Video Storage Drives for Edius

[richnation]

Hi, I have a custom built PC with a Pentium D 3.6ghz and 2gig DDR2 ram. I currently use Adobe Premiere but will be purchasing Edius to use to edit P2 files from my Panasonic HVX200 camera (DVCpro HD video files).

My understanding is that I need to raid 0 stripe 2 drives together in order to get the best realtime functionality with Edius, correct? I assume the best/economical way would be to plug in 2 SATA drives into my motherboard.
What about these Western Digital My Book Pro II external firewire drives. Will they work as well for an external storage solution?

Thanks for any advice.

[Zorro]

Most external drives connect via USB2.0 and/or Firewire400. Both standards limit data transfer due to their architecture. Only eSATA and Firewire800 would allow transfer rates which will be needed when editing with HD formats. So the best (read: cost effective) way will be to use internal SATA drives in a Raid0 configuration.

[zakirc]

I agree with Zorro, external drives by nature of connectivity (USB 2.0 or Firewire) have very limited bandwidth, hence, the primary reason for using Raid for HDV purpose is lost with external drives unless you can find a box with eSATA connector. I dont think even Firewire800 will be sufficient because it is still slower than a single internal SATA (In IDE Mode) and you are looking for a faster solution.

I personally use Internal Raid 0 and have never had any speed issues (My record so far is 17 layers of Chroma + 1 layer of Background in SD Video; 5 Layers in HD Video both worked perfectly in real time.)

[biopic]

Be warned, there is something funny about how Windows XP deals with Firewire800, which means that in practice you don't normally even get Firewire400 performance. See this article for instance which explains the situation and gives a possible fix:

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/techinfo/fw800sp2.htm

[LegalEyes]

I only edit SD and use several drives including a externall WD book. The WD Book I have connects via usb or eSATA. I paid $150 for 500 gig.

[richnation]

Thanks for all the input. I guess I will go with 2 internal sata drives raid 0 striped. I have seen the eSATA external drives (CompUSA, i think). I assume you would need a SATA pci card to plug it into (or else stretch long cables from the drive through an opening in your computer case and plug them into the SATA ports on the motherboard. lol)

[zakirc]

Actually eSATA drives will come with an eSATA bracket that will be connected to the Motherboard's eSATA Port and attached to the back of your Chasis (Just like extra USB / Firewire Ports).

Good luck.

[STORMDAVE]

Yeah, most eSATA/USB2.0 enclosures include free brackets that you mount in your computer (takes up a slot, though) and connect via a SATA cable to your SATA connector on your motherboard...and you have an eSATA connection. Also if you have a laptop with an ExpressCard slot, there are some adapters out there that give you eSATA on your laptop if it doesn't have a eSATA port already. It's blazing fast.

I was looking at external RAID0 configs in the eSATA form, and will probably do something like this in the future...

[Philip]

My understanding is that I need to raid 0 stripe 2 drives together in order to get the best realtime functionality with Edius, correct? I assume the best/economical way would be to plug in 2 SATA drives into my motherboard.
What about these Western Digital My Book Pro II external firewire drives. Will they work as well for an external storage solution?

Thanks for any advice.

Not sure about the size of files from the P2 cards but here is what I have experienced. I had an 2 Drive RAID0 setup using Sata drives in my main desktop system. When I started playing with HDV and upconverting to CanopusHQ I discovered that for my use (max of 3 simultaneous streams) I was able to run this off a regular single USB2.0 drive. I was surprised.

I have had too much trouble with RAID setups not working and dying too quick. I have now unRAIDed my 2 320 drives into stand alone drives. I am currently investing in eSATA external enclosures and 500gb drives for editing and backup. This will give me true desktop speed with external enclosure and with an inexpensive card I can have the same throughput on my laptop. Unless you are dealing with uncompressed HD I question the need for a RAID unless you just need the speed to brag about.

