eSATA Stability / Instability with MBP and Mac Pro

Scott Brickert · January 28th, 2009, 03:33 PM

OK, I know Firmtek is aptly named, as it provides firm performance.

I'm still pinching pennies.

What about the Macally external enclosures? At $54+shipping I could almost buy four for the price of one dual bay Firmtek. . Plus they're sexier.

But, this time it's all gotta work glitch free. So someone chime in with their Macally experiences, hopefully on eSata.

Dean, why pairs? Because they're in RAID 0 for faster throughput?

Dean Sensui · January 28th, 2009, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott Brickert

OK, I know Firmtek is aptly named, as it provides firm performance.

Dean, why pairs? Because they're in RAID 0 for faster throughput?

I never thought of that: Firm performance.

So what does "Seritek" mean? :-)

Here's something to consider when pricing out equipment in general: How valuable is reliability? What does data loss or down-time cost in terms of unique footage destroyed or opportunities missed?

In my case, I felt the Firmtek systems were very reasonably priced. Especially since I have to constantly expand my total storage capacity. Additional drives are easily added: just get the bare drive and add $22 for each sled. I've used this setup for more than four years now. None of the drives have failed and I haven't experienced any data loss.

Keep in mind that it's a very, very bad idea to mix a Firmtek SATA enclosure with another company's SATA card. They're all designed to work with one another. Adding an unknown to the mix have caused bad things to happen.

As for drive pairs, I have two types: RAID 0 for speed (editing) and RAID 1 for reliability (archive). If a drive in a RAID 1 pair goes down, the other continues to work normally. I also make a backup of that data to protect against a file from being accidentally deleted or inadvertently overwritten.

Andy Wilkinson · January 29th, 2009, 02:47 PM

OK, great input from everybody. Thanks again!

Back to (one of) my questions.

Do I invest in a Mac Pro with an Apple Raid card or not? I'm NOT convinced from what I've read that I could get a successful external Raid 0 or Raid 5 system in place using eSATA. Am I wrong?

Use is for EX3 clips (mostly 1080p) for corporate work - and I've lots of it going on / probably coming in so I feel a need to decide soon.....not sure I can wait for Apple to update the Mac Pro to i7 etc.

Or, if not an internal Apple control card RAID, do I get a Mac Pro with two 15,000 rpm SAS drives? Are these reliable????

I have about £4,000 in the budget for this Mac Pro (this excludes the monitor - looking at options on that too).

Thanks again for suggestions and comments.

Dean Sensui · January 29th, 2009, 03:44 PM

Hi Andy...

I'm working with an EX1 and handle that format almost exclusively now. The show I'm producing is an hour-long fishing show that's created from hours of footage shot over a period of several days. So there's a lot of material to go through.

The editing RAID is a simple two-drive striped RAID (RAID 0). But the projects and other setups are religiously backed up in case the RAID fails (and it never has in the 4 years it's been in use). The media is backed up on mirrored RAIDS which allows me to quickly recover in case of a mishap on the striped RAID.

The show is also color corrected and graded using Apple's "Color" application. After Effects is also used for compositing the host into the show's intro and closing. So there's a significant demand on the Mac's resources. Here's what I got. It's working nicely and saves a huge amount of processing time. To render out a show like this would take almost two days on a dual 2.5 GHz G5. With the Intel MacPro it's a matter of hours.

Mac Pro -- Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core)
Part Number: MA970LL/A
One 16x SuperDrive
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
2GB (2 x 1GB)
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
Apple Mighty Mouse
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (Two dual-link DVI)

RAM (from Other World Computing):
OWC64FB2MPK08GB
8.0GB Mac Pro Memory Matched Pair (2GB x 4) PC6400 DDR2 ECC 800MHz 240 Pin FB-DIMM Modules

DeckLink HD Extreme — $995

Two SeriTek/2SE2-E External PCI Express (PCIe) 2-Port Adapter with eSATA Connectors SATA-2SE2-E

Two SeriTek/1EN2 Dual-Bay Hot-Swap External Serial ATA Enclosures. While the multi-bay enclosure is probably a bit quieter and slightly more compact, this protects me in case one goes bad. This way there's always a working pair. And I can always take the third one from another computer in here.

