ShotPut Pro with the nanoFLASH at DVinfo.net

Paul Inglis · December 28th, 2009, 07:53 AM

When dumping my XDCAM EX 35Mbps files onto a hard drive I use Clip Browser with CRC checked so I know everything has copied as it should. I don’t use Clip Browser with the nanoFLASH files so have no way of verifying every file.

I believe that ShotPut Pro can do this. Has anyone used this software with nanoFLASH files?

Many thanks,

Paul

Ned Soltz · December 28th, 2009, 09:02 AM

Good question. Just tested it with .mov files. Selected Any Volume in Shotput Pro pulldown menu. Copied and verified perfectly. Good thought for file transfer. Shotput Pro has long been my favorite. I had experienced some corruption of P2 files once when copying via Finder but never an issue with ShotPut Pro. Good to know that it will work with Nanoflash files. Now, I couldn't imagine that it wouldn't work. However stranger things have happened in the history of computing.

Ned Soltz

Paul Inglis · December 28th, 2009, 09:20 AM

Thanks for testing it Ned. Its nice to know that nano files can be verified at the copying stage. I'll put my order in for a copy of ShotPut Pro!

Bob Griffiths · December 28th, 2009, 09:25 AM

Paul,

I am just starting to explore this but, in my tests with ShotPut Pro, it can indeed verify every file. It uses 2 methods: 1) File Size Comparison and 2) File Contents Verification which is a bit-by-bit verification. The first is faster but the second is surer.

I have just ordered my nano. The record/verify/back-up workflow I am setting up is as follows: (comments welcome!)
- Record to the nano CF cards
- Dump CF card to NextoDI NVS2500 with verification during daily shooting
- At night, dump the 2500 to a CalDigit VR Mini through a MacBook Pro using ShotPut Pro with File Size Verification. The logic is that if the 2500 verified it, then the faster ShotPut Pro verification should suffice.

The CalDigit VR Mini Drive is pretty sweet. VR mini
It has 2 - 500GB, 2.5 drives in it. It can be configured RAID 0, RAID 1, or JBOD. I'm setting mine up JBOD and having ShotPut Pro write to both drives at once... primary storage and back-up. If it is a short shoot, I'll keep everything on the 2500 as well. If not, the 2500 will get scrubbed as needed. I will only have 4 - 64GB CF cards so the CF cards will be re-formatted in rotation during shooting.

The only hole in this plan that I can see is that, once I dump a CF card to the 2500... and the card is put back in shoot rotation... I may have to record over the original CF card BEFORE I have a chance to back-up to the CalDigit drive at night. It would leave me with only 1 copy during that period. Granted, it is a verified copy on the 2500... but that is still only 1 copy. I may get a couple of 64GB back-up cards.

YMMV... and again, comments welcome,

Lance Librandi · December 28th, 2009, 09:33 AM

Hello Paul,
I have been using ShotPut Pro since August with my SXS cards and the NanoFlash media without any problems. My only complaint is that Shotput is slow if you are using USB2, I have now installed FW800 CF card readers copying to Esata drives and that has helped to speed up copying the nanoFLASH files?

Many thanks,

Paul

Ned Soltz · December 28th, 2009, 02:13 PM

I agree with the slow transfer rates using USB2. I tested with a Lexar FW800 CF reader and transfer was fast.

I like the workflow of Nano to Nexto to CalDigit. I had reviewed the VR Mini a number of months ago and found it to be a very solid unit.

Ned Soltz

Luben Izov · December 28th, 2009, 05:17 PM

Hello Paul,
I use Venus T5 - eSATA Hardware RAID Enclosure, Venus T5 DS-2350S - RAID 10 via eSATA connection and that's gives me over a 100h at 100 Mbps material-safe. Very fast and safe setup. If you could have RAID 10, go for it, it's much better, faster,safer than RAID 5 or JBOD.
Cheers

Ned Soltz · December 28th, 2009, 06:40 PM

Sorry, but Raid 5 is superior to Raid 10 for video. Raid 10 will mirror, reducing throughput. Raid 5 stripes parity across all disks in the array. The product description cites "rebuild vulnerability" for Raid 5. With a quality controller card, I would dispute that assertion. Furthermore, unlike Raid 10 which is software, Raid 5 is optimally achieved by a dedicated hardware controller which handles i/o, verification, automatic rebuilds and notifications. The enclosure which you reference is based upon an onboard Si4726 chip which is not as powerful as chips used on dedicated cards such as those from ATTO, Areca or Highpoint Tech. Port Multiplication also slows throughput.