With a single 500gb eSATA drive I will be able to edit a 3 camera wedding ceremony in Canopus HQ with no problem. That's all I need. If your P2 files are similar in size to HQ files you may not even need to deal with a RAID. I would run some tests with an external eSATA setup first and see if you really need it. RAID is cool and fast but if it dies it is ugly unless you have backup.....you do back up don't you? :-)

I'm not trying to discredit the RAID advice you got here already I'm just quizzing you to see if you really need to worry about RAID. Now if you want to play with uncompressed HD you need a RAID .... a really big one!

[zakirc]

I'm not trying to discredit the RAID advice you got here already I'm just quizzing you to see if you really need to worry about RAID. Now if you want to play with uncompressed HD you need a RAID .... a really big one!

Spot on ..... if regular sata can serve your purpose, don't raid your drives. My work involve too many layers of video so I have one of my setups with RAID 0. The other setup which I use for easier works run on internal SATA drives and I Achieved 15 layers of Chroma layers in real time.

[T-Bone]

philip and zakirc,

in your particular cases, are you talking about SATA 150 or SATA 300 as suitable for what you're doing?

[Zorro]

I was looking at external RAID0 configs in the eSATA form, and will probably do something like this in the future...

Have a look here:

http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=1&pid=3

http://www.stardom.com.tw/sohoraid.htm

[Philip]

philip and zakirc,

in your particular cases, are you talking about SATA 150 or SATA 300 as suitable for what you're doing?

I think my SATA drives internally are 300 but not sure if I bought the 300 level drives or not. I know the MB connectors support SATA II but I may have put SATA I drives in. Either way and SATAI drive should be plenty for projects that aren't loaded with layers and streams since SATA I is inherently much quicker than a slow USB 2.0.

For example I did a Hard disc speed test on my SATA drive internally on my desktop and got between 371.6 frames per second or 12.4 times RT and 432.4 or 14.4 times RT. On my USB drive I got 216 frames per second or 7.2 times RT. I'm not sure if my internal drives are SATA I or II but you can see both are about twice as fast as the USB drive. If I remember correctly I purchased SATA I drives when I built the system since SATA II was just going big time and not readily available at the time. Either way the SATA drives will be much quicker and capable of HD editing without a RAID.

If you are using external SATA drives you are getting the same speed as the internal drives.

[kwshaw1]

I dont think even Firewire800 will be sufficient because it is still slower than a single internal SATA (In IDE Mode) and you are looking for a faster solution.

Keep in mind that Firewire800 (when working properly) offers 100 MB/sec bandwidth, which is more than enough to handle the continuous throughput of any single hard drive and even some two-drive RAIDs. It doesn't match the theoretical maximum throughput of the IDE and SATA interfaces, but that would only matter during the brief burst speed peaks of the best hard drives.

eSATA offers even more bandwidth, and the report of someone getting three layers of Canopus HQ playing off a single drive via this interface shows what's possible with today's fast hard drives. And note that three layers of HQ only requires about 30 MB/sec of throughput, so you might even get that to work via Firewire800 if everything was going smoothly.

[GrassValley_MD]

Hi, I have a custom built PC with a Pentium D 3.6ghz and 2gig DDR2 ram. I currently use Adobe Premiere but will be purchasing Edius to use to edit P2 files from my Panasonic HVX200 camera (DVCpro HD video files).

My understanding is that I need to raid 0 stripe 2 drives together in order to get the best realtime functionality with Edius, correct? I assume the best/economical way would be to plug in 2 SATA drives into my motherboard.
What about these Western Digital My Book Pro II external firewire drives. Will they work as well for an external storage solution?

Thanks for any advice.

To recap and add my own :)


1. For SD you really do not need a raid anymore (depending on your work) - On my dell laptop I got 7 layers of SD playing with 6 of it in 3DPiP flying around the screen. This was on the system drive so there was no special hardware anywhere.

If you are doing HEAVY layering then a raid might come into play.

2. For HD a raid is a must if you are going to be doing any layering - I also got 2 streams of HAD going on my laptop but I could get no more. If I added a filter I was dead!

So if you are going to be doing any real layering at all with HD you will need a raid 0 or equivalent.


3. External drives - Once again, this depends on your work flow BUT they are the slowest alturnative. Unless they are a full SATA interface. They are great for storage and if you are not doing layering they will work for editing but I would rather do the interal raids.



Mike