM will be MUCH faster due to full 64 bit AND the parallel core thread processing.
Imports with backups to a secondary disk (YAAY!!!) are so fast I cannot believe it, I think it is faster than Photo Mechanic, which is my gold standard for import/ingest speed.
Now the two finger 6 and 4 key reboot method is only temporary, the next reboot it will revert to 32 bit mode, which is handy at this point in time if you have run into crashing or other problems.
If you find you have a clean system you can make it boot into 64 bit all the time, but that is part of a larger performance discussion...just try this and see if you are doing better in terms of performance.
Remember, most plug-ins, etc. are not going to be 64 bit yet...in fact Aperture even displays this in the File:Export... menu where it says (32 bit) next to the names of plug-ins. OBVIOUSLY (I hope) it probably would not be such a great idea to try these in this full 64-bit mode (ya think?). Just enjoy the stuff that does =).
So...chances are VERY good you probably cannot do all your work in this mode just yet...BUT...if you are limiting tasks for the moment to just Aperture and the OS, like library conversion, or learning the new features, you probably will blow through this much faster than in 32 bit.
ALSO, while I am talking Aperture performance...
Aperture also needs really fast storage to see max performance with big libraries (500GB+), and I mean an eSATA host with a striped array. Firewire 800 and lesser technologies are 3-4 times slower on average. Sadly, Only the 17" MBP (and all previous size version MBPs) and the Mac Pro can run an eSATA host. To me this is the single biggest drawback to the iMac, and seems REALLY silly now that you can buy an iMac with an i7 processor with a great graphics card...but only the internal single drive is eSATA, and you are stuck with FW800 for storage.
Anyway, I am running a Sonnet Tempo Pro Express 34 card in my MBP connected to Sonnet Fusion D500P array with 10TB of disk space, formatted using SoftRAID. My dedicated space for Aperture benchmarks on this setup at about 130MB/sec on average of all tests. Two crucial facts here is that the Sonnet drivers for the card (v2.2.1) are full 64-bit as well as the fact that a 64 bit version of the SoftRAID driver is included with Snow Leopard for users in 64 bit mode, which will allow you to keep existing volumes and access data from the 64 bit version of Snow Leopard.
Anyway, fellow Aperture 3 adopters I encourage you to give it a shot...and I hope this results in some smiling faces...
Sincerely,
K.J. Doyle
PS No flames please... of course since this is all new ground YMMV... proceed at your own risk, there is a reason Apple is not making this easy right now...'nuff said, I hope.

Kevin -- is it your understanding that Aperture can and will default to 64 bit performance without need to reboot 6-4?
Hi Miguel,
He is correct, Aperture will be running in 64 bit, but the rest of the machine will not, and Aperture is dependent on many other subsystems, storage being #1 given the huge size of libraries. As I said above, I am pretty sure Apple would not recommend you run full 64 because of the other incompatibilities that exist on the machine, it would cause too many complaints from those who do not understand the need for 64 bit clean operation, and that all apps are not there yet.
HOWEVER, there is a lot more to this than just Aperture's operation, as it is an app that uses many resources.
There is a very significant difference in operating my eSATA array with 64 bit drivers and a full 64 bit machine, and therefore Aperture runs much faster than it would using the 32 bit drivers for the storage.
There are other issues as well with greatly improved OS memory operations and other technical issues that impact this as well. The more RAM you have the bigger the improvement. This impacts parallel processing of threads, and again gives more time to Aperture in the bargain.
Sincerely,
K.J. Doyle