Most of the dedicated raid cards and quality enclosures also interface via miniSAS, a far more reliable locking connector that carries 4 channels, non port-multiplied and can use either SATA or SAS drives. eSata is a non-locking and weak connector.

For applications such as offloading the data from the NextoDI, as discussed in prior posts, a 2.5" raid like the CalDigit VR is great or even for portable work on a notebook. But for serious storage in a production environment, I would not have great trust in either Raid 10 or unfortunately a Venus enclosure either.

I have 3 of them around here that I had used for testing early on in creating software raids. Two of the enclosures failed-- intermittent internal connections. The fans were also quite noisy and one fan developed a wobble producing wind-tunnel like noise when the enclosure was first powered up, gradually becoming quiet.

Sorry again to come down kind of heavy on the post, but I do feel the need to point out a different way of looking at redundant storage.

Ned Soltz

Luben Izov · December 28th, 2009, 08:30 PM

Hi Ned,
Its all good and appreciated. From the length and the detailed msg I could only guess you had some bad experience. You are fully correct about the way RAID5 and RAID10 work-flow is, but, try to edit big uncompressed files with RAID5 to see what's better or recover or read/write files. Below is an article you may find it quite different from your point of view based on experience (I would guess your's too).
Venus T5 has been really great and reliable and the cost.... ;)!
http://miracleas.com/BAARF/RAID5_versus_RAID10.txt
Happy New Year
Cheers

Paul Inglis · December 29th, 2009, 07:04 AM

Thanks for all the valued input! I have now downloaded ShotPut Pro. It's seems straight forward to use. Since everyone seems to think that USB is much slower than firewire, I've ordered a firewire reader too :) Thanks for the heads up on that!

The CalDigit VR Mini Drive looks great, may get one after I've gotten the NextoDI.

The nanoFLASH is making me readdress my entire workflow. Thanks for all the tips and advice, much appreciated!

Bob Griffiths · December 29th, 2009, 10:01 AM

Paul,

If you have a Mac (not sure about PC), the really speedy way to do it is this:
Sonnet - Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34: SATA Controller for MacBook Pro and PC Notebooks

According to my dealer and other reading I have done, the Sonnett Tempo™ SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 is the only card that realizes the full speed of SATA. That why all the other SATA adapters are cheaper.

The Nexto and the CalDigit drives both work with SATA. You can hook both up to the Tempo card at the same time for the fastest transfers.

Paul Inglis · December 29th, 2009, 11:50 AM

Thanks Bob! I'll take a look at that! I'm thinking of using my mini laptop to download through the expresscard slot via esata in the field.

Ned Soltz · December 29th, 2009, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Griffiths

Paul,

If you have a Mac (not sure about PC), the really speedy way to do it is this:
Sonnet - Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34: SATA Controller for MacBook Pro and PC Notebooks

According to my dealer and other reading I have done, the Sonnett Tempo™ SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 is the only card that realizes the full speed of SATA. That why all the other SATA adapters are cheaper.

The Nexto and the CalDigit drives both work with SATA. You can hook both up to the Tempo card at the same time for the fastest transfers.

That's correct. I've tested the Sonnet Tempo Pro but as of the moment have not managed to work it into an article. Tested it with Sonnet's Fusion F2 raid (which I did review a couple of years ago) and I'm getting about 20-25% faster reads/writes with the Pro card.

Ned Soltz

Paul Inglis · December 29th, 2009, 12:01 PM

20-25% faster! Cool! I will be trying mine on a Win Lappy! Hopefully it'll be just as quick!

Lance Librandi · December 29th, 2009, 06:46 PM

Hi Paul,
I have been using my MacBook Pro with the FW800 readers dumping to Esata Raid 1 drives. After six months I have found for reliability you still need AC power supply for HDU's and the laptop. Having used the above I believe that the Nexto NVS2500 which is small, lightweight, able to copy SDHC, CF and SxS and operate from AA rechargeable batteries is the way to go. I saving to get one next year.

