Raid 0 for Pro res

[Robert Bec]

HI Everyone

I am in the process of upgrading my macpro i would like to capture my HDV footage to pro res

what i would like to do is raid 0 my 3 x1TB HDD's and also purchase a apple raid card

From my research this seems to be the safest and fastest way and i would like to add a decklink intensity card pro card

Is this efficient for HDV workflow or do some of you have different methods

Rob

[Jordan Berry]

I dont think you need RAID 0 to do Pro Res.

I'm on a Macbook Pro 2.5ghz and I can capture an entire Mini-DV tape and average between 1-2% lag on the encoding. That's with a single, non RAID, 7.2k RPM drive.

Raid 0 just means if one of your multiple drives fails then you loose your data.

Unless I'm missing something I would say there is no need for a RAID 0 here.

[Stick Tully]

RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across several disks in a way that gives improved speed and full capacity, but all data on all disks will be lost if any one disk fails.

(from wikipedia)

I have this set up on my mac pro with 2x 500gb 7,200rpm drives. Captures hdv as pro res with no problems and I dont have any raid hardware. I just set it up using Disk Utility as soon as i got my new mac.

You might want to find out if it will be a problem having data on your drives already though.

If you go down this route erhaps you could spend the money you save on the raid card on buying duplicate hard drives and setting up mirroring aswell as striping.

Best of luck! ProRes is lovely.

Stick

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

From my research this seems to be the safest and fastest way and i would like to add a decklink intensity card pro card

Is this efficient for HDV workflow or do some of you have different methods

As others have pointed out, RAID 0 has risk of losing everything if one drive goes south. If you're workflow is HDV -> ProRes, perhaps you should consider an AJA card, which have ProRes in hardware, which would give an edge over Decklink in this case.

[Robert Bec]

From my understanding if i have the raid card and i loose a drive all i need to do is replace that drive and it will repair itself.

Raiding 2 drives within the mac you dont need a raid card that i understand which means if you loose a drive your stuffed.

But i have a rule i always backup any project i have just digitized to an external and i always update my fcp file while i am working

[Robert Bec]

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

As others have pointed out, RAID 0 has risk of losing everything if one drive goes south. If you're workflow is HDV -> ProRes, perhaps you should consider an AJA card, which have ProRes in hardware, which would give an edge over Decklink in this case.

Hey Mike

I am sure you can capture to prorez through the decklink intensity or extreme card. The Aja cards are alot more expensive which card would you recommend

Rob.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

From my understanding if i have the raid card and i loose a drive all i need to do is replace that drive and it will repair itself.

Depends on the RAID configuration. That is not the case with RAID 0.

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

Raiding 2 drives within the mac you dont need a raid card that i understand which means if you loose a drive your stuffed

You never want to use a RAID as a system disk. Using other internal drives as a RAID 0 is no more risky of data loss than using external disks in RAID 0 config. It is the level, not the location, which factors into things.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

I am sure you can capture to prorez through the decklink intensity or extreme card. The Aja cards are alot more expensive which card would you recommend

Yes, no doubt you can capture to ProRes via Decklink; I didn't mean to imply you can't. What I mean is that having a card that is hardwired with the ProRes codec gives the AJA an edge if your workflow is centered around the ProRes codec.

I do realise the AJA are a bit more expensive, but it may or may not be worth the extra little investment -- that's for you to decide.

[Robert Bec]

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

Yes, no doubt you can capture to ProRes via Decklink; I didn't mean to imply you can't. What I mean is that having a card that is hardwired with the ProRes codec gives the AJA an edge if your workflow is centered around the ProRes codec.

I do realise the AJA are a bit more expensive, but it may or may not be worth the extra little investment -- that's for you to decide.

Thanks Mike i will look into the AJA cards

none more question does it matter how many drives i have raided will the drives run faster if i have more drives raided together.

And i think i would like to raid 2 1TB drives just so i dont have to purchase a raid card will this do working in Prorez

Rob

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

does it matter how many drives i have raided will the drives run faster if i have more drives raided together.

AFAIK, more drives only equals more space, not more speed. Make sure the drives are all the same size and same speed (you should be using 7200 rpm drives). I expect you'll be ok.

[Robert Bec]

do i need a APPLE Mac Pro RAID Card Kit if i want to raid 0 3 drives

Rob