I would recommend using the Soft RAID application to build the RAIDs. It will alert you if/when a RAID goes bad. And it can help you identify which drive is bad. Really important if you're trying to figure out which drive to replace. Apple's Drive Utility can't do that. And it can also re-sync the replaced drive mechanism.

Andy Wilkinson · January 30th, 2009, 03:16 PM

Thanks Dean, very interesting and useful info!

Robert Lane · January 30th, 2009, 07:43 PM

Andy,

To answer your question about using Apple's internal RAID card: don't. Apple has never had a good handle on RAID hardware (one reason Apple-branded RAIDs are now defunct) and that unit doesn't deliver the performance other third-party devices do.

Dean's setup for eSATA is one of the best and most logical I've seen as it provides both protection and redundancy.

A hardware-based RAID or a RAID that is created by the HOST card will always perform better than a software RAID.

If you do a search on RAID setups and architecture on this forum you'll see dozens of posts from people like myself and other DVinfo members who shared exhaustive tips and tricks on how to choose, configure and use any RAID type.

Andy Wilkinson · January 31st, 2009, 05:31 AM

That's saved me wasting some money on the Apple raid card for a Mac Pro for sure!!!

I feel I'm now getting closer to knowing how to do this successfully and spec out this new Mac Pro.

I appreciate the time people have spent helping me get up to speed.

Scott Brickert · February 10th, 2009, 09:31 PM

Dean, are you working in ProResHQ or which codec?

maybe 'SeriTek' derives from Serial Tech...

Dean Sensui · February 10th, 2009, 10:00 PM

Scott...

I edit and color correct using the XDCam EX files. Color then renders to Apple ProRes HQ. I want to minimize any changes to the codec, so I work with the original files as long as possible.

January 28th, 2009, 03:33 PM	#16
Scott Brickert Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Crested Butte, CO Posts: 576	OK, I know Firmtek is aptly named, as it provides firm performance. I'm still pinching pennies. What about the Macally external enclosures? At $54+shipping I could almost buy four for the price of one dual bay Firmtek. . Plus they're sexier. But, this time it's all gotta work glitch free. So someone chime in with their Macally experiences, hopefully on eSata. Dean, why pairs? Because they're in RAID 0 for faster throughput? __________________ Scott Shot-By-Scott

January 29th, 2009, 02:47 PM	#18
Andy Wilkinson Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Cambridge UK Posts: 2,853	OK, great input from everybody. Thanks again! Back to (one of) my questions. Do I invest in a Mac Pro with an Apple Raid card or not? I'm NOT convinced from what I've read that I could get a successful external Raid 0 or Raid 5 system in place using eSATA. Am I wrong? Use is for EX3 clips (mostly 1080p) for corporate work - and I've lots of it going on / probably coming in so I feel a need to decide soon.....not sure I can wait for Apple to update the Mac Pro to i7 etc. Or, if not an internal Apple control card RAID, do I get a Mac Pro with two 15,000 rpm SAS drives? Are these reliable???? I have about £4,000 in the budget for this Mac Pro (this excludes the monitor - looking at options on that too). Thanks again for suggestions and comments. __________________ Andy K Wilkinson - https://www.shootingimage.co.uk Cambridge (UK) Corporate Video Production Last edited by Andy Wilkinson; January 29th, 2009 at 03:28 PM. Reason: typos