December 28th, 2009, 07:53 AM	#1
Paul Inglis Major Player Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: British Isles Posts: 415	ShotPut Pro with the nanoFLASH When dumping my XDCAM EX 35Mbps files onto a hard drive I use Clip Browser with CRC checked so I know everything has copied as it should. I don’t use Clip Browser with the nanoFLASH files so have no way of verifying every file. I believe that ShotPut Pro can do this. Has anyone used this software with nanoFLASH files? Many thanks, Paul

December 28th, 2009, 09:25 AM	#4
Bob Griffiths Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Carbondale, Colorado Posts: 117	Paul, I am just starting to explore this but, in my tests with ShotPut Pro, it can indeed verify every file. It uses 2 methods: 1) File Size Comparison and 2) File Contents Verification which is a bit-by-bit verification. The first is faster but the second is surer. I have just ordered my nano. The record/verify/back-up workflow I am setting up is as follows: (comments welcome!) - Record to the nano CF cards - Dump CF card to NextoDI NVS2500 with verification during daily shooting - At night, dump the 2500 to a CalDigit VR Mini through a MacBook Pro using ShotPut Pro with File Size Verification. The logic is that if the 2500 verified it, then the faster ShotPut Pro verification should suffice. The CalDigit VR Mini Drive is pretty sweet. VR mini It has 2 - 500GB, 2.5 drives in it. It can be configured RAID 0, RAID 1, or JBOD. I'm setting mine up JBOD and having ShotPut Pro write to both drives at once... primary storage and back-up. If it is a short shoot, I'll keep everything on the 2500 as well. If not, the 2500 will get scrubbed as needed. I will only have 4 - 64GB CF cards so the CF cards will be re-formatted in rotation during shooting. The only hole in this plan that I can see is that, once I dump a CF card to the 2500... and the card is put back in shoot rotation... I may have to record over the original CF card BEFORE I have a chance to back-up to the CalDigit drive at night. It would leave me with only 1 copy during that period. Granted, it is a verified copy on the 2500... but that is still only 1 copy. I may get a couple of 64GB back-up cards. YMMV... and again, comments welcome, __________________ Bob FireDancer Productions, Inc.

December 29th, 2009, 10:01 AM	#11
Bob Griffiths Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Carbondale, Colorado Posts: 117	SATA is faster... Paul, If you have a Mac (not sure about PC), the really speedy way to do it is this: Sonnet - Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34: SATA Controller for MacBook Pro and PC Notebooks According to my dealer and other reading I have done, the Sonnett Tempo™ SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 is the only card that realizes the full speed of SATA. That why all the other SATA adapters are cheaper. The Nexto and the CalDigit drives both work with SATA. You can hook both up to the Tempo card at the same time for the fastest transfers. __________________ Bob FireDancer Productions, Inc.

December 28th, 2009, 09:02 AM	#2
Ned Soltz Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Teaneck, NJ Posts: 659	Good question. Just tested it with .mov files. Selected Any Volume in Shotput Pro pulldown menu. Copied and verified perfectly. Good thought for file transfer. Shotput Pro has long been my favorite. I had experienced some corruption of P2 files once when copying via Finder but never an issue with ShotPut Pro. Good to know that it will work with Nanoflash files. Now, I couldn't imagine that it wouldn't work. However stranger things have happened in the history of computing. Ned Soltz

December 28th, 2009, 09:20 AM	#3
Paul Inglis Major Player Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: British Isles Posts: 415	Thanks for testing it Ned. Its nice to know that nano files can be verified at the copying stage. I'll put my order in for a copy of ShotPut Pro!

