Render farm: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/...sing_Setup.pdf

In regards to my comment about needing a RAID, the OP was capturing HDV, in which case a RAID isn't needed. I didn't mean it to say that a RAID was never required.

Mike

My second WD 750g external's power died, so I'm about to rip it apart also and slide it in the third internal dock next to the other WD 750g former external. So now I can RAID them in theory, but I don't know how to set up a hardware RAID if I need to buy anything.

I bought a Blu-Ray burner. Now I can physically backup at .48 per GB. To buy and back up to externals cost .21 per GB, so I guess I'll still be buying externals.

Workflow:
1. Capture on second Mac to an external so I can edit on the quad.
2. Connect/access those captured filesover the ethernet to my quad.
3. Edit/render to the two internal 750s.
4. Burn to BR RW. (test)
5. Burn to client's inkjet BR.
6. Fill up internal 750s with render files and eventually dump them onto another external.

Thoughts?

Dana,

This thread got me thinking about hardware raids about a month back and since then I've been researching what is necessary. For starters you need a good controller... Apple makes their own ($$$). CalDigit looks to have a good one with both interanal and external drive support, but I don't like the fact that it's external ports will only work with CalDigit enclosures. Then there are cards from Highpoint, Atto, Acera, and a few others, you'll have to do your own dd to figure out which is best for you, but I would sugest that you stick to the ones that use the Intel 800 MHz IOP or faster. Happy hunting.

Mark

I guess the only option w/o spending $$$ is to fill up one, then fill up the other.

What did you think of the workflow?

Workflow looks ok... but then what do I know :-) Only thing that comes to mind would be to make sure your ethernet hardware is all 1000baseT capable otherwise transfer times will be slow.. about 1.5 min/GB on 100BaseT; a full 60 min HDV tape would take about 18 minutes to move from one mac to the other, using 1000baseT this would only be about a minute.

Having not made the plunge to blu yet, not sure I can comment on that part of it. How much data can you put on a disc???

Be wary of inexpensive hardware RAIDs such as the Highpoint and I even think the Cal-Digit.... these are Fireware RAIDs, not true hardware RAIDs. Hence the price differences. I have been told that the biggest disadvantage to a Firmware RAID is an OS update can knock you out. Or a Firmware update could potentially do the dame.

A couple of year ago I went through all of this: wanted faster throughout, data protection and so on. At one time, I had to Raptors RAID 0 booted off an internal card. It's just such a waste of time. Single drives are far easier to manage, back up, and store as archives. The only time I noticed a difference using my Raptors was when I launched an application. After that I couldn't tell a thing. Simply put, to do it right (and why do it any other way) a hardware RAID is expensive.

Mike

Mike, I would agree... hardware raids can be expensive. However, you should update yourself a little; most of the better raid cards coming from CalDigit, Highpoint, etc these days are true hardware raids with SATA and SCSI interfaces not firewire. They use the same IO controllers as the "big boys". You are correct that running an app off a raid won't buy you much, but if used as intended, as a scratch, capture, or render disk you should really notice a difference. And prices are constantly dropping; the current estimate for pre-configured systems is about $1000 per terabyte. If you have more time than money (like me) and the ability to research and understand the technology you can DIY for much less.

I see that Caldigit is offering a hardware RAID controller for $535 (I didn't see a Highpoint Mac compatible hardware RAID controller): CalDigit | RAID Card | 760600 | B&H Photo Video

My post should have said FIRMWARE, instead of Firewire. My apologies! A standard PCI SATA card isn't going to offer a hardware RAID. Looking at the Caldigit towers and I didn't see where any of them offered a hardware RAID until you get up to the HDPro ($$$)!

Mike

Mike, correct me if I'm wrong but the

Highpoint Rocketraid 3522: HighPoint Technologies, Inc -Mac Support
The CalDigit Raidcard: CalDigit RAID Card
And the Acrea ARC1620: Areca Technology Corporation

are hardware raid cards.

If you don't consider these to be hardware raid, then what would you consider to be hardware raid???

If it quacks like a duck...
 

Mike, looking back over your last post got me to doing a little more digging...

Both the Caldigit HDPro and the HDOne use the same type of connection: PCI bridge <--> Cable <--> Intel Xscale processor <--> drive array. Caldigit calls both hardware raids. The Caldigit raid card just moves the processor onto the PCIe card so that it's connection looks like: PCIe interface <--> Xscale processor <--> cable <--> drive array. It looks like the HDPro and HDOne just differ in bells and whistles. The raid card most likely uses a slightly less capable processor with slightly less throughput.

The Intel Xscale processor family of I/O processors (Intel® I/O Processors) include the IOP331/2/3 and the IOP341/2/8 processors all of which are designed for raid controllers. Because the IOP331/2 are not "recommended for new designs" you can rule them out. From the Caldigit site I can't narrow it down any more than that for their raid card, however there is a reference on the apple forums states it uses the the IOP331 but I haven't been able to verify this.

Highpoint states that they use the IOP341 for the 3522, and Areca states that they use the IOP348 for the ARC1680x.

The AMUG reviews show a slight performance edge for the Rocketraid 3522 over the ARC-1680x in raid 5 and 6 configurations, however the tests are not done with the same drives. This seems strange as I would think the 1680 should perform better with the IOP348.
AMUG HighPoint RocketRAID 3522 PCIe SATA RAID 6 Controller Review
AMUG Areca ARC-1680x PCIe to SAS RAID Controller Review

From the Caldigit site their card looks to have comparable performance but again it looks like an apples to oranges comparison. The only review I've been able to find with numbers compares it to the Apple raid card which it handily beats. CalDigit SATA RAID card

There are other differences, like battery back up and array managers that might make one better suited for a particular application, however all look to be sufficient as hardware raid controllers.

Mark

Mark,

I think we are in agreement! Although I was going by the Caldigit bullet points where they state the HDPro is 100% hardware RAID and they don't mention this with the HDOne. But I agree that the listed cards are hardware RAID controllers.... but at better than $500 for the card. I just wanted to point out that getting a SATA card in general did not offer a hardware RAID solution!

Mike

Mike,

Actually all this "digging" has been benificial for me. I thought I had it cold, but I've learned a few things along the way. I've enjoyed the conversation and the push to do a little more research along the way.

Mark

I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 to capture, and Edit in Final Cut Pro at the same time. Premiere's Captured footage works just fine in FCP and therefore lets me do both at the same time.