Boot Drive(s), Scratch Disks, eSATA chipsets

It was explained I shouldn't have posted this where a question had already been answered. Let me try again...
REPOST (thanks Hatter, but have further questions):
Setup:
Mac Pro
16GB RAM
Apple RAID card
Sonnet E4P PCIe eSATA card (dedicated channel for each of the 4 ports)
INTERNAL 2-150GB Velociraptors RAID 0 Boot array.
INTERNAL 2-750GB in RAID 0. (7200RPM Hitachi's)
EXTERNAL 5-750GB (7200RPM) RAID 0 in Sonnet Fusion D500P case
Backup drives:
Time Machine:
EXTERNAL 1TB Barracuda in OWC eSATA enclosure with Oxford chipset
Personal data/media:
EXTERNAL 2nd 1TB Barracuda in identical OWC enclosure (Mercury Elite-AL Pro)
Personal data/media (2nd backup)
Seagate 1TB FreeAgent Pro (using Firewire because Sonnet states eSATA can be untrustworthy due to chipset utilized)
Boot drive clones using SuperDuper:
250GB WD SE (1st)
400GB Simpletech (2nd)
Other drives:
500GB WD MyBook (firwire)
400GB Maxtor (USB 2.0)
Questions:
1) Am I getting the best use of my Velociraptors being used in RAID 0 (I have two clones of this array; want speed-quick boot-rapid program response)
2) I'm using the 3.75TB Fusion D500P for RAID 0 video capture via firewire from camera (SD and HD video). Is it correct the firewire MyBook and USB 2.0 Maxtor are no optimal for scratch disks? I should use a RAID array and if the drives are big, partition them? I'm having trouble finding info on this, but I suppose the place to look is the Adobe and Studio Pro forums. I have Premiere CS3, but think I'm going to rely more on Final Cut Studio 2...it's 64-bit. Still learning how to get optimal performance out of Photoshop.
3) Hatter, you mentioned "would be 'concerned' about even Oxford 934 and eSATA off 2-channel Sonnet Tempo. Same with Seagate. And MyBook, FW and USB2. I have some older FW drives, for backup and archive and rarely connected except to make a backup."
Why would you be concerned about the OWC eSATA drives with the Oxford chipset? The Barracuda drives are enterprise drives. BTW, the Sonnet E4P has a dedicated channel for each of the four ports. Are you saying there are reliability issues with the OWC drives and I suppose the concern for your (and mine) MyBook, Seagate, etc drives is that they are not enterprise grade and thus less reliable.
Also Hatter (this is a whole different story), regarding the NewerTech kit, it's my understanding the two SATA ports on the motherboard are not supported by Apple. While they do work for some applications, they do not work with Toast and Blue-Ray drives for burning Blu-Ray discs. You have to use finder for that I think. Apple should release a firmware update and support these connections!
Thanks!

I meant to reiterate the 3.75TB Fusion D500P is connected via eSATA, the video camera is connected via firewire.
Thanks.

Choose Disk interface extremely slow

Odd problem. On my MacPro I've been backing up to an external FW800 drive for quite awhile. Earlier last week I moved that drive to my Leopard Server, repartitioned it and reformatted it. I've made it available as a time machine backup destination and my Mini and MBP are happily backing up to it now.
Problem is on the MacPro when I select "Change Disk" in the time machine preferences it takes forever to bring up a list (at least a minute). On that list I see my local drives and the server drive. Each refresh of the list takes a minute or more (i.e. I click no disk or the server drive). Eventually I get the server drive selected and when it goes to back up it says the drive can't be mounted.
Any idea what's going on?

Hello oswaldt,
Do you still experience the "slow interface" problem with Time Machine?
I had the same with Mac OS 10.5.4 Server on a PowerMac G5. The problem went away after a fresh install. But now having switched on a MacPro and done a bit of configuration on the server, I get the "slow interface" problem back.
Here's what I've done so far, so you may recognize something in your setup:
- Server boot disc is a mirror of 2 x 250 GB (internal).
- The 2 other internal drives are 500 GB each, and were concatenated.
- A Sonnet Fusion D500P is connected through a Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P controller card. Tower is loaded this way:
-- bay 1: 500 GB
-- bay 2: 500 GB
-- bay 3: 1000 GB
-- bay 4: 500 GB
-- bay 5: 500 GB
bay 1 and 4 are stripped (STRIP1);
bay 2 and 5 are also stripped (STRIP2);
STRIP1 and STRIP2 are mirrored;
bay 3 is the TimeMachine backup drive;
All disc mirroring, contenation and stripping were done using DiskUtility.
[edit]: I've forgot, I also have a 300 GB Maxtor OneTouch drive connected through FireWire...
The MacPro has 8GB of RAM.
On the server config side, I have:
- Fixed IP address;
- working DNS setup with a custom-made top-level zone for the LAN;
- freshly started OpenDirectory service;
- AFP service running (automatic configuration, I've touched nothing);
- no other service running for now;
- hostname returned by command "hostname" in Terminal is not <nameOfComputer>.local. It's a fully qualified name like server.gti.lan.
Note that, on my side, although the interface is very slow, I can get TimeMachine to work. So I suspect there are two problems in your case: slow GUI response time, and then drive-related issue.
Let me know what you can find. I've seen very few posts regarding that problem, and found none answered so far...
Message was edited by: Frederic Denis

Just looking for some advice for a Networking 'noob'

