Vegas/Multiple Hard Drives

Jerome Cloninger · June 4th, 2008, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barry Rivadue

Jerome, I have a somewhat dumb question. You list four hard drives...are they divided between internal and external? Do you have a customized built computer for this purpose?

All internal. I built my PC... I've built all of them. I have 6 SATA ports on motherboard so those next 2 will be filled with the Blu-ray drives. The 2 IDE ports will probably be empty, UNLESS I decide to keep the 2 DVD Burners.

Jeff Harper · June 4th, 2008, 09:05 AM

Andy, didn't mean to be testy. Been on this machine for close to 48 hours. I am hungry and tired. I need these discussions when I take a break! I have been to hell and back with hard drive configurations. And I really wanted to convey my point without knocking USB or offending those that use them sucessfully. But of all my HD configurations, USB drives have been the weakest link when I use them. Actually that is not true...networked storage gave me the biggest headaches, followed by USB and then Firewire. E-Sata ended many of my storage issues from a hardware standpoint. They seemingly react exactly as if they are internal, they are just as fast. Speed aside, there just seems to be something about the USB bus that makes it unreliable for me for handling large amounts of data.

Jeff Harper · June 4th, 2008, 09:10 AM

BTW, if anyone is interested I have ordered the Velociraptor which should arrive tomorrow. I intend to replace two old raptors in a Raid 0 configuration with one of the new to reduce the heat in my case and allow me to add another 1Tb drive.. Can the new one alone beat two old ones in Raid 0? I doubt it, but I have heard it will. Has anyone tried it?

Jerome Cloninger · June 4th, 2008, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

BTW, if anyone is interested I have ordered the Velociraptor which should arrive tomorrow. I intend to replace two old raptors in a Raid 0 configuration with one of the new to reduce the heat in my case and allow me to add another 1Tb drive.. Can the new one alone beat two old ones in Raid 0? I doubt it, but I have heard it will. Has anyone tried it?

That drive looks pretty sweet! I might have to look at those in the future.

Jeff Harper · June 4th, 2008, 03:17 PM

Well Jerome, the verdict is mixed on them, but I'm trying one out. Some say they are only moderately better than the old Raptors, others say they are great. I really like the lower power requirements, low heat.

I had initially hoped to go with the Savio 15K Cheetah drive, reputed to be the fastest drive around, (2.6 Seek time) but I can't afford the SAS controller card, they are $600 dollars or something like that. There are cheaper controller cards, but I hear they are not worth buying.

I'll tell you, if you are in the market for a fast drive, the Spinpoint F1 1Tb drive is pretty darn nice. Very fast, and in some benchmarks they even beat the Raptors. They the Samsung Spinpoint is only $179 at newegg. Some people report problems with them, but I have them and they are great. The disc utility from Samsung for them really sucks.. but you cannot beat the price for 1Tb.

Jerome Cloninger · June 4th, 2008, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Well Jerome, the verdict is mixed on them, but I'm trying one out. Some say they are only moderately better than the old Raptors, others say they are great. I really like the lower power requirements, low heat.

I had initially hoped to go with the Savio 15K Cheetah drive, reputed to be the fastest drive around, (2.6 Seek time) but I can't afford the SAS controller card, they are $600 dollars or something like that. There are cheaper controller cards, but I hear they are not worth buying.

I'll tell you, if you are in the market for a fast drive, the Spinpoint F1 1Tb drive is pretty darn nice. Very fast, and in some benchmarks they even beat the Raptors. They the Samsung Spinpoint is only $179 at newegg. Some people report problems with them, but I have them and they are great. The disc utility from Samsung for them really sucks.. but you cannot beat the price for 1Tb.

Let me know how that works for you. I made an error in my post above... all drives are SATA II except system drive. It is the 160 WD Raptor but only SATA I.

Jeff Harper · June 4th, 2008, 03:35 PM

I'll definitely post my findings!

John Miller · June 4th, 2008, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Todd, I personally wouldn't render to USB drives, because burning DVDs later from information on that drive wouldn't be nearly certain to give you a perfect DVD. I would render to an internal drive or and e-sata drive to reduce the chances for errors in the burning process.

USB drives are best for storage. Using it as you suggested would work, but wouldn't be ideal.

A USB drive stores data exactly as any other. Most external drives (USB and FireWire) use everyday EIDE drives.

USB drives work just as well as other ones. Indeed, the only grief I have had with external drives was with a USB/FireWire combo that had very erratic connectivity using the FireWire option.

