Separate Capture and Render HDD setup? at DVinfo.net

Mark Duckworth · November 4th, 2008, 12:39 AM

Which of these two workflows would yield increased NLE performance / render times:

1. Capture Only HDD----> NLE -----> Render Only HDD.
2. Capture and render from/to same HDD.

If all things are equal (HDD speeds, array,etc.)

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Adam Gold · November 4th, 2008, 02:23 PM

I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding has always been that unless you have a huge fast RAID array, you'll get better performance if you use separate drives for reading and writing (i.e. source and destination).

Jon Shohet · November 4th, 2008, 03:26 PM

Hope I'm not hijacking this topic...seems relevant enough.
I'm soon purchasing some new HD and would also like to know how to configure my system.

Let's say the ideal would be 1 disk/array for capture, 1 disk/array for scratch and 1 disk/array for render.

I assume there is no real need for raid-0 for render, that could be a single disk.
But theoretically both capture and scratch disks will benefit from raid-0, right?
Is it at all practical to have two sets of raid-0 running off what is essentially software raid (be it port-multiplied sata, built-in mobo raid controller or actual os software raid)?
Or will the system suffer an overall performance hit from running two sets of software raid-0 that negates any advantages?

Also, backing up projects becomes a bit more complex. Do you find that separating render disk, and using raid-0 for scratch disk actually makes a noticeable impact to performance in real life editing , or is it more hassle than it is worth for most projects?

Ron Evans · November 4th, 2008, 04:05 PM

I have boot drive, a drive for temps use for all programs, two 750G drives for video, also have two external eSata 500G drives for storage too. No RAID, individual drives are way fast enough for one or two streams of HDV. I try and make sure that when I use multiple cameras then the files are on different drives, rendering goes from one drive to another etc. I have no problems editing HDV, AVCHD and DV. I feel that the bottleneck most of the time is still the processor not the hard drives so have not seen the need for a RAID. Remember that most new hard drives can sustain 60 or 70GBps but HDV and DV only need 3.5GBps. That's close to twenty times the performance one needs for HDV or DV. Problems arise if one has just one drive, then Windows needs to access all the time, programs need to use temp storage as well as reading and writing the video file itself. File access times now become an issue especially for just one drive.
I have Quad core Q9450 with 8G RAM running Vista 64.

Ron Evans

November 4th, 2008, 12:39 AM	#1
Mark Duckworth Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Japan Posts: 93	Separate Capture and Render HDD setup? Which of these two workflows would yield increased NLE performance / render times: 1. Capture Only HDD----> NLE -----> Render Only HDD. 2. Capture and render from/to same HDD. If all things are equal (HDD speeds, array,etc.) Thank you in advance for your responses. __________________ Intel Core 2 Quad E6600(@3GHz) \| Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT/1GB PCI-e x16 DVI \| 8GB DDR2-SDRAM \| 2 x 1TB S-ATA2/7200rpm/32MB Hard Drives \| Vista Ultimate 64

November 4th, 2008, 02:23 PM	#2
Adam Gold Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Woodinville, WA USA Posts: 3,467	I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding has always been that unless you have a huge fast RAID array, you'll get better performance if you use separate drives for reading and writing (i.e. source and destination).

November 4th, 2008, 03:26 PM	#3
Jon Shohet Major Player Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: London, UK Posts: 277	Hope I'm not hijacking this topic...seems relevant enough. I'm soon purchasing some new HD and would also like to know how to configure my system. Let's say the ideal would be 1 disk/array for capture, 1 disk/array for scratch and 1 disk/array for render. I assume there is no real need for raid-0 for render, that could be a single disk. But theoretically both capture and scratch disks will benefit from raid-0, right? Is it at all practical to have two sets of raid-0 running off what is essentially software raid (be it port-multiplied sata, built-in mobo raid controller or actual os software raid)? Or will the system suffer an overall performance hit from running two sets of software raid-0 that negates any advantages? Also, backing up projects becomes a bit more complex. Do you find that separating render disk, and using raid-0 for scratch disk actually makes a noticeable impact to performance in real life editing , or is it more hassle than it is worth for most projects?

November 4th, 2008, 04:05 PM	#4
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,220	I have boot drive, a drive for temps use for all programs, two 750G drives for video, also have two external eSata 500G drives for storage too. No RAID, individual drives are way fast enough for one or two streams of HDV. I try and make sure that when I use multiple cameras then the files are on different drives, rendering goes from one drive to another etc. I have no problems editing HDV, AVCHD and DV. I feel that the bottleneck most of the time is still the processor not the hard drives so have not seen the need for a RAID. Remember that most new hard drives can sustain 60 or 70GBps but HDV and DV only need 3.5GBps. That's close to twenty times the performance one needs for HDV or DV. Problems arise if one has just one drive, then Windows needs to access all the time, programs need to use temp storage as well as reading and writing the video file itself. File access times now become an issue especially for just one drive. I have Quad core Q9450 with 8G RAM running Vista 64. Ron Evans