Hey folks,
I manage the post-production workflow for a small agency. We're getting ready to move into a new office space, and we'll be looking to make some upgrades to our video workflow and data management.
At the current time, we have two G5s (PowerPCs) and a new Intel Mac Pro. We may be adding a fourth (or even fifth) workstation. We shoot everything on the DVX (24p DV), but we're also (strongly) considering upgrading to an HD workflow and investing in a few HVX packages so we can have the option of shooting 720p. We will NOT be shooting anything higher than that, (no uncompressed, digibeta, no 1080p, etc.)
Right now, when we need to access media from other computers, we simply use the AppleTalk feature of our internal ethernet and mount the drives remotely. This actually works fairly well, and we usually don't have any issues with latency. But it becomes frustrating at times when we want to search for a particular media file or FCP project file and we can't remember which drive it was stored on. We'd like to have all of our editing workstations be able to access the same media simultaneously in one shared 'Mother Ship.'
I guess my question is: What should we get? Final Cut Server? G-Raid? Xsan?
I'm not really an IT guy, so I can't say I really know the differences between these different options, but any advice you can offer would be most appreciated.
And as for budget, we're prob looking to spend something in the range of $8,000-$10,000 dollars on this new system. (that's NOT including the HVXs, of course.
qp

Ok... here we go, not sure what you are doing except editing DV right now,
but this will work for HDV, DVCPROHD, Uncompressed SD and some ProRes
as long as you have a good Gigabit Router to transfer files. Please consult
a professional if this sounds scary to you.
*Redundant FILE SERVER* for project files, important stuff
1. Install at least 4GB RAM in G5 #1 (max $200)
3. Make sure there are two identical SATA drives in the G5. Install OSX Leopard Server ($499) on 1 drive. Use Carbon Copy Cloner (Free... http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html) and clone
the main drive to SATA drive #2 when drive #1 is set up completely. Use drive #2 as backup.
4. Connect CalDigit 2.56TB HDOne External Hard Drive Array (RAID-5) with PCI-X adapter ($2830)
SubTotal: $3600...ish
*Current MacPro* Add unprotected scratch disk for main edit suite
1. Install Sonnet Tempo SATA e4p Serial ATA Host Adapter ($260)
2. Connect Sonnet 2.5TB Fusion D500P eSATA Array System (RAID-0) ($1700)
Subtotal: $2000...ish
*2nd G5* convert to p2 Logging/backup Station
1. Sony BWU-200S Internal 4x Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Drive (599.95)
2. Roxio Toast ($85)
SubTotal: $700
*NEW Intel MacPro* will increase productivity
1. 8 Core 3ghz Intel MacPro ($3600)
Total: Around 9900-10,000
(Buy from PowerMax.com or other out of state vendor to avoid sales tax)
If you want to organize things, then FCS will help. You can install
on G5#2 for 999.00 more. I would focus on hardware first though.

How many external drives per Firewire 800 bus?

I am the proud owner of a new Mac Pro, which comes with only one FW 800 bus. I have 4 1T G-Tech FW drives (2 for video media) that I've daisy-chained, and I know their performance is suffering because of it. I'd like to remedy that.
Question 1: Is it optimal to have only one of these drives running on each bus? Can I get away with two per bus without serious loss of efficiency? Can I assume that 2 per will run better than 4 per?
Question 2: For the price that OWC is selling the Sonnet Tango 800 PCI-E card (about $110), is there another card I should be considering, or is the Tango 800 considered good?
Thanks.
Giraut