With modern PCs, the CPU-based control of data transfer with a USB drive (since there is no master controller such as there is with FireWire) is of little importance. My own tests of USB vs. FireWire show no difference in performance when rendering a project in Vegas using the external drives for source and rendered files.

The other advantage of using the USB option is that you can leave the FireWire interfaces free for DV/HDV devices.

Putting a FireWire hard drive on the same interface as a camcorder can definitely hurt performance since the speed of the bus will be that of the slowest device. Many camcorders have 100Mbps interfaces.

Clark Cooper · June 4th, 2008, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerome Cloninger

all drives are SATA II except system drive. It is the 160 WD Raptor but only SATA I.

I think this is a great way to go. Are you also stripping (RAID0) your video drives for even faster performance?

As for USB drives having problems, there are a couple things that have alleviated *most* of my USB headaches:

- Use only hard drives with 16MB buffer or better
- Plug directly into your USB 2.0 Port; do not use a USB hub between your video hard drive—even a USB 2.0 hub.

Having said that, USB is definitely not the way to go, if you can do eSATA or internal SATAII drives. Every bit of speed helps!

Jeff Harper · June 4th, 2008, 04:24 PM

I give...

USB works! No doubt. I just don't like it, I guess.

Kim Olsson · June 4th, 2008, 04:50 PM

Do you really need faster harddrives then SATA2 ??

SATA2 handles 300mbit/sec which is almost 40 mb/sec. Even when you guys capture video to uncomressed format, None of the existing dektop CPU's can process that amount of data so quick...

If you had a renderfarm with, let say 12x quad cores (48 threads/cores), then you can start thinking about the speed of your harddrives to be equal to the rest of the system.

...What's the use of having faster harddrives to your system, when your not able to use that speed efficient...

Jeff Harper · June 4th, 2008, 05:33 PM

Kim, I think you are right, of course....for most rendering etc., there is no difference in speed with faster hard drive, except I've heard one person say that when rendering certain things I forget what (maybe uncompressed AVI) it can be faster.

The faster hard drive setups are sweet because of system response times.

For example, have you noticed when you drag raw footage onto your Vegas timeline how long it can take for the peaks to build? I don't know about you but I usually drag about 8 to 10 hours of footage onto my timeline at one time when I begin my project, just to get everthing going.

When that raw footage resides on a raid 0 drive, the peaks build up within a couple of minutes at most.

With a single USB or other slower type of setup, that simple task takes much, much, much longer.

The benefit of faster drives is also that editing on the Vegas timeline is more responsive. Everything moves faster. Like when you move down the timeline quickly and it takes time for things to "catch-up", that's because of slow drives.

This is why video editors use Raid setups.

People that edit for a hobby or have long time in-between jobs and who have lots of time to finish projects don't care as much. But if you do lots of videos in a short amount of time, are under deadlines and are using multi-cams, then you really do need the speed. If you don't need it, save your money and spend it on something fun.

Kim Olsson · June 5th, 2008, 08:26 AM

Yes Jeff, If your Harddrives is fast, it takes a lot quicker to manage your media files in your harddrives. But, something more very much important, is to defrag your haddrives often....

Let say you install an application, copy files between drives and so on, and when you then delete or remove stuffs, you make space on intervals...

When you then again move, copy or install files it uses those interval spaces AND in the end of the harddrive AND there it can find empty space.
So Your file is proberly placed in disorder (fragmented)...

This means that every time you use this file, the harddrive head have to go back & forward to manage those files.
Defrag is, I will say, neccesary for faster workflow...

Still it is your RAM and CPU which will process the data in your projects the most, the harddrives is only good in the purpose that they can "following along" with the rest of the sytem...

/Kim

Jeff Harper · June 5th, 2008, 08:33 AM

One would assume that anyone following this thread already knows to defragment their hard drive, Kim, wouldn't you say?

Kim Olsson · June 5th, 2008, 11:16 AM

yeah? Did I hurt anyone?

June 4th, 2008, 09:05 AM	#17
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Andy, didn't mean to be testy. Been on this machine for close to 48 hours. I am hungry and tired. I need these discussions when I take a break! I have been to hell and back with hard drive configurations. And I really wanted to convey my point without knocking USB or offending those that use them sucessfully. But of all my HD configurations, USB drives have been the weakest link when I use them. Actually that is not true...networked storage gave me the biggest headaches, followed by USB and then Firewire. E-Sata ended many of my storage issues from a hardware standpoint. They seemingly react exactly as if they are internal, they are just as fast. Speed aside, there just seems to be something about the USB bus that makes it unreliable for me for handling large amounts of data.

