Memory and RAID for DVCPRO HD?
 

I'm about to buy and HVX 200a, but need to consider added expense for upgrading my MAC PRO Quad 3.0, 2 GB RAM to handle the bigger file sizes of DVCPRO HD.

Am I going to need RAID 0, and more than 2GB ram. .... 4/8 GB?

What do you think, whats your experence?

Even though it's not directly needed, having more RAM definitely helps. Are you working on wedding videos, music videos, short movies or small-format commercial projects?

Mainly weddings but I do music vidoes, live bands, and a lot of my own short film work.

I agree, RAM helps. I'm working with an xh-a1 right now and I have trouble with 2 GB if my project goes over 25 min or so.

I plan on upgrading to 8 for sure at some point, only if I buy the cam I wont have the funds for 8 GB and I don't want to be stuck with a format I can't work with well on 2GB.

I havent looked up the bandwidth requirement on the RAID, but I know 1080p DVCPRO HD is 100m/bits sec. I have a raptor 10,000 rpm drive but not sure if that would cut it.

Thanks

7200 RPM Seagate HD works fine
 

At least on my MacPro for DVCProHD. I have trouble with 10-bit uncompressed 1080iHD on a single 7200 RPM Drive (16 or 32mb cache), but DVCProHD plays fine. ProRes 422 HQ plays well tooand looks almost as good as the 10-bit (hard to see the difference).

More RAM always helps.

If you're going SeaGate make sure to remove the 3.0 GB/s limiting jumpers.

Apple says 4GB for FCP, otherwise it will slow somethings down but it's not like you can't use it with 2GB RAM.

In concern with RAID, the speed is not needed like how you need it for uncompressed, but there might be some cases you might have to mix uncompressed data, so get fast enough RAID which does not take away CPU load (so that means something with RAID controller, I prefer that works with RAID5). Also another important thing is to decide where you want your backups are going to be in.

Caldigit is coming out with RAID box that can be connected to their hub so that you can connect multiple RAID boxes, so you can just continue expanding your RAID space, or you can get something to make backups on single drives (500GB HD is $90 in Japan nowadays) or 50GB blu-ray. I did say x2 blu-ray and 50GB backup takes about 12 hours before, but now I have x6 blu-ray, I should check out how long it takes and let you folks know how it goes.

Awsome, if a 7200 RPM drive works then that is one less thing to worry about. I was reading on another thread that the Seagate 7200.11 TB drive is actually faster than a Raptor. So if I buy another drive I will get one of those, for space and speed.

I actually checked OWC memory and the 8GB upgrade for "qualified" memory is under $300 dollars which is actually really affordable compared to what it used to be.

I hear the qualified is the same and the Netlist. Or so I've read on the forums. Do you all agree?

I'm cutting a 1080p ProRes short off of a Samsung Spinpoint and a 2GB RAM'd MBP. I think you'll be fine with DVCProHD.

I run a quad core Mac pro with 4 GB of Crucial RAM and two 500GB Seagate 7200 drives. I've never had a problem with DVCPRO HD. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how well FCP ingests and handles HVX footage.