giraut wrote:
videocrafter,
not to presume on your time more than i already have -- what a helpful reply you gave. thanks! -- but i just want to make absolutely sure of one thing:
i buy the esata pci-e card you mention from OWC and install it myself (probably pretty easy) and then just plug my G-Tech drives into it, and I'm good to go? No separate esata controller card? I just realized that only two of my four G-Tech drives have the esata connection, so I could plug those two in, leave the other two with my FW 800 connection and save up for a couple more G-Tech drives with the esata connection. And this will make my life better.
Correct?
many, many thanks.
giraut
Hi giraut, your welcome
That is correct, you will not need any additional controller card. You will have to install the driver for the Tempo E4P (make sure you follow the installation instructions) and you'll want to make sure you download the latest driver from Sonnet's website:
http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=338#position_content
and unless you have some application monitoring for new upgrades, I would check at least once a month if not more often for any new future drivers. They are suppose to be coming out with one here soon to support 64 Bit. Even though FCP does not yet support 64 bit if you choose to run other applications in 64 bit you don't want your eSATA controller to cause any problems.
You'll also need One external shielded eSATA data cables with "I-Shape" connectors for each device you connect to the card. So in your case, you'll need 2 right away. Here is the type of cable you need, it just happens to be made by Sonnet, but you can find cheaper ones (just remember, you get what you pay for).
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/TCBSATA11/
There is one bit of insight I would like to give you when swapping any of your internal drives around once you have this card installed. It probably tells you in the owners manual, and I just stopped reading once I got it up and running. However I found out the hard way. The first time that I swapped out one of the "Internal" drives (I swapped out the drive in bay 3 I think it was, makes no difference which bay I'm sure) but I simply shut down my system, unplugged the computer and swapped out the drive. When I started back up, I things didn't' seem right, it wasn't seeing my external drives properly and I got a panic attack (both the computer and me!). Of course my first thought was "YOU'VE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!" So after I took a deep breath, before turning the computer back on, I disconnected my external enclosure, then restarted and everything was find. I then completely shut down, turned on my enclosure and restarted. All was good. I tested my theory again and swapped out another internal drive and all went like clockwork. Here are the exact steps I took. They worked for me, and maybe they will work for someone else, so I'll list them here:
Swapping Internal Drive
1. Eject each external drive from the enclosure and power down the enclosure.
2. Eject and power down the FireWire drive.
3. Power down the computer and swap out drives.
4. With the external enclosures powered off, power up the computer as normal.
5. Accomplish another shut-down.
6. Make sure all of the drives are installed into the enclosure, turn on the power.
7. Power up the computer and keep your fingers crossed.
Personally I've never daisy-chained Firewire drives (although I find it fascinating that Patrick had 19 of them daisy-chained) if I did I would probably only use them for archiving since I capture and edit everything in ProRes 422, but that's another thread. I currently only have one device that I use via firewire 800 which is my external Blu-ray burner. An interesting note here. I initially had my Blu-ray burner connected to my former piece of junk eSata controller card (with the Silicon Image SiI3124 chip and drivers that haven't been updated since before Leopard came out) but for whatever reason, the Tempo E4P wasn't seeing it (Now I'm not sure why, and frankly I didn't take the time to troubleshoot it, so it may be nothing) I just went ahead and connected the burner up as Firewire 800, and connected my 3rd external eSata device (a OWC Mercury Elite Pro USB/Firewire/eSata drive) to port 2 of my Tempo E4P, with my 5 drive bay FirmTek/5PM eSata enclosure connected to port 1 of the E4P (leaving 2 open ports on the E4P).
So, If I were you, for now I would go ahead and daisy-chain those other 2 Firewire drives, unless I needed to use them to capture and edit in anything other than DV, or for archiving only. Otherwise, I would get another 5 bay enclosure and take those 2 SATA drives out of those 2 existing firewire enclosures (Im assuming they are SATA drives inside their enclosure, I would surely think so) and put them in the external eSata enclosure.
One last ti-bit of information that may or may not be useful. When you get an external 5 bay enclosure with the port Multiplier, pay a little extra for a brand that you can trust. Personally, since I already have one, I would stick with the SeriTek SATA5PM (their built like a tank!), or go with a Sonnet, OWC has a new price on their Fusion D500P that's pretty appealing. I would definitely be cautious if wanting to purchase anything for a specific company with the word "Cool" in their name, the only thing that is cool, and it's only cool for them is they get your money and you get .... well you know!
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA5PM/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/FUSD5P00TBR/
Just in case anyone is wondering, I get no compensation in any fashion for any of the items that I have specifically linked to in this post. These items are simply ones that I have carefully done my homework on, and if it can save someone else a little time by helping them with their homework, then that makes me feel good. I'm all for helping others save time, it's the most precious resource we have.
Message was edited by: videocrafter

RE: Getting ready for production

Take the Forte Project Management Class. It tell you everything you
need to know
to go live.
ka
From: Julie Muth[SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 18, 1997 9:39 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Getting ready for production
We'll be deploying our first application into production in the near
future and I'ld be interested in any advice you have to offer - horror
stories, successes, what worked, what didn't, what you would do
differently. Also, any advice on the organization and skill set of the
people doing deployments would be appreciated.
Julie Muth
Assistant Project Director
NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services
Albany, NY
[email protected]