June 4th, 2008, 09:10 AM	#18
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	BTW, if anyone is interested I have ordered the Velociraptor which should arrive tomorrow. I intend to replace two old raptors in a Raid 0 configuration with one of the new to reduce the heat in my case and allow me to add another 1Tb drive.. Can the new one alone beat two old ones in Raid 0? I doubt it, but I have heard it will. Has anyone tried it?

June 4th, 2008, 03:17 PM	#20
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Well Jerome, the verdict is mixed on them, but I'm trying one out. Some say they are only moderately better than the old Raptors, others say they are great. I really like the lower power requirements, low heat. I had initially hoped to go with the Savio 15K Cheetah drive, reputed to be the fastest drive around, (2.6 Seek time) but I can't afford the SAS controller card, they are $600 dollars or something like that. There are cheaper controller cards, but I hear they are not worth buying. I'll tell you, if you are in the market for a fast drive, the Spinpoint F1 1Tb drive is pretty darn nice. Very fast, and in some benchmarks they even beat the Raptors. They the Samsung Spinpoint is only $179 at newegg. Some people report problems with them, but I have them and they are great. The disc utility from Samsung for them really sucks.. but you cannot beat the price for 1Tb.

June 4th, 2008, 03:35 PM	#22
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	I'll definitely post my findings!

June 4th, 2008, 04:24 PM	#25
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	I give... USB works! No doubt. I just don't like it, I guess.

June 4th, 2008, 04:50 PM	#26
Kim Olsson Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Sweden Posts: 263	Do you really need faster harddrives then SATA2 ?? SATA2 handles 300mbit/sec which is almost 40 mb/sec. Even when you guys capture video to uncomressed format, None of the existing dektop CPU's can process that amount of data so quick... If you had a renderfarm with, let say 12x quad cores (48 threads/cores), then you can start thinking about the speed of your harddrives to be equal to the rest of the system. ...What's the use of having faster harddrives to your system, when your not able to use that speed efficient...

June 4th, 2008, 05:33 PM	#27
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Kim, I think you are right, of course....for most rendering etc., there is no difference in speed with faster hard drive, except I've heard one person say that when rendering certain things I forget what (maybe uncompressed AVI) it can be faster. The faster hard drive setups are sweet because of system response times. For example, have you noticed when you drag raw footage onto your Vegas timeline how long it can take for the peaks to build? I don't know about you but I usually drag about 8 to 10 hours of footage onto my timeline at one time when I begin my project, just to get everthing going. When that raw footage resides on a raid 0 drive, the peaks build up within a couple of minutes at most. With a single USB or other slower type of setup, that simple task takes much, much, much longer. The benefit of faster drives is also that editing on the Vegas timeline is more responsive. Everything moves faster. Like when you move down the timeline quickly and it takes time for things to "catch-up", that's because of slow drives. This is why video editors use Raid setups. People that edit for a hobby or have long time in-between jobs and who have lots of time to finish projects don't care as much. But if you do lots of videos in a short amount of time, are under deadlines and are using multi-cams, then you really do need the speed. If you don't need it, save your money and spend it on something fun.

June 5th, 2008, 08:26 AM	#28
Kim Olsson Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Sweden Posts: 263	Yes Jeff, If your Harddrives is fast, it takes a lot quicker to manage your media files in your harddrives. But, something more very much important, is to defrag your haddrives often.... Let say you install an application, copy files between drives and so on, and when you then delete or remove stuffs, you make space on intervals... When you then again move, copy or install files it uses those interval spaces AND in the end of the harddrive AND there it can find empty space. So Your file is proberly placed in disorder (fragmented)... This means that every time you use this file, the harddrive head have to go back & forward to manage those files. Defrag is, I will say, neccesary for faster workflow... Still it is your RAM and CPU which will process the data in your projects the most, the harddrives is only good in the purpose that they can "following along" with the rest of the sytem... /Kim

June 5th, 2008, 08:33 AM	#29
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	One would assume that anyone following this thread already knows to defragment their hard drive, Kim, wouldn't you say?

June 5th, 2008, 11:16 AM	#30
Kim Olsson Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Sweden Posts: 263	yeah? Did I hurt anyone?