January 29th, 2009, 03:44 PM	#19
Dean Sensui Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 2,054	Hi Andy... I'm working with an EX1 and handle that format almost exclusively now. The show I'm producing is an hour-long fishing show that's created from hours of footage shot over a period of several days. So there's a lot of material to go through. The editing RAID is a simple two-drive striped RAID (RAID 0). But the projects and other setups are religiously backed up in case the RAID fails (and it never has in the 4 years it's been in use). The media is backed up on mirrored RAIDS which allows me to quickly recover in case of a mishap on the striped RAID. The show is also color corrected and graded using Apple's "Color" application. After Effects is also used for compositing the host into the show's intro and closing. So there's a significant demand on the Mac's resources. Here's what I got. It's working nicely and saves a huge amount of processing time. To render out a show like this would take almost two days on a dual 2.5 GHz G5. With the Intel MacPro it's a matter of hours. Mac Pro -- Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core) Part Number: MA970LL/A One 16x SuperDrive 320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s 2GB (2 x 1GB) Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X Apple Mighty Mouse ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (Two dual-link DVI) RAM (from Other World Computing): OWC64FB2MPK08GB 8.0GB Mac Pro Memory Matched Pair (2GB x 4) PC6400 DDR2 ECC 800MHz 240 Pin FB-DIMM Modules DeckLink HD Extreme — $995 Two SeriTek/2SE2-E External PCI Express (PCIe) 2-Port Adapter with eSATA Connectors SATA-2SE2-E Two SeriTek/1EN2 Dual-Bay Hot-Swap External Serial ATA Enclosures. While the multi-bay enclosure is probably a bit quieter and slightly more compact, this protects me in case one goes bad. This way there's always a working pair. And I can always take the third one from another computer in here. I would recommend using the Soft RAID application to build the RAIDs. It will alert you if/when a RAID goes bad. And it can help you identify which drive is bad. Really important if you're trying to figure out which drive to replace. Apple's Drive Utility can't do that. And it can also re-sync the replaced drive mechanism. __________________ Dean Sensui Exec Producer, Hawaii Goes Fishing

January 30th, 2009, 03:16 PM	#20
Andy Wilkinson Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Cambridge UK Posts: 2,853	Thanks Dean, very interesting and useful info! __________________ Andy K Wilkinson - https://www.shootingimage.co.uk Cambridge (UK) Corporate Video Production

January 31st, 2009, 05:31 AM	#22
Andy Wilkinson Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Cambridge UK Posts: 2,853	That's saved me wasting some money on the Apple raid card for a Mac Pro for sure!!! I feel I'm now getting closer to knowing how to do this successfully and spec out this new Mac Pro. I appreciate the time people have spent helping me get up to speed. __________________ Andy K Wilkinson - https://www.shootingimage.co.uk Cambridge (UK) Corporate Video Production

January 30th, 2009, 07:43 PM	#21
Robert Lane Go Go Godzilla Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ USA Posts: 2,823 Images: 15	Andy, To answer your question about using Apple's internal RAID card: don't. Apple has never had a good handle on RAID hardware (one reason Apple-branded RAIDs are now defunct) and that unit doesn't deliver the performance other third-party devices do. Dean's setup for eSATA is one of the best and most logical I've seen as it provides both protection and redundancy. A hardware-based RAID or a RAID that is created by the HOST card will always perform better than a software RAID. If you do a search on RAID setups and architecture on this forum you'll see dozens of posts from people like myself and other DVinfo members who shared exhaustive tips and tricks on how to choose, configure and use any RAID type.

February 10th, 2009, 09:31 PM	#23
Scott Brickert Major Player Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Crested Butte, CO Posts: 576	Dean, are you working in ProResHQ or which codec? maybe 'SeriTek' derives from Serial Tech... __________________ Scott Shot-By-Scott

February 10th, 2009, 10:00 PM	#24
Dean Sensui Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 2,054	Scott... I edit and color correct using the XDCam EX files. Color then renders to Apple ProRes HQ. I want to minimize any changes to the codec, so I work with the original files as long as possible. __________________ Dean Sensui Exec Producer, Hawaii Goes Fishing