Ok... here we go, not sure what you are doing except editing DV right now,
but this will work for HDV, DVCPROHD, Uncompressed SD and some ProRes
as long as you have a good Gigabit Router to transfer files. Please consult
a professional if this sounds scary to you.
*Redundant FILE SERVER* for project files, important stuff
1. Install at least 4GB RAM in G5 #1 (max $200)
3. Make sure there are two identical SATA drives in the G5. Install OSX Leopard Server ($499) on 1 drive. Use Carbon Copy Cloner (Free... http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html) and clone
the main drive to SATA drive #2 when drive #1 is set up completely. Use drive #2 as backup.
4. Connect CalDigit 2.56TB HDOne External Hard Drive Array (RAID-5) with PCI-X adapter ($2830)
SubTotal: $3600...ish
*Current MacPro* Add unprotected scratch disk for main edit suite
1. Install Sonnet Tempo SATA e4p Serial ATA Host Adapter ($260)
2. Connect Sonnet 2.5TB Fusion D500P eSATA Array System (RAID-0) ($1700)
Subtotal: $2000...ish
*2nd G5* convert to p2 Logging/backup Station
1. Sony BWU-200S Internal 4x Blu-ray Disc Rewritable Drive (599.95)
2. Roxio Toast ($85)
SubTotal: $700
*NEW Intel MacPro* will increase productivity
1. 8 Core 3ghz Intel MacPro ($3600)
Total: Around 9900-10,000
(Buy from PowerMax.com or other out of state vendor to avoid sales tax)
If you want to organize things, then FCS will help. You can install
on G5#2 for 999.00 more. I would focus on hardware first though.

New Computer Specs Help

Looking at upgrading my G5 FC system to a Mac Pro & wanted to get some input. Here is what they are proposing:
• Mac Pro Dual 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 6GM, GeForce GT 120, 640GB, SD, GT (3/09) Specifications
• 2-Hitachi 1TB Deskstar 3.5" SATAII 7200RPM Hard Drive
• Sonnet Fusion 2.5TB D500P - Port Multiplier
• Sonnet 4 External port 3Gb/s SATAII Compliant PCIe Mac/PC
My main concern is the hard drives since I've had a couple go bad on me recently and I'm not
familiar with Sonnet. Any input would be appreciated.

Upgrade the graphics card to the ATI HD 4870, particularly if you use Motion or intend to.
Hitachi make excellent drives. Good choice.
I can't comment on the Sonnet stuff. Someone else will be able to chime in there.

Hard drives sleep - not energy saver settings

I have two(2) different Quad 2.7 Pro Mac computers, both with 2 500GB Seagate drives mirror raided internally and Sonnet Fusion D500 SATA enclosures with 5 500GB seagates RAID striped.
They all fall asleep after inactivity, and it take several seconds for the drives to spin back up. The energy saver is set to never. I even tried turing it on, restarting, turing it off, reseting, but it did not help.
I've removed the internal RAID and the external still sleeps, and vice versa.
My only thought is it it the seagate drives. They are refurbished baracuda 7200.9 drives.
Any ideas?

hello,
i'm experiencing the same issue. i have 4 internal raptors in RAID0 and 4 external WD drives in a PM enclosure and have found that they too sleep as you mentioned.
i checked the energy saver and the box is unchecked to "put drives to sleep when possible" also...
i installed Leopard the other day when i got the new enclosure and external equipment - clean install - so i don't know if it would do the same in Tiger...
any suggestions, or is this normal for exterior storage - regardless if it is SATA or not?

Quality Issues with Video Footage

Hello all
I'm not sure if this is the correct forum to post this question
I'm having trouble with the quality of my footage on export to DVD and I'm wondering if this is due to my settings in FCP or my workflow.
The problem is that I am getting gradient separations in my footage. It looks like the Posterize effect in Adobe Photoshop.
I have 2 samples here....
http://www.arohajourney.com.au/Sample/sample%201.jpg
http://www.arohajourney.com.au/Sample/sample%202.jpg
When I start editing the problem in minimal when viewing in my output monitor but by the time I get my project to my DVD player it is very noticeable. Especially in disolves to black.
*This is my workflow*
Shoot on Sony Z1 in HDV format
Capture to FCP 5.1.4 using Decklink HD Extreme.
Connections are via the camera's component connections directly to the Decklink card via BNC
Codecs are Blackmagic DVCPRO HD 1080i50 or AIC
Edit
Render
Export via Quicktime Conversion > 10 Bit Uncompressed resized to 720 x 576 Pal 16:9
Compress for DVD via Compressor 2.3
Settings: MPEG 2 - CBR 6.2 Motion Est=Better
Import to DVD Studio Pro 4.1.2 to create DVD elements
Burn
Then I cry
Effects used in the samples are Mis Fire Vignette
*My Mac*
PowerPC G5 Dual Core 2.0
2.5 Memory
GeForce 6600LE 128mb
2 X 500Gb sata drives
Sonnets Fusion 500p external enclosure with 4 x 500gb SATAII Drives
OSX 10.4.10
I can't seem to figure this out so if anyone knows this problem or can point me in the right direction I will be very greatfull
Cheers

Hi Javabob
I've tried that, the gradient issue is still there and i get the added joy of watching pixelated titles.
I thought that maybe losing that step using the original footage to compress for DVD may work but it didn't...
thanks for your response though

Uncompres10bit HD w/ Sonnet Fusion D500P

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