December 28th, 2009, 09:33 AM	#5
Lance Librandi Major Player Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: South Australia Posts: 374	Hello Paul, I have been using ShotPut Pro since August with my SXS cards and the NanoFlash media without any problems. My only complaint is that Shotput is slow if you are using USB2, I have now installed FW800 CF card readers copying to Esata drives and that has helped to speed up copying the nanoFLASH files? Many thanks, Paul

December 28th, 2009, 02:13 PM	#6
Ned Soltz Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Teaneck, NJ Posts: 659	I agree with the slow transfer rates using USB2. I tested with a Lexar FW800 CF reader and transfer was fast. I like the workflow of Nano to Nexto to CalDigit. I had reviewed the VR Mini a number of months ago and found it to be a very solid unit. Ned Soltz

December 28th, 2009, 05:17 PM	#7
Luben Izov Major Player Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: White Rock Posts: 254	Hello Paul, I use Venus T5 - eSATA Hardware RAID Enclosure, Venus T5 DS-2350S - RAID 10 via eSATA connection and that's gives me over a 100h at 100 Mbps material-safe. Very fast and safe setup. If you could have RAID 10, go for it, it's much better, faster,safer than RAID 5 or JBOD. Cheers

December 28th, 2009, 06:40 PM	#8
Ned Soltz Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Teaneck, NJ Posts: 659	Sorry, but Raid 5 is superior to Raid 10 for video. Raid 10 will mirror, reducing throughput. Raid 5 stripes parity across all disks in the array. The product description cites "rebuild vulnerability" for Raid 5. With a quality controller card, I would dispute that assertion. Furthermore, unlike Raid 10 which is software, Raid 5 is optimally achieved by a dedicated hardware controller which handles i/o, verification, automatic rebuilds and notifications. The enclosure which you reference is based upon an onboard Si4726 chip which is not as powerful as chips used on dedicated cards such as those from ATTO, Areca or Highpoint Tech. Port Multiplication also slows throughput. Most of the dedicated raid cards and quality enclosures also interface via miniSAS, a far more reliable locking connector that carries 4 channels, non port-multiplied and can use either SATA or SAS drives. eSata is a non-locking and weak connector. For applications such as offloading the data from the NextoDI, as discussed in prior posts, a 2.5" raid like the CalDigit VR is great or even for portable work on a notebook. But for serious storage in a production environment, I would not have great trust in either Raid 10 or unfortunately a Venus enclosure either. I have 3 of them around here that I had used for testing early on in creating software raids. Two of the enclosures failed-- intermittent internal connections. The fans were also quite noisy and one fan developed a wobble producing wind-tunnel like noise when the enclosure was first powered up, gradually becoming quiet. Sorry again to come down kind of heavy on the post, but I do feel the need to point out a different way of looking at redundant storage. Ned Soltz

December 28th, 2009, 08:30 PM	#9
Luben Izov Major Player Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: White Rock Posts: 254	Hi Ned, Its all good and appreciated. From the length and the detailed msg I could only guess you had some bad experience. You are fully correct about the way RAID5 and RAID10 work-flow is, but, try to edit big uncompressed files with RAID5 to see what's better or recover or read/write files. Below is an article you may find it quite different from your point of view based on experience (I would guess your's too). Venus T5 has been really great and reliable and the cost.... ;)! http://miracleas.com/BAARF/RAID5_versus_RAID10.txt Happy New Year Cheers

December 29th, 2009, 07:04 AM	#10
Paul Inglis Major Player Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: British Isles Posts: 415	Thanks for all the valued input! I have now downloaded ShotPut Pro. It's seems straight forward to use. Since everyone seems to think that USB is much slower than firewire, I've ordered a firewire reader too :) Thanks for the heads up on that! The CalDigit VR Mini Drive looks great, may get one after I've gotten the NextoDI. The nanoFLASH is making me readdress my entire workflow. Thanks for all the tips and advice, much appreciated!

December 29th, 2009, 11:50 AM	#12
Paul Inglis Major Player Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: British Isles Posts: 415	Thanks Bob! I'll take a look at that! I'm thinking of using my mini laptop to download through the expresscard slot via esata in the field.

December 29th, 2009, 12:01 PM	#14
Paul Inglis Major Player Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: British Isles Posts: 415	20-25% faster! Cool! I will be trying mine on a Win Lappy! Hopefully it'll be just as quick!

December 29th, 2009, 06:46 PM	#15
Lance Librandi Major Player Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: South Australia Posts: 374	Hi Paul, I have been using my MacBook Pro with the FW800 readers dumping to Esata Raid 1 drives. After six months I have found for reliability you still need AC power supply for HDU's and the laptop. Having used the above I believe that the Nexto NVS2500 which is small, lightweight, able to copy SDHC, CF and SxS and operate from AA rechargeable batteries is the way to go. I saving to get one next year.